Mei: Just a random one-shot I wrote. Tala(Yuriy) x Hilary (Hiromi). Yeah, it's a het. fic! I don't think I've ever written a completely het. fic before, I'm so proud. xD This is post G-Rev, or, well, near the end of G-Rev at least, so it contains spoilers for anyone who hasn't seen the third season yet.

Disclaimer: Beyblade doesn't belong to me, obviously.

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He heard her voice… It was so far away, surreal, something he could never touch… but it was there. He was lost. It felt like an eternity that he had spent in the darkness, floating endlessly in a sea of fog, where he could see nothing but the inky blackness in front of him. He could feel nothing but the cold, the incredible cold, coming from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. It enveloped him, it was him… but as long as he heard her voice, he knew that it was there. He could get out of here, he could do this. Her voice told him so.

There were other voices of course. They were familiar voices, boys' voices, men's voices, and the occasional woman's voice, but none of them were her voice. None of them had the same effect that her voice did. None of them had spoken to him as her voice had. Then, for no reason at all, he was awake. Her voice had vanished, and he had searched for it, and then he had come to a light, and the mist had begun to part. For the first time in so long, he could see.

It was blurry at first, the light was so bright. He was not used to its glare, the way it shone blindingly down from the ceiling and through the windows. It washed over the room in a great shining wave, bathing everything in its brightness. He blinked, clear blue eyes trying to focus on what was around him, where he was, why he was there… what had happened to him.

The cold had not subsided. He still felt it numbing his limbs. His arms were frozen to his sides, stiffened and difficult to move. He raised a single bandaged arm, slowly, jerkily, and held it before his slowly adjusting eyes. Stiff, white cloth ribbons laced between his fingers and around his wrist, they were pulled tightly, restricting the movement of his fingers. Nevertheless, he tried. He experimented with his hand, first spreading the fingers wide apart, and then clenching them into a tight fist. It didn't hurt. There was no feeling. Everything was numb.

He couldn't feel his legs. He could see them, moving before his eyes as he directed them, but he felt nothing. Had he been blind, he would have had no way of knowing that his body was obeying his commands. A dull panic rose up in his chest. He could hear the steady beep of the heart monitor beside him. He could feel the sterilized cleanliness of the room. He could smell the cold, emptiness of the hallways. He was in a hospital… and that's when he remembered.

Balkov.

Yuriy sat up icy eyes open wide, running a hand through his damp, red hair. Sweat poured down his face, and his breathing was harsh and ragged. He turned to see the clock on the small desk by his bed. It read 4 AM in flashing neon numbers.

He flopped back down on his pillow, and his heart pounding way in his chest was finally beginning to calm itself. He took four very deep breaths, holding each for almost a minute before breathing out slowly. It was only a nightmare, a dream, it was not real.

Except it had been real, not too many months ago he had been lying on that hospital bed, completely numb. Balkov was on the loose, it had hit him, hard. He had tried to get up, he had tried to pull himself out of bed, but the nurse had come in and held him down. That was when he lost it.

He could still remember it, in vague, cloudy, jittery flashes. He had flailed, thrashed, kicked, and screamed. In the end, the doctors had been forced to sedate him.

He had been desperate. He needed to find out what had become of his team, of Sergey, Ivan, and Boris. He had to find out where Balkov was now, what he was up to, what he was doing, how he could be stopped… He had to find out if Takao had listened to him, or if Takao had failed. He must then pick up where Takao left off, Balkov needed to be stopped.

He remembered his fury at being locked in the hospital, the sedatives left his body cold and numb, feeling nothing – useless. That's all he was while he was in the hospital, he was useless. He needed to get out, he needed to stop Balkov. He hadn't told the others the entire story, there was so much more to Balkov that Takao and his friends did not know…

But then they had come in. Apparently they had been coming to visit him, everyday; they wanted to make sure he made a recovery. He would never have expected this. They were not his friends, they were not his team, and he hardly knew them. Only through Kai… but Kai was not with them.

Yet they were there. They were visiting him, and they were pleased to see he was awake. They had told him about their challenge to BEGA. They had told him about how they had battled each of its members. They told him also, that they were visiting Kai. They explained his battle with the BEGA member, Brooklyn. They explained how the matches against BEGA had resulted in a tie. They explained how the final deciding match was the next day. Takao would fight Brooklyn.

They explained this all to him, and he listened with gratitude. Balkov would be stopped.

Then he heard it. Amongst the voices of the boys, eager to explain to him what had happened while he had been asleep, he heard her voice. The voice that had spoken to him, through the fog. For the first time, he was seeing her, and the boys' voices faded into the background. She was unremarkable, a small Japanese girl, one of Takao's friends. He had never paid attention to her before. There was nothing special about her, her eyes were brown, and she dressed like any ordinary girl. As looks went, she was not Yuriy's type. She did not have large breasts, or long lustrous hair. She was not tall, skinny, or exceptionally pretty, she didn't have bright blue eyes, or thick full lips.

But Yuriy couldn't take his eyes off of her.

Just as now, lying on his bed staring at the dim ceiling of his bedroom, he could not stop thinking about her.

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Mei: It's kinda short, I hope you liked it.