It's very convenient that I was grounded from the internet the day before I planned to post chapter two. But now I am back, and here it is. Sorry for the wait!

Thank you for the kind reviews from Warriorsstone and TheOneKnownAsA! Here's a note to you, "A": Since you are a guest on this site, I was not able to send you a "thank you" note for your review, but I have never received that sweet of a review in my entire writing life! Your review was the most praise I have ever received in my entire life in general, and I thank you profusely—you brought tears of joy to my eyes!

I hope that this chapter does not pale in comparison to chapter one. It is a little less emotionally attached, but I tried to carry on the word choice and writing style from chapter one into this chapter. I hope I won't disappoint you!


Judai walked down the long, white corridor for what seemed an eternity. His head ached; his breathing was shallow. Eyes wide, he stared at the floor the entire walk to the intensive care room. It was 3:02 a.m.

One minute, one day, one year later, his feet stopped him at a wide white door. A sign beside it read, "32A".

Johan's room.

Judai's hand curled around the doorknob and rested there for several seconds, so tightly that his knuckles turned white. Then he shakily opened the door. A white room with blue countertops opened up before him.

For being an intensive care room, nothing seemed to be happening. No doctors moved about. No nurses rushed to get medicine or surgical tools. The room was completely silent. He and Johan had only been in the hospital for one night. He wasn't even supposed to be around.

One lone nurse, whose features Judai would later be unable to recall, stood at the window, gazing out. Her eyes shifted toward him; tears glittered there like stars against a night sky, as though she were the one who had lost a loved one. The emotion infuriated him.

"Are you Yuuki Juudai?" she whispered after a moment.

He stared blankly back at her. He didn't know—was he? Was he really the one experiencing all this? He only hoped that he wasn't summoned here for the reason he was dreading.

She sighed. "Of course you are." She observed him sadly and motioned with her hand to her left. "Johan…he's over there."

Judai slowly turned his head toward a hospital bed beside a counter. A boy laid there, his legs, torso, and shoulders covered by a white sheet. His head rested on a pillow. His eyes were closed.

Asleep.

Judai's heart jumped. He stepped over to the bed and stared at the boy lying there. He reached out to touch his sleeping friend, wanting to wake him.

His fingers met the face of a cold, motionless Johan, and Judai froze.

Dead.

"We did everything we could." The nurse suddenly stood beside him. "But…he was already gone. I'm so sorry."

Somewhere in his voice, Judai detected sympathy. But he just as quickly doubted it. Sympathy? In such a cruel, heartless world? Impossible.

It couldn't have been real.

Rage flared in Judai's heart—such a deep, sudden rage that he couldn't stop it from consuming him. He felt hatred, kindled by pain and loss. He glared at the nurse, his eyes burning what he knew as a fiery golden shade.

"If you had done all you could," he hissed, "then my friend would not be dead."

The woman stumbled back, fear in her eyes.

"Leave," Judai spat. "Now."

She didn't argue. She didn't even hesitated. She just turned and ran out the door. Somehow, Judai drew a strong satisfaction from it. But it soon dissipated to grief as he turned back to his friend.

Johan shouldn't have been dead. It was all their fault…

Judai spent the rest of the night in the room, settled on the edge of the hospital bed and stroking Johan's cheekbone. His eyes, their normal shade of brown again, searched for any signs of movement. But much as he hoped and pleaded for them, they never came.

He had already mistaken his own breathing for Johan's. He had already imagined the smallest hint of a smile flicker over Johan's face. He had already thought he'd seen movement. But once he realized they were only illusions, his heart gave in. He mourned over the words he finally had to tell himself.

Johan is dead.

Another nurse had come to replace the first, standing by the same window. A look of heartbreak masked her doe-like face, but fear flickered in her eyes—clearly she had been told that this by was not one to be bothered. It was a full hour before she finally spoke.

"He was your best friend, wasn't he?"

"He is," Judai replied harshly. "Is. Not 'was'."

She fell silent, recognizing her mistake.

"He's like a brother to me," Judai admitted. "Almost more, if there is a 'more'…"

The nurse was quiet. She remained in the room, as Judai stroked Johan's hair, until the first light of dawn struck the window. She then told him that he would have to leave, so he refused. She persisted, but to no avail. His time with Johan, it seemed, had been too short. He had only known him a little over two years, some of which Judai had spent as Haou, searching for Johan, and in the stars after fusing with Yubel. Now, he could stay forever in the hospital room, just refusing to leave him. His parents were eventually called into the room to take him away, which infuriated him. Parents, whom he had grown up hardly knowing, now called to usher him away from the one person who truly understood him—something that parents were meant to do? He fell into tears and tried to yank from their grasps, frantic, panicked, but helpless against their grips. He was then shooed out of the room. He dragged his feet, wanting only to stay; tears rushed down his cheeks, and he kept glancing down the hall, wishing he would hear a doctor suddenly yell for joy and then see Johan running down the hall to give him a hug. But a sense of cold and stillness hung in the air, and all was silent.

Johan was gone.


A/N: This chapter goes off the idea that Judai didn't know his parents well. Also, I realize that I have not yet mentioned what really killed Johan. That comes in the next chapter, which I will try to post next week. I also realize that my sentences are extremely long, quite like Edgar Allen Poe's. I hope they don't confuse you. Please review this chapter and await the next!