Chapter Notes: Things aren't always as they seem… You know, of course. Yes, I had to leave you guys with a cliffhanger like that. For everyone who was wondering (cough lovelesssapphiregirl cough), everything Roxas-related will be explained. Eventually, just like everything else.
I'm so sorry for the lateness. I have been busy with classes. I'm behind! I have so many things to do. I will try to continue this story, but it will be slow. Bear with me, please!
Warnings for this chapter: Swearing, Short, Blood, Angst (brief).
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Chapter 7: Idiocy
For once, your stupidity paid off.
"Yeah I'm sure that's the address, fuck!"
"Please try to stay calm, now what's your emergency?"
"My friend shot himself in the head or something, christ, I don't know what's going on! Sora, sora?!"
"An ambulance is on the way. Please calm down and try to control the bleeding. Is he breathing?"
"Yeah, but it's really shallow. That means he's alive, right? Yeah. I think."
"Yes, he's alive. Do not move the body."
"Sora, why would you do this? Why? What did they do to you? Damn it…"
"I'll stay on the line with you until the ambulance arrives. Continue to control the bleeding and listen for the ambulance."
The extent of Riku's hysteria was only rivaled by the equal extent of Sora's unconsciousness. His own tears never came, because although his common logic abandoned him – his dedication and loyalty remained. He knew that the woman wouldn't be able to understand him if he got too hysterical, and it was damn hard holding it back. His voice rose, fell, and gave out occasionally but that was just as calm as he could get. Blood doused his new apparel, the floor, the blanket, and most importantly the phone. Riku found it slipping out of his hands more than he'd have liked because of the damned substance. The rise and fall of Sora's chest was his lifeline, and the lifeline of Riku's sanity. He was alive, and he had to keep him that way. That's all he knew. Ambulance sirens rang out and he bid farewell to the woman on the phone, yelling frantically even when he knew they weren't within earshot yet.
Although he much would have liked to writhe and kick things, he didn't want to be thrown out of the hospital. He didn't quite like being questioned about Sora's injury either, but it was reasonable. Sora's own parents were nowhere to be seen, and Riku seethed at the thought. He knew just who's car that was now, but he couldn't place what he'd done to Sora, and that's without even thinking of Axel and Kairi. I swear to god if Sora's not okay I'll fucking kill them. He ran his hands through his hair, pulled it, stood up and walked around, only to sit back down shortly. He detested hospitals and detested the cheery manner some of the people were going about talking or walking. He hated the 3-10 year old drawings thanking people who probably didn't even work there anymore, and was getting tired of all the staring from random other people in the hospital. Speaking of which, an old woman just next to him spoke up. "Are you alright?" No, he wasn't. His problems were his own though, so he only rubbed his temples before muttering a "Yeah."
Witnessing your friend attempt to suicide is one thing, but to have to wait in a room before finding out whether or not they succeeded was just pure torture. Not to mention Riku just couldn't get over that look that Sora had given him. It was worse than the betrayal. He couldn't stand it if he died and that was the last way he'd looked at him. "Gah." Riku sat up and back against the chair. Sure, he was getting blood in the seat but nobody seemed to want to bother him about it or just didn't care. He'd been offered some reject form of clothing to replace it with, but he couldn't have been less concerned with his appearance at that moment or the chair's for that matter. The sudden violent jolting from the vibrating cellphone in his pocket forcibly shook him out of his thoughts. Instinctively, he pulled it out. He didn't even know the thing worked hence why he'd immediately just gone for Sora's house phone before. He flipped the lid open only to stare at 0:01 instead of the actual name of the person. So much for seeing who was calling before answering. Not that it could be anyone else."Riku?" He put it to his ear and looked up to watch a nurse pass by.
"Yeah, Selphie. That's you, right?"
She giggled in response and attempted to pull off an impression of Sora which, needless to say, didn't fly so well with Riku. "Cut it out. Sora just tried to kill himself. Well maybe he did do it; I don't know what's going on." Selphie gasped followed by a loud cluttering sound like she'd dropped the phone. Riku noted not to hold cellphones close to his ear when talking to her. "What? Is he okay? Are you okay? Ohmygod, that's horrible. It's my fault isn't it? I should have told him about Kairi, I should've warned him!" Riku's throat started to feel constricted again, not to go unaccompanied by the heavy weight of dread. "No, it's not your fault. I could've stepped in a long time ago. He was happy though, I didn't know what to do. I thought maybe he would catch on? I don't know. I didn't want to interfere." Lot of good that did you. He sighed before Selphie began crying on the other end. She didn't even actually know Sora, and yet there she was crying for him.
Some people would consider that weak. In this case, it was just the sign of a genuinely caring person. People express it in different ways, and Selphie's was emotionally blunt. Unfortunately, her sobbing started making it more difficult for Riku to sustain his level of detachment from the situation. "Hey, Selphie. It's okay, alright?" No it's not. "I'm sure he'll be fine, so stop crying." There was a lot of blood. He shot himself in the head; he's not going to be okay. There's no way. Damn it. "D-d-dyou want me to come there? What hospital?" Riku quietly declined and said he had to go because he thought the doctor was coming. That was a lie, but he couldn't stand to talk about it anymore. He didn't even want to be in the situation. He didn't want to think about it and would even like to think it wasn't real.
It seemed like several hours had passed before a young woman finally came to him. He inwardly panicked, because it was often times that women were the ones to deliver bad news about someone dying. They were just able to convey it more gently than men. He stood when she stopped in front of him. Seconds seemed to slip into minutes as he waited for her mouth to open.
"I have good news and bad news. The good news is that your friend is going to be okay."
Riku fell back and down back into the seat behind him and exhaled a breath that he'd felt he'd been holding for hours. He gave a half-assed laugh of relief that dissolved when he remembered she said bad news as well. He looked back up at her, but remained seated. "Okay, but … what's the bad news?"
"Well, the wadding delivered serious damage to his eardrum, and we did the best we could but he's going to be deaf in that ear. Luckily, it prevented it from doing much worse damage. I know it was horrible to make you wait, but we have him in a room now. You can visit him, just follow me?" A blank? Riku stood, unable to conceal his smile as he nodded. Sure, his friend was deaf in one ear now but he was alive. All down the way to Sora's room he'd exhale in relief and smirk occasionally, and stared upwards in the elevator. Once he'd taken a step out of the elevator, his expression darkened as he recalled the last thing Sora had said to him.You guys win. Did he think… this hoody? He thought I was in the Organization again? He'd stopped and the nurse had as well – a few doors ahead. "Sir, are you alright? This is his room." Riku worriedly looked up and nodded before watching her enter and announce him. He stepped in just as the nurse walked past and out, closing the door behind her.
I couldn't even do that right. I couldn't even kill myself right. Haha. That's pathetic.
"Sora…"
Go away…
Sora had been too busy trying not to pay attention to the person who'd entered and focusing on the sky outside to notice as Riku walked over. "Why, Sora?" So it was you. His voice was anything but stoic, and there was a deep sadness that just about anyone could have uprooted. "Why do you care? You're one of them again." This is embarrassing. How do you fail at killing yourself? That's a new kind of stupid. Something only I could pull off. Argh. He continued to stare out the window, although the reflection of Riku was in it now. It's funny how when you're trying your hardest not to see something, you do. He tried to focus on the clouds anyhow, when something else white caught his eye. The placement was strange, so he ended up glancing over to Riku who was taking off the black hoody. It was only now that he was able to see the differences between this one and the last, quite significant differences that only a deep state of mind could have caused to go unnoticed. He saw the most significant of the few when Riku turned it around in front of him. It was the absence of a white roman number. "I'm sorry I couldn't be there…No, I wasn't there. I didn't think … Yeah, that's just it. I didn't think. I…I should've told you about Kairi and … but you were happy, I didn't want to see you…" He looked up from the jacket in time to pick up on Sora's distraught expression. "I didn't want to see you like this, actually."
Sora looked up to return the gaze only to find out there was only one eye in which to gaze at. The other was bandaged. In fact, after further inspection – the blood on his new apparel didn't seem to only come to him. At least, he assumed it might partially be his because the nurse had stated "the young man who helped you." He remembered everything that had happened preceding his failure in HDTV crystal clarity, and he realized exactly what his friend had just been through. He realized exactly what he'd put his only friend through.
"I-I.. I'm ..sor… Kairi… everyone they just -I was so stupid. I let everything...happen and…"
It's funny. Sora was just fine soaking in his hospital bed of apathy or simply thinking about what happened, but when he actually started to say it – it finally settled in and it hurt like hell. Everything that had happened coupled with the fact he hadn't been able to distinguish between a blank capsule and an actual bullet deeming him a moron to himself was too much. He couldn't keep himself from crying anymore. In fact, he started to downright sob, burying his face in his hands in an attempt to shut out the humiliation. Riku walked over and, although he ended up an awkward position because of the bed railing, he hugged him. Sure, Sora was a bumbling sobbing mess that was transferring to his shoulder, but Riku didn't care. "Don't do that again or I'll kill you." Sora choked out a laugh before clutching Riku more tightly. "I'm sorry...I didn't mean to make you sad, I…just wanted everything to stop. I couldn't even do that right!" He finally managed in a sob-free exhale of air.
"I'm sorry, too."
"Attempted suicide victim here, you have to let me see." Sora whined. Riku dodged another reach for the band around his eye. Yeah, and for an attempted suicide kid you sure are happy. Not that that's a bad thing… I'll keep you like this as long as I can. "I had to get Selphie's brother to get us out, we're even. You're supposed to be resting. It's really late...er, early." Riku countered, catching Sora's wrists before he got close enough a fourth time. "Please?" Riku narrowed his eye, "It still hurts. It might not look well, you shouldn't…" Regardless, he released Sora's wrists and allowed the boy to begin unwrapping it. Normally, he couldn't care less what someone thought of him. He normally didn't show emotion or act purely on instinct either, and yet he'd done both of them within 24 hours. Sora's expression softened once he pulled back the final piece.
"Organization XIII did it, didn't they? Because you left for me-"
There was just a hint of regret or some negative tone that Riku didn't want to hear in Sora's voice, so he interrupted him. "No, I've always wanted to leave. I didn't have a good enough reason to until now." Talk about Déjà vu. Sora started to smile, "Want to know what it looks like?" When Riku responded with a no, not really; Sora reached out and started to trail the injury just above his eye with his finger. "It looks like a shooting star. This is the trail, and there's a star in your eye. It's really pretty. Can you see out of it?" Riku had been looking at Sora just fine, but suddenly it was difficult to do just that and even more so to just sit there. He assumed it was because of being called "pretty" and the way Sora had said it. Not to mention not having had anyone touch him like that for a fairly long time. Awkward. He was strangely disappointed but relieved when Sora pulled his hand away just after he muttered a 'No.' "You're smiling and blushing!" Riku hadn't realized he was smiling, another thing that was as scarce an event with him as puddles in the desert. "I don't blush and I wasn't smiling." He flatly stated, but the thoughtful devious look Sora was staring at him with caused him to smile again. "See!" Riku shook his head and stood. "Nah, that was a smirk. Anyways, I should um… probably go. It's late and you're tired, aren't you?" No, he didn't want to go but as we're all well aware – he wasn't one to impose on others. Not to mention he was still feeling disturbingly awkward.
"W-wait! Don't leave. I.. it's Saturday or maybe Friday, I don't know – but it's not a school day or anything and even if it was I could get you clothes or someth-…"
"Christ Sora, okay. I'll stay." He surveyed the younger's tired eyes, "If you sleep." Sora's brows furrowed in worry as Riku sat back down in the chair next to the bed. "Don't worry, I'll watch you and I won't leave. Get some rest." He rubbed the eye with the palm of his hand that didn't risk infection, as the brunette simultaneously rubbed the back of his neck."But you're tired too, I can see it...and I'm not going to make you um, sit, you can sleep in the bed... it's really big and I don't move or snore or anything like that." Riku raised a brow. It was true that sitting would have been rather uncomfortable, but he couldn't sleep in the same bed as him. That'd be awkward. "I'll pass, I'm good with chairs." Sora glared, "No. I'd feel bad. I'll sit in the chair, then!" Riku chuckled before standing again. "Alright, you win. I'll sleep with you." Sora's face reddened before his expression dwindled into one Riku had never seen before. His godly intuition kicked in, and just that short moment was enough to arouse suspicion.
"Is that what he made you do? Axel?"
Sora's demeanor suddenly changed. He shifted over into an estranged happy sadness, and that confirmed Riku's thoughts for him. "Oh and, you should take your wannabe Organization XIII jacket and stuff before you lay down. They're really dirty." Sora was hoping it would work. He didn't want to talk or think about what had happened. The thought that Riku didn't actually know what happened made him happier, but that was accompanied with the burden of secrecy. He scooted backwards and slipped the covers over him before sliding over to the other side of the bed to allow Riku access to the nearest side. It probably would have been a better idea to suggest a shower, but Riku was so tired he'd most likely have declined that anyhow. Out of the corner of his eye, Sora could see enough movement that confirmed that his friend was taking his advice and undressing so he turned entirely on his side. Although the situation was absent of that profound anxiety ridden ambiance, Sora felt a new kind of discomfort.
He wasn't quite sure exactly how tired he was now. He'd evenly distributed pillows between the sides, laid down, and already he was starting to dose. Riku had been sitting on the edge of the bed for a while, and finally shifted to lie down as well. As a welcomed dreamy fog overcame Sora, he thought he heard Riku mutter something along the lines of-
"I'll kill him."
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PS: Blanks can actually kill you. Don't try it. Bit of fanservice in there. Right now, I'm not a doctor. However, given the angle and just how far the gun was from his head I'm making assumptions. That's all I've got goin' for me right now.
