Disclaimer: I don't make money off this. Digimon's not mine.
A/N: This is Yamato's P.O.V. This story will be similar to my other one in the sense that each chapter will switch between Tai's and Yamato's POV's.
I was told to bring him food. The paralyzed patient: Yagami Taichi. I did as I was told, knowing my supervisor was trying to get me acquainted with the young man whom I would be working with for a while. I expected him to be young, around my age; what I didn't expect was for said person to be someone so handsome, even with the bruises and scratches marring the tanned skin. He was tall, I could tell, although he was lying down, and from the muscular build outlined in the hospital gown, I knew he was very athletic.
He was unresponsive and uncooperative at first so I sat back and allowed him to work himself into a sufficiently frustrated state before using my powerful persuasion skills to get him to open his mouth and allow me to feed him. Poor Taichi had such a violent reaction to the hospital food (not that I could blame him) that I took pity on him and went out to bring him something edible. When I returned, a pretty older woman with hazel eyes crinkled at the edges and Taichi's brown hair lined with streaks of gray came walking out of his room. Right behind her was a younger girl who had all the good looks of her mother with a younger, more tomboy-ish demeanor. They were talking quietly amongst themselves and the girl looked back over her shoulder.
"How are we going to tell him, mom?" she whispered, a serious look on her face. "He's going to be devastated. You know how Tai is."
"I know, Kari, but we have to." The woman sighed and a few tears leaked out the corners of her eyes. "What's his father going to say? You know your dad. To him, a useful child is a perfect one and he has no room in his heart for Taichi in this condition. He'll be furious. I doubt he'll even claim Tai as his own son from now on. What are we going to do?" She stopped walking and covered her face with her hands.
"Everything will work out in the end. I'm sure of it." Kari hugged her mom and they walked out of the building. I smiled to myself. Taichi was lucky to have a family, or at least part of a family, who cared about him, not to mention, worried about him. I pushed open his door, ready to flourish the burger, fries and drink I had bought for him at the restaurant across the street but he was fast asleep. I pressed a few buttons and slowly, the hospital bed lowered itself so he was lying flat. Setting the food and drink on the bedside table, I pulled the chair up and sat down, observing the man in sleep. His mouth was slightly open and he breathed heavily, his chest rising up and down. I smiled wryly at him.
"Sleep well, Taichi-san. Sleep without a worry or care because pretty soon, you'll be getting the news of your lifetime." He moved his head in response and I stood, ready to go home and get some sleep myself.
The next day passed slowly and tediously as I waited for the time I would be re-introduced to Taichi, only this time as Ishida Yamato, his therapist. I was called to his room in the evening, around the time I would normally have left and dropped whatever I was doing to head to his room. Taichi was sitting up, propped on the bed.
"You!" he said without maliciousness, only incredulity. "What're you doing here?" His eyes darted nervously from his mother to his sister, then back to the doctor and finally back at me. He seemed to be asking for an explanation to what was going on.
"Has he been told yet?" I asked the doctor quietly and the older man shook his head.
"You tell him what happened."
"Taichi?" I approached him and sat at the edge of his bed. He shrunk away from me but held my gaze. "Taichi, I have good news and I have bad news. Which would you like first?" He thought for a moment, once again glancing at his mother and sister for support. They smiled at him, silently encouraging him. I felt something stir in the pit of my stomach. How long had it been since I'd seen looks as kind as the ones they had just given him?
"The bad news," he said firmly—interrupting my rather unpleasant train of thought—and turned his eyes back at me.
"Well, you will be fine but the accident caused some damage to your spinal cord and some of your nerves. There is a high possibility, a high probability, that you are paralyzed from the waist down. How--,"
"WHAT?!" Taichi shouted, interrupting me, forgetting the good news I still had to deliver. "What the hell are you saying?" His mouth was open and he had a look of desperate disbelief.
"I'm saying, Taichi, that because of the accident, you might not be able to move from the waist down." I repeated. "But there is some good news." He snorted and rolled his eyes, staring out the window.
"Taichi!" his mother reprimanded.
"What, mother? What? You want me to listen and act like a nice little boy? You heard what he said?! I'm paralyzed! What news could he bring that could possibly take away this—this—whatever!" he snapped, waving a hand in the air as he was unable to find the proper word.
"The doctors did their best to repair those nerves and we are pretty sure that with lots of help and hard work, you will be able to walk once more. And if you're willing to push yourself extra hard, I have high hopes that you will be able to, one day, walk without the aid of a cane." I smiled at him but he did not reciprocate the action.
"Will I be able to play football?" he asked quietly, still looking out the window at the bright blue sky.
"I don't think so." I shook my head. "Not the way you used to. Nothing will ever be quite the same, I'm afraid." He nodded and bit his lip.
"So you're telling me that if I work my ass off I can walk again and that's the best I can do. I won't be able to play football or do sports ever again."
"Not ever again, Taichi. With some luck you will be able to play again but I would advise against playing competitively as you might injure yourself even more. And this is providing you are even able to walk by yourself." I hated the way the words sounded in my mouth and the effect they had on this boy. He was quiet; the expressive brown eyes were suddenly overbright and shimmering unnaturally in the light. A choked sound rose in his throat but he muffled it and turned his head, determined not to let anyone see the tears that were threatening to spill—and determined to hide the furious expression rising on his face.
"Taichi, I'm so sorry but, you know--," Kari put a hand out but he shrugged it off.
"Just go. I—I need some time to think. Just leave me alone." He did not meet their eyes and the two women nodded and walked out, accompanied by the doctor. I sat in the chair and watched him. The sunlight played on his face and hair, accenting the fine angles and lines on his face. There was a hint of gold and orange amongst the darker colored strands of brown and his olive skin was flawless save for the cuts left over by the accident and those would fade with time.
"Should I leave too? Or can I have the great honor of staying with you?" I asked in a light tone, trying to leaven the sadness I could feel emanating from him. He turned to me with angry eyes.
"Why me?" he asked abruptly. "Why did that truck have to hit ME? Why, God? Is it because I don't go to church anymore? Is it because I play football instead of going to your goddamn church?" He was suddenly shouting in a hoarse, cracked tone. "ARE YOU PUNISHING ME, GOD? IS THAT IT? TRYING TO TEACH ME A LESSON, ARE YOU?"
"Taichi, Taichi, calm down." I reached out to him and put a hand on each of his shoulders but he pushed me away, a fist swinging from nowhere and hitting my jaw.
"God, I can't be paralyzed. It's not possible." He stopped fighting as suddenly as he had started yelling. "It's not possible. Please tell me this is just a sick joke." There was defeat on his face, a deep sadness reflected in his eyes and for once, I didn't know what to say. There was no witty remark, no sarcastic comment that I could think of so I did the next best thing; I pulled him into a hug.
"Gerroff me," Taichi grunted, pushing me away. "Look, I don't need your pity or whatever this is you're showing me."
"I'm not pitying you," I replied quickly, knowing how much I hated pity as well. "I—I—well, I know how you're feeling and I know that when I'd felt that way, a hug would've really helped."
"You?" Taichi let out a bitter laugh. "You? Know how I feel? Unless you've ever been paralyzed and completely helpless to help yourself, you have no idea what I'm going through. And seeing as how you can walk just fine, I don't think you've ever been in my situation."
"Maybe not your situation exactly but I do know what it's like to feel helpless, at someone else's mercy. I know what it feels like to want so badly to do something, anything, and knowing that you can't do anything at all just makes you want to scream or cry or both. I know that feeling, Taichi." All too well, I added silently.
"How could you possibly know?" Taichi snapped.
"My brother, Takeru, died of cancer about two years ago. He had started complaining about headaches, massive ones that blinded him with the pain, and I got worried so I took him to the hospital. They X-rayed him and ran some tests and eventually found a mass in his brain about the size of a golf ball. At first they said the mass was nothing, that it was benign, and gave him some painkillers but the headaches got worse. They X-rayed him again and found that the mass had grown.
"He was subjected to chemotherapy radiation. You should have seen him, Taichi. He had always had this—this unconquerable spirit surrounding him and the treatment and futility of the treatment zapped him of all energy he possessed. He used to smile all the time and that smile was so infectious," I smiled sadly, remembering the way he could make anyone feel better, "and just by looking at him, you could see his passion for life. I watched him for two years. Two miserable years that robbed him of his health, strength, and smile. He wasted away right in front of me and there was not a damn thing I could do about it. He had always been there for me when I needed him and when he needed help, I was unable to give it to him. I loved him so much I begged God to make ME sick, anything but what was happening to him. then, one day, he collapsed and never woke up. He was in a coma for two months and I sat at his bedside, hoping, praying that he would wake up. But he never did. Eventually, I told him that if he was suffering, if the pain was just too much, to just—," my voice cracked slightly, "just let go. I wanted so badly to help that I would have gone through the fiery infernos of hell just to heal him but I couldn't.
"So, yes, Taichi, I do understand, to some extent, what you are feeling. But you have a choice. You CAN help yourself. You can choose to stop feeling sorry for yourself and work your ass off or you can sink into a depression. And you should consider yourself lucky that you have a family who cares about you and supports you. You have so many people around you, wanting to help. Your mom and your sister, for starters. And I'm here to help you. Let me."
"I'm sorry," Taichi muttered. "I must have sounded so stupid to you. I can't believe how selfish I was being."
"No, that's okay. Like I said, I understand how you feel. I asked the same thing. God, why Takeru? Why are you taking him away from me?" I smiled. "We've all asked similar questions at one point or another."
"Where were your parents?" he asked, curiously and I stared at him. The one question I couldn't answer, he had to ask.
"They were—busy," I replied shortly, not wishing to discuss the subject further. "Look, I have to go now but I'll be back tomorrow. I'll let you know what I expect of you in terms of effort and stuff like that and I'll explain what I have planned for your exercises. Sound good?"
"Yeah, but, Yamato? Will you be the only one working with me? Like, will you have assistants or things like that?"
"No. I'll be working with you solely. Unless something happens to me and I am unable to make it to the session but that is not likely. Of course, you'll have to wait until everything heals before I let you get off that bed. See you tomorrow, Taichi." I stood to leave when he called out.
"Hey, Yamato, call me Tai, okay?" I looked back and he was staring intently at his blanket, twiddling his thumbs. Was it me or was he blushing? "It's just that—when you call me Taichi, it sounds like my mother when she's angry." I couldn't help it so I laughed.
"Okay, Tai-san. Good-night."
The snow was swirling heavily by the time I got home and never had I been so glad to be inside. Holding a mug of hot tea, I made my way to my favorite part of the house: my library. It was located right behind my bedroom and accessed through a sliding wood panel which blended into the wall so well that one could hardly tell it was there. The room was medium in size, though floor space was very limited. It had a hexagonal shape and the two walls closest to the door were taken up by bookshelves which I had had installed. The three remaining walls were not walls but enormous bay windows going from the ceiling to about two feet off the floor with plushy window seats reaching the rest of the way. What remained of the floor was covered by a soft, fluffy rug. The room was hidden, covered from outside view by trees and plants, which shaded the room but allowed enough light to shine through during the day. I loved the room for its isolation from the world, a place where I could go and just think without a chance of being disturbed. A place I could run to when the world became too much to deal with. It was my safe haven.
I leaned my head against one of the windows and watched my breath mist the cool glass. Why had I told Taichi about my brother? Why had I allowed him to see that much of my emotions just one day after first meeting him? I always worked so hard to hide my feelings and there I was, practically pouring my life story to him.
Yet, he was the type of person that, like my brother, was always so damned happy, so passionate about life that should he be unhappy in any way, it was almost heart-breaking. I wrapped my arms around my knees and snuggled into the soft fabric of my sweater. I thought about his mother and sister and the love that shone in their eyes as they were watching him and the sadness that they felt seeing his reaction to the news. I may have lied a little in implying that with my help, he would definitely walk again but I had not lied when I told him that he was lucky his family cared about him.
I sighed. No wonder he was so happy. He had obviously grown up in an environment that screamed encouraging. His mother looked like someone who stayed home all day and set out a tray of cookies and milk when her children came home from school. His sister was your every-day, normal, run-of-the-mill kid sister who could be a pain in the ass but really was sweet and lovable. I bet Tai was very protective of her and she of him. In other words, his family was the family of whom all the neighbors were jealous and the families one would see in the park, laughing and having a jolly good time. His was the type of family that I hated with every ounce of my being, the ones that gave me a disgusted feeling in the pit of my stomach and whom I scorned and ridiculed in my head.
But this was different somehow. I usually laughed at those families and sneered at their familial traditions, the cozy habits of decorating Christmas trees and getting real presents and whatever those types of families did. Yet, when I watched Tai interact with his mother and sister, I did not feel disgusted nor was I overcome with the sudden violent urge to throw up or gag with the sugary sweetness of it all. No, I merely felt something stir in the pit of my stomach, an emotion I hadn't felt before and did not recognize.
It was only lying in bed hours later that I realized what I was feeling. Immersed as I was in my comparisons to Tai's life and mine, I realized what that feeling was. The feeling I hated with so much passion and tried so hard to suppress: envy. I was envious of Taichi.
A/N: Well, that's it, I suppose. Let me know what you think! I'll have the next chappie up soon… and don't worry… the angst is just beginning!