A/N 'Ello lovelies, I've come back with my 2nd one-shot! As the summary states, it's a pretty dark fic, 'cause Yukimura is a pretty dark character (but he's still awesome), and I got this idea from thinking of cliché stories and how the character in the hospital is always portrayed as this person who needs a stern talking to (and by that, I mean screaming and shouting about how worthless they are), and then I realized that most of the guys in the PoT universe would be that character, but then I started wondering what it would be like if there was someone who wasn't as mentally strong forced to undergo the same trauma?
And what if they treated him/her the same way?
Warnings: dark themes, sensitive topics, Dark!Yukimura, Insensitive!Yukimura, Yukimura-centric, possible unintentional OOCness, like, 1 cuss word
Disclaimer: Aww, that's cute, you think I'm smart enough to create PoT! Oh, and the poem was written by me.
The Past Isn't The Future
Yukimura silently wanders through the hallways, nothing more than another volunteer wearing the ugly, bright green scrubs with an ever bright and fake smile on his face.
Ever since his release and cure from the hospital in the years following the Nationals (Nationals with a capital "N" and a signifying article "the" because the first time he met Ryoma Echizen was forever etched in his mind), Yukimura has come back at least once a week in order to volunteer. Some call it his kind heart, others call it his empathy. Those are the people who don't know him, who only know his visage. "Child of God," indeed.
His closest friends, those like Sanada and Yanagi and Kirihara and Niou and Jackal and Marui and Yagyuu, even tennis rivals like Fuji and Tezuka and Atobe, call it his rehabilitation. And maybe to some extent, it is. Being able to walk through the hallways when once he struggled to take even a single step through the constricting glass revolving doors or across one, polished to a shine floor tile without collapsing to the ground of this hospital gives Yukimura such an empowering, heady feeling-though he would never admit it aloud.
As for Yukimura himself, he alone knows the true reason, and even then, he's sure his deeper subconscious has an entirely different reason. He calls it his disgust.
Disgust because watching these people (who deal with easier or harder ailments, yet deal with what he dealt in the first place) mourn over their conditions when he never once allowed himself to give up makes him want to let them destroy themselves until nothing is left, not even a memory burned to ash in the wind.
But after deciding that, yes, disgust towards people suffering from chronic illnesses, various broken bones, or even worse (like brain tumors, or genetic disorders) is indeed a sign of-not sociopathy or psychopathy, but certainly not a sign of being normal, that's for sure.
That thought causes Yukimura to stop for a moment and think before he decides that it's funny and chuckles. Imagine if the fans of his "Child of God" visage were to see him now.
Normal, indeed.
As he continues to wander around (one good thing about his job is that he rarely, if ever, has to actually do anything-they're all too scared to ask him to do anything, anyways), Yukimura pauses as he passes a room on the floor he's on-floor thirteen. Unlike the previous rooms he passed, this room is absolutely silent. No sound of talking, whether with friends or family or empty air, no sound of muffled cries, no sound of machinery or anything other than the heavy, comforting silence.
And maybe that nothingness is what spurs Yukimura to gently knock on the door before swinging it open, bright amethyst eyes slowly roaming across the room, taking it all in.
The first thing(s) he notices is the walls. They're colored a bright, vibrant gold. Not yellow-this color is much mellower, less acidic and sharp. Gold doesn't sting his eyes the way yellow does, and maybe that's why the patient (now identified to be a plain-looking girl who looks up upon his arrival, surprise and delight evident in her normal dark brown eyes) had the room painted in this color. Though he wonders whether she was actually given permission, or if she just did it one day. He can tell that she did it herself by how uneven the strokes are. Normally, professionals who make a living covering walls in solid sheets of color make sure that each layer they add spreads evenly so as not to create different shades, but Yukimura can see a well of gold, all in different shades and textures, splashed across the walls.
Next come the pieces of paper littered across the ground. Hundreds of different types of paper lay on the ground, crumpled, smooth, or both smooth and crumpled: origami, lined, blank, papyrus, colored, sand, waterproof, wax, coated, etc. He can't identify all of them off the top of his head, but he can see the variety.
Then the flowers. Pots line the windowsills (he blinks when he realizes that there are four windows on her wall-a contrast to the usual one he sees in all the other hospital rooms), all of them ceramic and all of them painted in bright, cheery colors. Paper flowers rise out of the hollow pots attached to fuzzy pipe cleaners that vary in color-except for green. Not a splotch of green, Yukimura realizes after another cursory glance, is visible in this room.
He briefly wonders why, but is finally pulled out of his observations by a warm, if not quiet, voice asking him, "Who are you?"
"Ah." Yukimura returns his gaze to the girl in the bed. She's currently sitting upright, an IV attached to her bare left arm, its wire swaying to and fro with every movement she makes. She really is plain. There's nothing special about her appearance from her dark brown hair tied back into a low ponytail from which a few wisps of hair escape from to the dark brown eyes that regard him openly, no hint of distrust or wariness in them, to her common facial features to her body, albeit its abnormal thinness, to the loose hospital gown wrapped around her figure. Yet for some reason, he's drawn to her. As he ponders the elusive reason, he absentmindedly remarks, "There's no one here-where are your parents?"
Normally, the Child of God would never let something slip the way he did just now, but these aren't normal circumstances, and she isn't a normal girl. Otherwise, he wouldn't have bothered to stay here any longer. No matter how interesting her room is, if there's nothing interesting about the girl herself, there would be no way he would ever bother to spend more time with a patient than is needed.
She blinks, and for a moment, Yukimura almost opens his mouth to repeat his question (or to apologize, but the former is more likely), but she beats him to it. "My parents don't visit me. And I have no friends."
Yukimura stares silently at her for a long, long time. It doesn't sink in, that this girl who can't be any older than him (in fact, she looks younger than him when he spent his sentence here) resides in a hospital room that she has obviously spent a large amount of time in, if the painted walls, carpet of paper, and hand-made flowers are any indication, without having seen anyone other than the nurses, doctors, and possibly the occasional volunteer. Her expression from earlier now makes perfect sense to him.
Yukimura has always prided himself upon his independence. He keeps his friends and his enemies close, but not to the point where, if they tried, they could break through the barriers around his heart (if he even has one) and really touch him, really know him. Not even those who he should be closest to (and he is, just not as close as they seem to believe), his family, Sanada, Yanagi, the rest of his team, are that close.
As quoted by the brilliant Scottish psychiatrist, "We are effectively destroying ourselves by violence masquerading as love." Personally, Yukimura has never experienced R. D. Laing's version of the phenomenon known as "love," yet he has experienced the violence, the turbulence, the uncertainty that threatens to tear apart entire worlds that comes with it.
And so he keeps his space, drawing an invisible boundary around him that nobody, not even those who should be closest to him, notices.
But even with all of his self-proclaimed independence, not even Yukimura can even begin to imagine understanding, much less experiencing the mind-crippling, heart-wrenching loneliness that accompanies a quarantine to the next level. At least in most quarantines, there is someone to cry to at night, to clutch, and to sob troubles and never ending sadness to without fear of judgement or rejection. His seemingly infinite stay here was punctually interrupted by visits-from his sister who often rushed here after school, from his parents who, despite their busy schedules, set aside time to attempt to baby him (key word: attempt), from his teammates who came after practice, all sweaty and glowing because they were able to see their precious Yukimura-buchou.
Yukimura is independent, but imagining what it would be like to be forced to stay in this place without a single face he could identify as a friend other than the nurses who come in and go out like clockwork...
He doesn't like it.
And maybe it's because of that.
Maybe the reason he decided to enter her room was the nothingness he heard within, but the reason that he decides to come back is the loneliness that enshrouds her home.
The next time he knocks, he waits for her faint, "Come in!" before entering.
This time, a path is cleared through the mess on the floor, and it leads directly to a chair that wasn't there the last time he visited. The girl is propped up again, except this time, instead of having her hands clasped primly across her lap, a notebook is in her hand as she scribbles madly across its surface. The scratching of the pencil, oddly reminiscent of Yanagi and his little...habit, is the only sound that breaks the silence that, once again, befalls the room.
After a few moments of increasingly stiff silence, the scratching finally stops and she raises her head, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. He notices vaguely that her hair is tied in the same ponytail is before, but quickly pushes the thought to the back of his head as she snaps the book shut and gestures towards the chair, an inviting smile on her face. He walks through the sea of paper, and, being unable to reign in his curiosity, bends down to pick one up. Hearing no dissent, he takes her expectant silence as permission and uncrumples the paper, smoothing out its wrinkles until he can read the smooth, startlingly black lines littered across the page.
English, he recognizes with some degree of surprise. English mixes with Japanese, what an interesting combination.
Fortunately fluent in both languages, his eyes scan the words, unable to force down the bubble of awe slowly growing and growing in his heart.
His home is a sun
S-U-N
A bright, glowing
Charismatic
Sun
His home
Draws him
He will always
At some point
Or another
End up back
At his home
Because
He is the planet
A small one, Mercury
Because Mercury
Is the Roman
Personage of
Hermes, the Greek
God of tricksters and cattle and messengers and especially-
Travelers
So he is a traveler
The planet Mercury
Which is the Roman
Personage of Hermes
Drawn to the sun
An endless orbit
Around a place
That he will never
Really leave
He won't leave it
Even if
He moves to another house
Or another city
Or another country
Or another continent
Or another world
Because that home
Was his sun
S-U-N
And it will
Forevermore
Be his
SUN
(A/N my very own suckish poem, but let's pretend it was amazing for plot's sake)
Random scribblings and sketches fill the margins and the rest of the paper, both detailed and obscure, skilled and child-like, beautiful and disturbing. He flips the page over and finds a portrait on the back of a boy he had never seen before, with beautifully sharp, masculine features and a lost, faraway look in his eyes, a rippling image of the sun reflected in his eyes.
Tearing his eyes away from the piece of paper in his hand, he looks up at the girl if only to gape at her. A small smile gently pulls at her lips as she, once again, indicates the chair next to her. He slowly makes his way over to it, dropping down into the seat, still staring at her in shock.
He changes whenever he's around her.
"I know, that one was...really bad." Her soft voice penetrates the thick, shocked fog filling Yukimura's mind, and he slowly shakes his head, once again looking down at the portrait. The boy's eyes seem to pierce through him, and despite their unfocused, glazed quality, he can't help but feel as if he's being read.
"No...this is one of the most...I don't understand...wow."
And maybe he should be saying that to her not because of her poetry but because she has managed to do the one thing no else has ever accomplished-make the Child of God speechless.
This time, she's the one who comes to him.
Yukimura, having just arrived at the hospital, exits the staff room after cordially greeting his fellow volunteers and begins to make his way towards her room. It has become a tradition of sorts, him entering the hospital then heading directly towards her room. Once there, he spends almost the entirety of his shift sitting in that chair, reading poem after poem, story after story, picture after picture, or sometimes, they just sit there in silence, relishing the peace and quiet. Or rather, he relishes the peace and quiet while she scratches away on that notebook of hers, sometimes tearing out a piece of paper to discard onto the floor as either a pristine sheet or a crumpled ball.
Yukimura soon finds a pattern to her actions-the ones that she keeps in her notebook, he isn't quite sure what they are about or what their quality is, but the ones that she discards uncrumpled are always beautiful and meaningful yet lack depth, as if she hadn't put much time or thought into them. Those ones are almost always covered with more ridiculous sketches-cartoon-style animals, anime-style people, childish pictures that Yukimura once scoffed at but now, ever since meeting her, nurses a growing curiosity towards.
But the ones that are crumpled-oh, those are the ones that Yukimura often catches before they can land on the ground, smoothing them out so he can read. Yes, those crumpled pieces of paper hold her most vibrant, touching, resonating works, and he doesn't understand why she discards them so, why she tarnishes and sullies their perfection.
He never once asked, though, and she never asks him anything either, other than that first question, which he finally answered on his second visit. (The conversation went something like this: "I am so incredibly sorry for not answering you on my last visit here, but I am Yukimura Seiichi." "Hmm...I'll call you Sei, then, if you don't mind. After all, you've seen me in my bed.")
Upon reaching the hallways her room resides in, he blinks in surprise when the door is thrown open and she slowly leaves the room, her steps slow and laborious, for once, an expression other than quiet happiness or loud happiness (it kind of shocks him, to realize that he whose very tennis is based on his sharp eyes that distinguish and classify every twitch, every little movement has only managed to see two variants of the same expression on her face) twisting her lips.
She wheels the IV stand alongside her with each step, clutching the fragile metal pole as if it's her last lifeline. A sort of desperation lines her body, one that Yukimura never once saw in her, and it...
Disgusts him.
Not even his affection for the girl slowly walking towards him (she's noticed him, and he notices the way her eyes glow as if he is an angel descended from heaven) can save her from the deep well of disgust and bitterness inside of him, at her for showing such weakness when she's so much stronger.
And maybe (not maybe, it definitely is) that's the reason why he only coldly stares at her before walking straight past her, letting his words pierce the silence that isn't so peaceful anymore.
"Why are you feeling sorry for yourself?"
Yukimura visits her again the next day, and she smiles at him, like always, the scratching of her pencil a bit more frantic than usual, but he ignores that franticness in favor of widening his already wide smile.
He sits down in the chair next to her bed, and today, he can sense that something is off, something is different. After a few more moments of tense silence and scratching, she sets her pencil down and closes her notebook, turning her head to face Yukimura. "Ne, Sei."
"Hmm?" He turns his gaze onto her, wondering what she wants to say. That desperation that had disgusted him so much yesterday is gone, and in its place is sincere curiosity.
"What do you think about death?"
Yukimura blinks at her, slightly taken aback by her blunt question. Still, he answers truthfully. And by that, I mean bluntly. "I think that if you have time to ruminate on such abstract, ridiculous concepts, then you might as well die right now, because you aren't bothering to make proficient use of your time alive."
She stares at him for a moment, and for once he can't read someone's expression. Not even Tezuka, Sanada, or Echizen can elude Yukimura's searching gaze, yet for some reason, this girl can.
And that's why he doesn't want to see her succumb, surrender the way everyone else in this hospital has. She's strong, she's beautiful, and most of all, she isn't weak.
"I see," is all she says before flipping her notebook open again, the scratching filling the tense silence once more.
That day, she doesn't discard a single sheet of paper.
He doesn't visit her for several months. School begins to grow intense; mid-term exams have more weight and meaning than ever, now that Yukimura is in his senior year. Tennis practice is extended, starting much earlier and ending much later. He gets caught up in the whirlwind of life and doesn't bother to spare the girl in the hospital a second thought.
After all, sometimes, he feels as if being forgotten would be better than being a constant presence hounding a treasured friend's mind.
And so Yukimura Seiichi willingly lets go of the girl enshrouded in loneliness for the time being, promising himself-not her, never her, she doesn't need promises, just like he didn't need them (pushing aside the fact that when Sanada broke his promise, it felt like acid was being poured across his chest peppered with gashes created by flying glass shards)-that he'll visit her the next day.
And the next.
And the next.
He finally comes back to the hospital exactly three months later, an afternoon in which a lull in the storm has finally appeared. No more exams to worry about, tennis club members given a rare day off, Yukimura is stress-free.
He walks into the hospital, his eternal smile curling his lips even as the pit and well of disgust from before opens up even wider than ever before, entering the environment he had been trying to escape not too long ago.
He enters the staff room, changes his clothes, and walks back out, heading directly for her room. Despite the fact that he hasn't been there for so long, his feet still remember the path to her room.
When he opens it (not bothering to knock), he expects to find her sitting upright in her bed like usual, that notebook of hers balanced atop her knees as she scribbles wildly across it.
Instead, he finds the room in a mess-not that it isn't usually in a mess, but that mess is always intentional, always artful, beautiful in a way that this chaos isn't.
Papers strewn across the floor, now knee-high despite the fact that before, the nurses and doctors and janitors always kept them manageable. Her golden walls still glow brightly but for the first time, Yukimura notices that the splashes of color create a pattern-a spiral that slowly grows darker as one's eyes move towards the center. Her bed is empty, and the ceramic pots that lined the windowsill are shattered, bits and pieces strewn across the ground, shredded paper and bent, twisted pipe cleaners sprinkling the sharp debris.
Replacing those pots is her, her body, sitting on one of the windowsills, feet dangling in the air, dark brown hair for once not tied up in a low ponytail, short, jagged strands whipping in the light breeze entering the room from outside. Her IV stand sits abandoned next to an upturned chair, bright droplets of blood visible on the pristine white sheets.
"No!" Yukimura gasps, letting the door slam closed behind him as he runs towards her.
And despite the fact that he's the Child of God, despite the fact that he's currently ranked Number 1 in all of Japan, despite the fact that he runs one hundred laps a day and hits millions of balls back and forth across a net in one practice-
Despite all that, he doesn't reach her before she turns her head and pierces him with the emptiest, strongest gaze he has ever seen.
A wry smirk twists her lips as her hands, which had been steadying her swaying body, let go of the sill, let go of her lifeline, and she falls, disappearing in a flash of brown, muddy brown that darkens the gold of the room even further.
He reaches the windowsill a moment after and maybe it's just the breeze, but he swears that he hears her whispered words in the same tone as his when he first saw her true desperation.
"You don't even know my fucking name, do you, Yukimura Seiichi?"
Suicide.
He hates people who suicide.
What gives them the right to take the easy way out?
Cowards, the whole lot of them. Those who are strong will stand up over and over again, no matter how many times they fall, and face life. No matter how hard it is. No matter the torture they go through.
Cowards, the people who kill themselves in order to find an escape.
That's what he thought.
But as he stares down at her body from her far too dark and lonely (more lonely than ever, if that's even possible), he realizes that he's wrong.
For the first time since the Nationals, Yukimura Seiichi, the Child of God, has realized that he's wrong.
He. Is. Wrong.
Because it's not the cowards who kill themselves.
His stomach churns as he watches a nurse wheeling a patient in a wheelchair turn the corner and see her body. From the thirteenth floor, the drop from her windowsill is fatal. Her body hit the ground with an impact that even Yukimura could feel. Her face looks up, her lifeless, open eyes seeming to stare directly at him, that wry, cruel smirk from before still curling her lips. He can't see any blood from up here, but he can see the unnatural twisting of her limbs (she landed on her arms, her hips probably shattered from connecting directly with the sidewalk below him), the unnatural stillness of her body, the unnatural frozen state of her chest.
The nurse's piercing scream reaches his ears and Yukimura steps back from the window in shock.
He. Is. Wrong.
Because it's the cowards who stay alive and mock those who were strong enough to hurt not only those around them, but also themselves.
Name: Tsuseki Haruka
Age: 8
Admitted: Jan 13, 2004
Released: April 23, 2011 (deceased)
Family: Tsuseki Meguimi (mother), Matsumoto Leo (father), Matsumoto Erina (sister)
Condition: Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), mental stunts
Notes: Selectively mute, wrote her thoughts into stories and poetry, only started opening up several months before her death, when the new volunteer, Yukimura Seiichi, began to visit her. One recurring character began to appear-she once called it "Fly." No previous indications of deteriorating mental state
Doctor: Abe Rin
"She really didn't mean anything at all in the end."
-Tsuseki Haruka
And that is a wrap!
Sorry for the abruptness, I wrote this within two days and half the time I was wallowing in sadness and angst and...just puberty, in general.
Ugh.
Anyways, I hope you liked it. I wanted to write a dark Yukimura, and I suppose I kinda did. I wanted to define the condition she had, but the disease I first picked out just didn't fit the way Haruka acted throughout the whole story, and I couldn't find a disease that would bring about the effect I wanted, so I decided to make it "classified."
EDIT: I have now found a disease for Haruka.
If there's a disease you think would suit her, just substitute it in!
Yeah. Peace, see ya next time, hope you liked it!
Never (LivingDaLife)