Sometimes you have to almost lose them to realize that you need them…that you love them…
My eyes blur as I sit by his bedside; I haven't left it since they allowed me to come in. That was one week ago. I know that the others are worried about me, but I'm afraid to leave. Afraid that if I step away from him, for just a moment, he'll be taken from forever. "Aya," I whisper as I clasp his hand between mine, willing him to wake up. Those bastards are going to pay for what they did to him!
"Yohji-kun…" I don't look up as Omi hesitantly steps inside.
"Hai?" I ask softly after a while.
"Please Yohji-kun, Ken, he's really worried about you, we all are…Aya…he's gonna be alright Yohji…. Just please…" Omi let his words drift off, feeling helpless. I knew that Omi was probably more worried than Ken, I could hear it in his voice, could hear the tears. I smile softly. Omi, ever trying to be strong for everyone to get us to stop doting on him.
"Gomen Omi…I can't…" I whisper hoarsely as a tear slides silently down my cheek to land, with a seeming deafening splat, on my clasped hands. I didn't even look up as Omi left the room as silently as he'd come.
None of us knew what had happened to Aya that night and the doctors wouldn't tell us what they'd found while treating him. I'd found Aya out behind the Koneko late at night as I'd stepped out for a smoke. He had already been unconscious by then and it was anyone's guess as to how long he'd been lying there. Biting back the panic and the cold fear at seeing the stoic redhead so beaten, it had been all I could do to get him to the hospital. By the time I'd gotten him there I was beside myself with fear and the nurses had had to pry me off him. I don't know how I even managed to fill out all the forms they pressed into my hands.
Taking a deep breath to calm myself, I had gone and called the others while I waited for the doctors to treat Aya, knowing that they'd want to be here. Omi had taken one look at me when the two of them came in, wondering how serious it was, and broken down with Ken trying his best not to do the same as he consoled the young boy. Meanwhile, I had been trying to assuage my fears that Aya had been raped and lit up one cigarette after another, barely noticing the other two, until one of the doctors came out. The doctor of course told us nothing; he wouldn't even tell me if my fears were justified.
In a fury, I stormed at the doctor, ready to punch him out even as a voice in my mind taunted me and asked me why I was getting so worked up over a man who hated me. Ken held me back and eventually tackled me down to the floor as Omi spoke quietly with the doctor. As Omi continued to talk with the doctor they wheeled Aya out of the emergency room.
God! but he looked so small and frail lying there! It was then, seeing him so helpless, that I realized I loved him. I knew at that moment that I would do anything for him, to keep him from being hurt again. They wheeled him into intensive care. None of us were allowed to go in and see him, none except Omi that is.
When they first placed Aya in the room, the doctors had allowed Omi five minutes. I had paced the hall the entire time, Ken commenting that I'd wear a trench in the floor if I didn't calm down. I all but pounced on Omi the instant he came out. The poor boy had looked like hell and had paled considerably when he looked up at me, but he wouldn't tell me anything. The three of us spent the next twenty-four hours camped out in the waiting room while the doctors and nurses paraded continuously in and out of Aya's room.
After those grueling twenty-four hours all the doctor would say was that it 'didn't look good'. The only thing that had mattered to me at the time however was that we were finally allowed to go in and see him. And, like I said, once I was in there nothing could get me to come out again. So here I am, a week later, bags under my eyes, looking considerably thinner and I know that Omi is keeping something from me.
Unable to keep my eyes open a moment longer I rest my head on the side of Aya's bed and succumb to an uneasy sleep in which I am running, chasing after someone who is constantly just out of my reach.
****
"Ken, I'm worried about Yohji-kun," Omi sighed as he plopped down in the seat next to the older boy. Both boys had been back to the apartment and had cleaned themselves up before trying to get some well-needed rest. They had been too worried about the two older boys however and hadn't been able to relax at all, so they had come back, hoping to get Yohji to come out of Aya's room.
"I know Omi, we both are, but…there's nothing either of us can do about it." Both boys sat in a charged silence, lost in their own thoughts until they finally fell asleep, using each other as support. No one was awake to see a pale hand begin to move across the white sheets nor the puzzled violet eyes that looked around in cold confusion.
