Lay Me Down To Sleep
"Japanese"
"English"
'Thinking'
Emphasis
A note on the poem/prayer bellow: I don't mean for this to be interpreted as necessarily Christian, though feel free to interpret it that way if it suits your fancy. I was told this by a friend years ago and never thought of it in a religious sense. I just thought it fit the themes in the chapter.
Chapter 1: If I Should Die
Now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
Momoshiro Takeshi hadn't left the hospital in four days. The first night, one of the nurses had tried to remove him from the hospital room. The nurse refused to comment on the incident other than to say that the tennis player was allowed to stay as long as he liked. His parents hadn't even bothered to try to convince their son to come home, knowing that it would be impossible. They came by every morning to drop off a change of clothes and to make sure Momo was leaving the room long enough to at least shower and eat, if nothing else.
No one could really bring themselves to blame him. Ryoma looked so tiny and pale under all the wires and IVs and god knew what else. His skin was much too close in colour to the starched hospital sheets for Momo's comfort. The doctors said that it was from blood loss and that, with time and care, the physical damage would be repaired.
Holding Ryoma's hand was difficult around the hospital issue restraints, which were standard with attempted suicides, but Momo managed. When Ryoma woke up Momo wanted him to know that, whatever he might have thought, there was someone there for him. Momo allowed his bitterness to rise up for a moment. Ryoma's parents could barely stand to be on the same floor as their son, let alone the same room. They had, to his knowledge, visited twice since the dark haired boy had been stabilized. With parents like that, he couldn't bring himself to be surprised that Ryoma had issues with abandonment.
How in the hell had he missed this? How could he claim to be dating Ryoma (he refused to use the term 'boyfriend'. It seemed juvenile) if he could let something like this go unnoticed? The younger tennis player had been acting normal (as normal as Ryoma got anyway) as far as he could remember. The same single-minded focus; the same adorable cockiness. He'd been quiet lately, but then again, Ryoma was almost always quiet.
Momo wondered how long Ryoma had been feeling like this without anyone noticing and, unbidden, the image of the boy, covered in blood and too still flashed in his mind. He'd been even paler, like paper, and for a terrifying moment, he'd thought he was too late and that he was gone and not coming back, but then he'd found a pulse and suddenly he'd been able to breathe again, if only for a moment. A slight twitch pulled him from his thoughts. It was tiny, a minuscule furrowing of the brow, as if he was in hurting even through the haze of pain killers.
"Ryoma?" Momo called quietly, almost cautiously. He felt a slight squeeze of his hand in response. "Ryoma, wake up. Please?" he called more loudly, excitement filling him for the first time in what felt like forever. The pale boy moaned quietly, as if protesting the disruption and Momo was stuck by the odd normalcy of the action. He shook the small frame gently, half expecting the boy to reach up and smack his hands away, as he could remember happening so often. Eventually a pair gold-green eyes fluttered open. They blinked, filled with a morbid curiosity that broke Momo's heart all over again.
"Momo?" the older boy smiled at the drop of the customary 'senpai' (or at the very least 'kun').
"I told you to call me Takeshi, you brat." He brushed a stray strand of deep emerald hair from his face. Questions could wait till later. Right now he just wanted to reassure himself that the younger boy was here. He watched as Ryoma tried to move his hand, probably to bat the offending hand away, only to find himself restrained. He looked vaguely irritated for a moment, though not terribly surprised. Ryoma's brow furrowed and for a brief moment he was lost in thought. Eventually he chanced a glance up at Momo through his bangs. Their eyes met for a second before Ryoma looked away.
"How long have I been asleep?"
"Four days."
"We missed practice. Tezuka-buchou will be upset." Ryoma observed, though he couldn't summon up the energy to make it sound as if particularly cared. Momo pushed down the anger (confusion? He wasn't sure what he was feeling anymore) that the statement brought and forced a chuckle.
"All this and you're still thinking about tennis?" He ran his free hand through his unusually messy hair. "They've been in and out of here visiting you. Practice was canceled." Ryoma couldn't help but marvel at the complete lack of blame colouring Momo's voice. He wished the older boy would yell or demand to know why or something. "Your parents are downstairs somewhere. Do you want me to get them?"
Ryoma noted the odd way Momo said 'parents'. It was the same voice he used when he talked about math tests and English projects only worse somehow. It took him a moment to realize it was dislike, bordering on hatred. Absentmindedly, Ryoma realized Momo was still looking at him expectantly, waiting for him to answer the question. Eventually he shook his head no, not wanting to deal with his father's enthusiasm and belief that everything would do what he wanted to if he just smiled and taunted it enough. Or his mother's face, wet with tears, reminding him that she'd missed work because of this and why couldn't he have picked a more convenient time to have an emotional breakdown and that next time he planned on hacking his wrists open, for god's sakes wouldn't he schedule ahead with her first so she could book off work. He squeezed Momo's hand like a lifeline.
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Nurses and doctors bustled in and out of the room for a while, taking blood and running tests, before the room was mercifully silent again. Momoshiro had fallen asleep a quarter of an hour ago and Ryoma was content, for now, to simply watch him sleep and hold his hand (which Momo refused to relinquish even while sleeping).
Dr. Akiyama watched the scene for a moment before he forced himself to open the sliding glass door to the teenager's room. He always hated this part, no matter how many attempted suicide cases he worked.
"Echizen Ryoma?" He asked, more out of formality than genuine curiosity. The boy, he observed, appeared to notice this and quirked his lips in amusement before nodding with an equal sense of formality. Dr. Akiyama gave a smile before taking the only unoccupied seat in the room, on the opposite side of the bed from the sleeping Momoshiro. "I'm Dr. Akiyama. I'm the resident psychologist. I've been asked to come down and ask you a few questions."
Ryoma nodded his head. This hardly surprised him. After all, what kind of mentally healthy fifteen year old sliced his wrists open on purpose? If he was lucky, he wouldn't end up on some kind of full time watch. Ryoma liked his privacy and he'd be damned if he let some nurse follow him around like an invalid.
"Let's start out with the easy stuff alright? The nurses told me that this young man has been waiting here for the past few days for you to wake up. Are you two close?" Dr. Akiyama asked, pointedly ignoring the openly held hands. The first thing he needed was to get this kid to open up. Any issues the boy had, they didn't seem to center around his companion. It was a safe topic. Ryoma arched an eyebrow and gave the doctor an 'are you stupid?' look but didn't answer. Akiyama rolled his eyes and smiled. "I need a verbal answer Echizen-kun."
Ryoma hid his blush behind his hair and wished fervently for his Fila hat. A moment later he managed to mumble out "boyfriend" but seemed unwilling to say more.
Akiyama smiled. "He seems quite dedicated to you Echizen-kun. You must care about him a lot." As he spoke, the doctor quietly took down some notes in a small folder. His question was rewarded with a ghost of a smile and a faint nod, though Akiyama was fairly sure that his patient was unaware of either action. He seemed to have too much pride to admit that something so personal to a stranger, doctor or no. "Now, this may be difficult, but I'd like to talk about your parents. Now, you've requested that they wait to come and visit you. Would you like to tell me about that?"
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A.N.: This is a companion story to Saving Grace, though both can be read on there own. This started out as a one shot, just a way for me to get Ryoma's out back story and explain why he would have attempted suicide in the first place.
Eventually it morphed into a way of showing the story from Ryoma's point of view. S.G. is going to focus more on Yugi/Yami, so I decided to show all this from Ryoma's point of view. I'm planning on doing one for Ed sometime soon too.