There are 90 degree barb fittings that you could theoretically plump it out of the way with, but still be able to use the soft tubing. I'll throw in a picture of my janky setup
So I have my reactors plumbed off my return line and I have them mounted externally because my dual 20 long sump left little to no room under the stand. While I think the soft tubing (at least mine) is a little inefficient at times I can't get over how easy the material is to work with. Excuse the obnoxiously large hose clamps. Essentially what I'm getting at is you can do everything hard plumping can do with soft plumping. Only thing PVC has over soft in my opinion is the rigidity which is why I use it for the reactors since they're holding a bit of the reactor weight alongside 3 screws.