I wrote this fic for the "Akashi Furihata Event Domestic" Event on facebook to celebrate AkaFuri Day 2016. This fic is dedicated to all those affected by the Kyushu Earthquakes of 2016. #412Domestic
As per the requirements of the event, I declare that I don't own KnB.
"They loved it! The people at Sony loved your idea for the new 'revolution in sports watches for professional athletes!' I told you they'd love it, after all, you're a genius, but you didn't believe me," Furihata babbled into the phone. He sat on the bed in the hotel room, his shoes discarded and his tie balled up on the floor. It wasn't like him to treat his things so roughly, but it had been one of those exhausting days of glad-handing and bowing and all he wanted to do was share the good news with Akashi, take a shower, and go to bed.
"You're right," Akashi's soft voice came from the speaker. "But at least some of the victory is yours for persuading them."
"Your victory is my victory," Furihata said.
"And your victory is mine," Akashi finished the phrase they'd started so long ago. "What time is your flight leaving?"
"Nine o'clock in the morning. I can't wait to get home to you. I bet the house is a disaster," he said, laughing as he fell back against the pillows.
"You've only been gone for a week. I'm quite self-sufficient, Kōki. I don't need a constant caregiver."
"How many newspapers are in the driveway?" Furihata teased.
"All of them," Akashi retorted, but Furihata heard the smile under the words.
"Good, I'm glad I'm useful for something."
"You are more than a paperboy, Kōki."
In the background of the conversation, Furihata began to feel the rumbles of another aftershock of yesterday's 4.6 earthquake and he groaned.
"What's wrong?" Akashi asked, suddenly the good mood disappearing from his voice.
"More aftershocks. Damn, I thought leaving Los Angeles for a while would give me a break from all this, but I guess it can't be helped."
"Are they bad?"
"Just annoying, really," he said, climbing off the bed and heading toward the closet. "Hold on a second, let me switch to Bluetooth so I can pack while we talk."
"I can't have your undivided attention?" Akashi teased.
"Do you want me to come home or not?"
"Touché."
Furihata pulled the earpiece from the pocket of the jacket he'd worn this afternoon and activated it. "You still there?"
"Where else would I be?"
"Good, ok, so I was looking at your schedule and it looks like the driver should be picking you up in about twenty minutes. After practice, John St. Michaels from the LA Times will be meeting you at Avec Nous –"
The hotels earthquake chimes filled the air.
"Holy shit," Furihata said as he got down on the floor and crawled toward the bathroom door. The room began to shift, the walls swaying as if they were made of water. The lights flickered, then went out, plunging the room into darkness.
"What's wrong?" Akashi demanded from the other side of the world.
"It's a big one," Furihata shouted to be heard over the sound of the warping walls and the stretching of the metal infrastructure holding up the hotel.
"Are you safe?" Akashi's normally unflappable voice took on a tone of panic and Furihata responded the only way he could.
"I'm heading to the bathroom now. If we get cut off, I'll call you as soon as I can. I love you, Jiro."
"Don't talk like that, you'll be fine. By this time tomorrow –"
The dial tone bleated in Furihata's ears as the room pitched violently upward, then to the left, splitting the floor below him. Furihata climbed over the side of the tub and curled into a ball, protected his head and neck the best he could with his arms.
The room shuddered and slammed back into place, then toppled, sending Furihata and the bathtub sliding down through the rubble to the next floor.
Furihata opened his eyes into darkness and coughed, sending up a cloud of dirt. He tried to turn his head, but couldn't. He tried to sit up, but couldn't. He tried to move his arms, but couldn't. He pushed with all his might and felt whatever was holding him down shift slightly and then come to rest more fully upon him with an ever-increasing weight. He was light-headed and he wasn't sure if the dizziness he felt was from some internal injury or if the world around him was still moving.
"Help," he screamed as loud as he could. "Jiro, can you hear me?"
His voice reverberated in the tight space, pinging against the stone above him. His eyes, adjusting to his surroundings, finally focused on the concrete slab above him.
"Help me," he screamed again and again, heedless of the debris tumbling down on him with every shout until, at last, his voice grew weak, tired, and dusty. He coughed, choking on the dryness of his tongue. He tried to work spit up in his mouth, but all he tasted was blood. He spat and the glob fell upward toward what he'd mistakenly thought was down.
I'm going to die here…
In the distance, he heard the opening chords of Rim Fire play and he began to pant. He strained toward the sound, wiggling the fingertips of his right hand in the direction of the slight vibration of his phone. "Jiro, please don't leave me." His finger touched the edge of the phone, spinning it around so that he could see Akashi's profile picture on the cracked screen, but he couldn't reach the button to answer it. He felt something tear in his arm as he fought against the weight holding him down, but he kept scrambling for it.
I'll never see Jiro again…
The music cycled through three more times before the voice mail picked up and a few moments later the phone chimed a single tone, indicating there was a new voice mail waiting for him. In the silence, all he heard was the sound of his own wheezing breath.
Tears streamed up, mixing with the dirt and mud caking his face, stinging his eyes and temporarily blinding him.
Every few minutes the phone went through the same useless dance as Furihata counted the seconds between each call, he knew the battery on his phone was going to die soon, leaving him completely alone in the darkness.
"Jiro," he whimpered, "please help me." The phone was silent.
Around daybreak, Furihata was awakened when a single ray of light leaked into a crack between two fallen pieces of debris. "Help," he whispered, coughing to clear his throat. Even with the tiny beam of light, he shivered under the cold, wet rock. From behind his head, he heard the whir of helicopter blades coming closer. He screamed with all his might and as he inhaled the weight on his back increased, pressing him more soundly against the slab at his chest. "Help me," he gasped, shuttering as sobs wracked his body.
Jiro… Mom… Dad… anyone…
A memory swirled through his head: the first time he stood on the court against Jiro. He'd been petrified; his knees had quaked so badly he hadn't been sure if he'd be able to stand, much less play. He'd fallen on his face, but with the help of Kuroko, Kagami, Hyūga, and Kiyoshi, he'd found his strength and his nerve and – if not excelled – held his own for four minutes against their generation's greatest Point Guard. It had been his proudest memory and in the dark he replayed that game in slow motion, feeling the leather of the ball against his fingertips, hearing the roar of the crowd, and the shouts of encouragement of his team on the bench.
The memory warped as another aftershock roiled the ground, buffeting his body between slabs of concrete, spiraling him into darkness.
"You think you're good enough for my son," the angry voice shouted at him from the recesses of his memory. Furihata had had only one conversation with Akashi-sama and every word of it was ingrained into his memory, yet it shifted just like the earth below him shifted now. "Seijūrō deserves royalty and splendor, but what he has is a coward shivering in the dark. Good, die and let my son live the life he was destined for. Without you, he'll come crawling back to me, mewling like some love-starved animal. And I will welcome him back into the fold, with fire and pain."
"No, you bastard, you can't have him," Furihata snarled against the voice, against the dark, against the pain. His phone rang again and Akashi's face lit up the broken screen, dimly shining in the overwhelming darkness that once again enshrouded him. "You can't ever hurt him again. I'll kill you first."
"You'll have to," the voice answered. "I'll never let him go and once you're gone, there will be nothing to stop me."
"Jiro, run!" he gasped, his tongue sticky in his mouth.
"I've already got him, boy, just roll over and die," the voice added, laughing.
Furihata had no tears, but his eyes scrunched shut and his shoulders violently shook as sobs wracked his bruised frame.
His head pounded like a metronome clicking out the beat. Above him the sound of an explosion echoed, shifting dust and smaller debris in a cascade of a thousand sharp pieces over his face. He gagged on the particles filling his nasal passages. Water began leaking down through the vast array of gaps between him and the sky, dropping the temperature in the course of a few seconds, but oh it tasted so good on his tongue, those precious drops of moisture – the first he'd had since the afternoon meetings with Sony a day, or was it two, ago.
With what little strength he had left, he licked the damp stone, desperate to take in anything to help his dehydrated and slowly shutting down body. He closed his parched eyes, the lids scraping against the membrane and said a quick prayer to whoever might be listening. "Please, whatever happens, let Jiro live free…"
He turned his head and breathed.
"Did you see that?" asked a familiar voice. "I think he's awake."
He coughed, wishing whoever was talking would stop so he could go back to sleep.
"Sir, I understand that you are worried about your manager, but visiting hours are for family only. You'll have to wait outside –"
"And there will be more, every time I visit. Do we have an understanding?" Akashi's cool tones nagged at his brain, urging him to wake up. It was no good, no matter how he rolled his head, all he could hear were hushed voices and a slow, steady beep.
"Kōki," a hot voice whispered into his ear. "Can you hear me?"
"…Jiro…," he slurred as his arid eyes fought to open.
"I'm here, it's me, Seijūrō," Akashi breathed into his ear. He felt a hand tighten against his, but he had no strength to return the gesture. "You're going to be okay. The doctor's said so."
"And you… paid them enough…"
"Yes, and I'll pay ten thousand times more if it will speed you back to good health."
His throat hurt as he swallowed, like he was taking glass down instead of saliva.
"So… tired…"
"Sleep, Kōki. I'll guard your sleep."
"Okay…" he muttered.
Furihata yawn, arching his back and feeling a series of pops travel down the length of his spine. He blinked his eyes open and looked around. Akashi was asleep, his head pillowed in his arms on the edge of the bed. Furihata reached out his left arm to touch him – make sure he was real – but found that his arm wouldn't straighten. He groaned and Akashi's head snapped up, instantly alert.
"Kōki?"
"What happened?"
"You remember the earthquake?"
He nodded, the memories tumbling back into place. The heart monitor at the bedside squealed as his blood pressure climbed and he hyperventilated. A nurse rushed in, pushing Akashi aside to check Furihata's vitals. Seeing it was only a panic attack, she raised the head of the bed, so he was sitting upright, and rubbed his back until he was able to calm himself.
"Try not to disturb Furihata-kun like that again, Akashi-sama. He's not strong enough to deal with all the stress yet," she scolded Akashi as she left the room.
"How bad am I?" he asked, looking at his splinted left arm.
"The worst was the dehydration. Another day…" Akashi paused, gathering his thoughts. "Another day and I would have lost you forever. Your left arm is broken in three places, your right is badly bruised. You've got four broken ribs, a fractured pelvis, and your left ankle is broken, but it is a miracle you're still alive."
"It was your calls that kept me going, and your father."
Akashi's head cocked to one side. "My father?"
"I must have been hallucinating, but he told me I should die so you'd come back to him. I couldn't let him win."
Akashi smiled and for the first time, Furihata noticed how ragged his lover looked. His eyes were hollow with red rims and heavy purple bags. He was pale and wane, his perfect hair not so perfect. His clothing was rumpled. "I knew you wouldn't leave me, Kōki, but you had me scared."
"How could you be so sure?" Furihata asked. "I was sure I was going to die."
"Because I had something to tell you. I knew you'd stay alive until I could deliver that message." Akashi stood and took Furihata's face in between his hands. "I love you," he whispered and looked toward the door. Seeing it was clear, he leaned forward and touched his lips to Furihata in a quick, secretive kiss.