Pairing: 8018
Rating: T
Author's note: written for the 3rd round of the KHR Romance Writing Contest, where the challenge this time was 8018, romance, hurt/comfort – oh yeah! So, umh, hope you'll enjoy it!
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~:+:+ Songs for Sleepless Boys +:+:~
There was one thing he never told Gokudera or Tsuna, or anyone else about. It was that after the fight against Mukuro, he had talked to Hibari in the hospital. It's true.
When Gokudera and little Fuuta awoke much, much later, they did it slowly. They would blink their eyes once or twice, groan and make groggy facial expressions. Fuuta would ask for water first and then juice in a small, hoarse voice and Gokudera would grab onto the sleeve of a startled but beaming Yamamoto and demand cigarettes, which he would not be given.
That was not how Hibari Kyouya woke up.
But Yamamoto awoke long before any of them. He was pretty messed up but, miraculously, he hadn't broken any bones and aside from a concussion and a lot of external damages that needed some tending to all he needed was a rabies vaccine from when that weird, blond guy had bit him.
His right arm, the baseball arm, the important arm, was fine though – thank God!
Tsuna was there when he came to, face flushed with a combination of relief and guilt, and that was how he learned all about Rokudo Mukuro and all about everything that had happened after he had been knocked unconscious by the other Rokudo Mukuro who, it turned out, was really named something else and was actually a pretty nice guy.
The real one didn't sound very nice at all. Yamamoto hadn't exactly warmed to his troublemaker posse either, the ones who had beaten up the Disciplinary Committee and their other school mates and even tried to kill Gokudera with a yo-yo (that was just wrong – surreal, but definitely wrong), but the real Rokudo Mukuro made those two sound like a couple of sweet and well-behaved boys.
And he had kidnapped Hibari Kyouya. The…!
Yamamoto was happy to learn that Gokudera and the others were fine and probably sleeping themselves back to good health in some nearby room or other, but he didn't have much time to think about any of them that day because no sooner had Tsuna left than his dad came practically barging in, all concern-induced rage and scolding love and tight hugs and special, hand-made sushi. Then a group of his friends from baseball stopped by with the world's ugliest bouquet of flowers, which they had obviously made themselves from flowers they must have come across on the way over, and a flower printed bag of cookies from the club managers (*AN: the girls who bring out the sports equipment and get refreshments during the boys' sports club practices), and finally Sasagawa Ryôhei, who was on his way home right about then after he'd recovered from his own encounter with rabies-boy, and who caught a glimpse of him through the open door and poked his head in to wish him an EXTREMELY speedy recovery.
And Yamamoto grinned and waved and said 'thank you' in English so that it sounded like 'shank yuu'.
He stopped smiling at almost exactly 6 o'clock, when visiting hours were over and the patients had been served their evening meal, which looked like a microwave dinner and tasted like plastic. Only Yamamoto wolfed it down with the passion of a starving man and thought nothing of it other than 'ah, food'. Stomach Yamamoto was pleased.
But his mind was troubled, and that was why he wasn't smiling anymore.
He had lost. He had lost, and terribly so! He had been knocked out long before the main battle, the one they had come for, had even begun he thought shamefully. And because of his failure Tsuna had been forced to use… well ok so he didn't really get that part of it, but he did understand that it had been a last resort type of measure that Tsuna would have been better off saving for later, for the real battle. And it was his fault!
He had been beaten, the first to go, actually, by a minion – which, when you thought about it that way, made it sound like some kind of video game, but still…
And for someone whose entire world revolved around people supporting one another as team members, Yamamoto felt it as if he had committed a terrible sin.
At almost precisely midnight, Hibari opened his eyes as quickly and smoothly as if he had merely blinked for a very long time. He glanced around the dark room, and if he felt any puzzlement or confusion at waking up in the hospital, he did not let it show.
He tried to sit up, gritting his teeth, his delicate muscles flexing and tensing under the pale, silky skin of his arms. He swayed lightly, touched a hand gingerly to his forehead and stroked his fingers along the bandages there. Then he drew the covers aside to look down his own front. There were bandages wrapped around his chest with dark stains where the blood had seeped through.
Hibari had not woken up in the hospital since he was 8, which was half his own lifetime ago.
He was feeling indecisive, a feeling he so rarely had that he almost didn't recognize it for what it was. And as he sat there in the dark, half-erect in the crisp, white cloud of flat cushions and air-less blankets, he couldn't decide what he wanted to do the most.
He madly wanted to meet that person again – Rokudo Mukuro. The truth was that he couldn't remember very much of anything from the past two or three days since he had gone out to Kokuyou where that old, abandoned mall was. The Namimori Ward Construction Department had planned on tearing it down, Hibari knew, and the contracts had been signed and everything, but that was already many years ago now and the park still stood.
He clearly recalled getting rid of the filthy trash that had been tasked with guarding the main entrance, which was child's play, and then the ones who fancied they were hiding themselves on the inside waiting for him to pass them by so they could attack from behind like the spineless cowards they were, and then, finally, there was him. And he hadn't wanted to get up from the couch and… and then things started to get blurry.
He remembered the flowers, cherry blossom out of season, and for some reason he couldn't stand straight and there were flowers in his hair and then under his hands and then under his cheek. There was that red eye and that infuriating voice and at about the same time Mukuro had languidly removed his leather gloves with his teeth Hibari realized that he had come across another Predator this time, and was filled with an odd sense of recognition. Because here was someone who might just be every bit as sadistic as himself…
He didn't know if he had won or lost the rematch, but took some small satisfaction from having gotten one. His body knew so well how to fight it had been acting on its own towards the end.
Yamamoto's room was right next to Hibari's, but if Hibari hadn't tried to go home they probably never would have found out about it.
Hibari liked hospitals – he had some pretty good child hood memories from the many, many, many times he had been there as a boy on various occasions for various reasons and he remembered it as a place of soft beds, neatness, ice cream and attention of the good sort. But as soon as he woke up he wanted to leave. Hibari wants, Hibari does and/or gets – the world is this way, and never mind that it was almost 2 o'clock in the morning.
Incidentally it was this trait in combination with his recent encounter with Rokudo Mukuro that would later secure him a place in that crowd called Mafia plus ensure him a long, long road full of obstacles until he would finally have the proper rematch with Mukuro that he longed for.
But he didn't know that of course when he attempted to get out of the hospital bed that night.
Yamamoto didn't believe in doing things like leaving the hospital without written permission – it just wasn't allowed. But he couldn't sleep either and even though there were three other beds in the room in addition to his own they were all empty and he was terribly bored, alone with his own unhappy thoughts. So he felt a surge of something akin to excitement when he heard noises from behind the wall, the room next to his, and realized that someone else must be awake too.
He made his way towards the door on naked feet and hoped it would be Gokudera. Gokudera was a constantly pissed-off ray of sunshine in a life Yamamoto perceived to be otherwise quite ordinary.
But when he slid the door open as quietly as he could and stepped out into the clean, white corridor that smelled of cough medicine and anti-bacteria hand wash, the one that staggered towards him with one shoulder against the wall for support turned out to be none other than Hibari Kyouya. The…!
For no apparent reason his breath caught in his throat, "Ah! Hibari!?" he called with genuine surprise, and he blushed vehemently, "you're up!"
The corridor lights had been turned off as pr instructions at 11 o'clock and through the curtain less windows the walls and corners were all blue shadows and silvery light and Hibari's pale skin looked almost translucent. He wore bandages around his chest and the loose-fitting pajama trousers that the hospital provided those who hadn't brought any clothes with them and who had not yet been visited by anyone who had brought anything along for them and which, when he turned sideways, made Hibari's shirtless backside look like a ski jump.
Yamamoto liked Hibari. It's true.
He was beautiful and weird, and always did things his own way. And he managed, somehow, to look perfectly poised even now when he was wrapped up in bloodstained layers of gauze and swaying towards him like a zombie.
At the sound of his voice Hibari's head whipped up to glare at him, his long legs seemed to sag under him as if they were made of jell-o. "Why… are you here, Yamamoto Takeshi?"
His voice sounded rasping, like dry leaves in autumn, and then his eyes rolled suddenly back in his head and his body promptly folded up like a paper crane.
He would have hit the floor if Yamamoto's instincts hadn't kicked in and he managed to catch him by crashing his knees painfully against the linoleum floor and practically sliding forward like an Elvis impersonator so that Hibari's limp form would land on top of him. And the Hibari Kyouya landed perfectly in his arms.
Nice catch!
Had it been anyone other than Yamamoto they might have been terrified then, and with good reason, but Hibari's skin felt so smooth under his fingertips and his body so warm against his own… and that was all Yamamoto could think about just then. "Hibari?" he whispered tentatively. He was seized by an inexplicable urge to hug him tighter. "Err, Hibari?"
Until Hibari's head lolled sideways and Yamamoto realized that the other boy was not moving and had really fainted in his arms like a damsel in distress.
It was such a preposterous idea. A defenseless Hibari – how surreal! But this, apparently, was Hibari Kyouya's 1 week of weak – The Hibari Kyouya.
"Oh well, everyone has those days, too, I guess, huh?" he muttered cheerfully to Hibari, who couldn't hear him as he lifted him gently up in his arms.
He glanced around the corridor, feeling suddenly uncertain of what he ought to do – should he call someone?
Finally he nodded to himself and decided to carry Hibari back inside the room he had come wandering out from. It was a little smaller than his own, only two beds in here, though as far as he could tell Hibari must be the only occupant. Probably a good idea.
Very carefully he put Hibari's limp form down onto the one bed that looked used. As Hibari's head hit the paper-thin pillow he let out the faintest little sigh.
He had never seen Hibari not awake before, he mused, and idly he grasped the rare opportunity to study the lovely smooth features that were for once motionless. He looked smaller now, somehow – more like a boy and less like the blood thirsty beast he normally resembled. Fearless, dangerous Hibari, terrifying and beautiful like frozen Death.
When he wasn't scowling or making any sound, Yamamoto thought, he looked actually kind of… cute.
Suddenly he smiled for no reason at all.
His eyes wandered up the milk-colored sternum, the juncture of his neck, the sculpted curve of his jaw, the rise of a cheek, smooth and creamy as an almond, further up – and then his breath caught in his throat again as he found himself staring into Hibari's very much open eyes that stared back up at him with an expression Yamamoto couldn't read.
"Ah!" Yamamoto practically jolted backwards and then he burst out in laughter as quickly and easily as if someone had pushed a button inside him. "Ahaha, Hibari!" He scratched his neck a little awkwardly. "You're awake!" He grinned, feeling embarrassed and prayed that the darkness in the room would cover the rise of color on his cheeks. "How, err, how are you?"
He hoped Hibari hadn't caught him staring, that would be death, and he laughed brightly.
Hibari scowled, his pale lips in the shape of an upside-down v, but he looked somehow stunning all the same.
"I am better than you have ever been or ever will be, Yamamoto Takeshi," he replied in a nonchalant drawl. With measured movements he rolled over to his side and pushed himself up on his elbows. It looked painful.
"Ahaha, right, right!"Hibari was just fine, apparently, because he sounded exactly the same way he normally did, so that must be a good sign. "I'm just, you know, happy you're all right."
There was a moment of utter silence as they stared at each other and just as Yamamoto's happy-go-lucky mind was beginning to conjure up some less than positive images of what Hibari might do to him for the insolence of touching him and imposing on his Personal Space, Hibari coughed so softly he might not have heard it at all if it had not been so quiet in the room, and then he said: "get me water, Yamamoto Takeshi."
Yamamoto grinned, scratched his neck again and happily obliged. With Hibari watching him like a hawk from atop the bed, his eyes glittering sharply in the darkness, Yamamoto found an unused glass under the night table and wordlessly filled it at the sink by the door. Still grinning like a kid he handed it to Hibari, who was not grinning and who took it thanklessly.
"So, err, I heard about what happened," said Yamamoto while he looked on as Hibari emptied the glass in small, modest sips, "about the real Mukuro."
If it had been anyone other than Yamamoto they would have probably long since fled the room, but Yamamoto did not. Rather than being afraid of Hibari, he was infinitely curious about him, and that was it, so instead of leaving he plunked down in the chair beside the bed. Who knows, he thought vaguely, this might be his only chance ever to talk to Hibari and get to know him a little. And, of course, Hibari had been out there at Kokuyou Land as well.
Hibari surveyed him over the rim of the glass, but again he said nothing. His lips glistened faintly with moisture.
"But you know," Yamamoto went on, "as weird as it sounds, I kind of envy you. He he, at least you spent your energy on the real deal." One of Hibari's perfect eyebrows arched with something that might have been curiosity and Yamamoto shrugged haplessly and added, "'turns out the guy who got me was a body-double or something."
He wasn't sure why exactly, but he felt a strong urge, or need more like it, to talk about it – to somehow verbally express what had happened out there. Or whatever.
Still apparently hell-bent on keeping his vow of silence, Hibari rewarded his little monologue with a frown. Though he was usually good at reading people's moods, Yamamoto couldn't tell whether Hibari was irritated or puzzled and, whether it was wise or not, he realized that his mouth was still moving and making sounds.
"But Tsuna finished him off in the end. After he finished me off, unfortunately, he he." Again he laughed and his fingers reached unselfconsciously for his neck. And he'd said it now, the thing that bothered him so, even though he secretly knew he didn't want Hibari to know that he had lost. For some reason he knew he didn't want that guy to see him as a weakling. "Maybe that's why he kidnapped you! He must have figured he would eventually need a new body-double." He laughed and without thinking he blurted out, "or maybe he thought you were pretty and wanted to keep you."
And that was taking it too far, apparently, because Hibari's now empty water glass hit him in the head like a baseball. "Ouch!" Expecting another attack, either from a fist or a tonfa he brought his hands up defensively in front of his face. But when he peeked expectantly out from behind them, Hibari was smirking and had his eyes closed. "You talk too much nonsense, plant-eater."
Yamamoto smiled in a disarming fashion. "Say, speaking of which, where were you the whole time?" he asked, suddenly curious. He remembered Tsuna telling him that Gokudera and Hibari had staggered in clutching each other just about the same time as Mukuro had conjured up a bunch of very real snakes for Tsuna to play with, but they never knew where Mukuro had kept Hibari during the couple of days he'd been missing.
Hibari studied his face for a moment as if considering whether or not he might be worthy of such information. "I don't know," he said finally, yawning as he did and stretching his arms languidly up over his head like a cat. "I slept. There was a room and a locked door, so I slept." Folding his exquisitely shaped arms behind his head he glanced sideways at Yamamoto through half-lidded eyes. "I was going to kill him when he came back," he said, as easily as if he'd been talking about breakfast, "but your worthless little herbivore friend beat him to it." He meant Gokudera.
"He locked you up?" The thought seemed so ridiculous to Yamamoto that he couldn't help but snort with something half-way between laughter and disbelief. Hibari was a free spirit, wild and uncatchable like the wind, and Yamamoto could almost believe that he would wither like a flower, that he would curl up and crumble into dust if he was trapped and shut away from the open skies.
He was struck by another crazy thought and bent forward to peer curiously at Hibari's jaw.
"What?" snapped Hibari.
"Ah, heh, sorry, it's just – he didn't pull your teeth either?"
At this Hibari looked away and didn't answer. Perhaps he had been asking himself the same thing. Because Yamamoto wasn't the only one who had, for once, lost.
Filled with a sudden urge to say something positive he chuckled lightly and folded his hands behind his head. "Aw well, you win some you lose some." He gave a hapless shrug. "That's just the way things have to be, I suppose."
But this seemed to strike a nerve in Hibari because he glared defiantly up at him from under the veil of his long fringe, looking suddenly murderous. "That is not the way things have to be, herbivore," he said in a voice that was at once calm and deadly. "That balance of yours may apply at some dimwit sports arena, but losing is still only an option for spineless, dimwitted maggots."
Yes, thought Yamamoto, this isn't how the world works for you, is it. He had the distinct impression that in Hibari's world, losing was something that happened to other people, people that weren't him. How very alike they were, really, deep down. Suddenly his face split in a huge grin. "Heh, you always have to be perfect, don't you…"
Perhaps sensing on some subconscious level that he was in a little more danger now than previously he got smoothly to his feet and made to leave.
"But I think it's necessary," he said. He wasn't sure who he was trying to convince more, himself or Hibari. "It wouldn't be a good thing if I won every time I tried something."
Hibari surveyed him wordlessly. His eyes were sharp as finely honed blades.
"If I never lost I would never improve, I guess," Yamamoto said in an attempt to elaborate, grinning rather sheepishly as he did. "When I lose I have to figure out what I did wrong to make sure I never make the same mistake again, right?" He laughed and scratched his neck. It was becoming something of a tick wasn't it, that whole scratching the neck business… "Losing fuels my desire to fight more than anything."
And as soon as the words left his mouth he knew they were true.
He gave a final wave of his hand as he slid open the door to the corridor. "Err, good night, Hibari!"
Hibari had his head cocked curiously to the side. He remained silent, but there was a tiny spark of interest in the dephtless pools of his eyes.
When he poked in his head the next morning he learned that Hibari had been moved a private room on the top floor, and they didn't see each other again for the duration of their stay at the hospital. He felt terribly disappointed, for some reason.
Luckily for Yamamoto, Gokudera woke up just a few hours later and both he and Fuuta were moved into his room. He very nearly told Gokudera about his encounter with Hibari, but something made him keep his mouth shut about it. It felt, somehow, like it should be a secret.
In the end, two interesting things came out of their little midnight rendevouz. One was that Yamamoto got a huge crush on Hibari Kyouya and the other was that Hibari had an epiphany concerning the worth and potential value of his opponents. Perhaps Yamamoto felt a tug of something in the depths of his subconscious when, only a scarce handful of months later, Hibari challenged one Varia member after another on the spot. After all, on the off-hand chance that one might lose, then what is the point of fighting someone you can't learn to win better from?
After he was written out of the hospital Hibari asked Kusakabe, who was his second in command at the time (incidentally the position he would happily retain for the rest of his life, but he didn't know that then), to alert him on the next baseball tournament and for the first time in as long as he could remember he attended a game purely as a spectator. He decided he quite enjoyed it and afterwards he continued to come and occasionally he would even kill some time watching the club practice in the evenings.
He didn't tell Yamamoto and Yamamoto didn't lose a single game – overall it was a satisfying baseball season that year.
It could easily have ended there and they might never have had much to do with each other again, Hibari and him. But that was not how things turned out at all, because just a little over a month after they talked in the hospital that night, a man named Squalo chased a young boy named Basil into Namimori prefecture… and that was when things really started to take off!
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Author's note: heh, and that's it ^_^
The idea was that both Yamamoto and Hibari, the two who were actually on top of the list of Namimori's strongest, were among the first to get beaten and were feeling down about it but that they handle it very differently. Hibari is too proud to accept defeat, while Yamamoto needs to get it into perspective.
I promised myself I wasn't going to write this, but I feel like I rushed this piece too much. Possibly I'll just re-write it a little. Ah, I don't know! I'd love feedback on this...