The second of the visitation chapters. Ayame is acting like a total ass, but there's justification for it, don't you agree?

Hope you enjoy it.

Jiia

The door exploded inwards with enough force to set it crooked in its hinges. A shrieking ball barrelled into the room, an absolute whirlwind of black braided hair and glimmering glass lenses. Mine threw herself upon the injured man, ignoring the belated protests of the assorted hospital staff. Only the strangled gasp of her beloved boss, unable to defend himself from her violent concern managed to convince her frantic mind to release him from her sobbing grip of death.

"Ayame-sama!! How could you have DONE such a thing?!" She wailed, her slender seamstress' fingers clenching in the thin fabric of his hospital gown. "How could you?!"

For the first time in a long, long while, Ayame was struck speechless. The beautiful man just sat there, staring at his shaking assistant. He blinked his large golden eyes, arms unconsciously pulling at the restraints as he automatically tried to comfort the distraught girl. He opened his mouth to say something, but seemed to be too shocked by his assistant's sudden arrival to form a coherent thought, let alone put it into words.

"M-Mine?! What are you doing here?!" He finally stammered, isolated patches of red flaring up on his pallid cheeks. "Who called you?!"

"Hatori-san, of course!" The girl sobbed, pressing her forehead into his shoulder. "Why would you do that to yourself, Ayame-sama? Why would you try and... and..."

He blinked again, red spots fading and then surging back, covering most of his face as his beautiful face contorted with impotent rage.

"Hatori called you and said I tried to kill myself, didn't he? God damn him!" He slammed his arms against the metal railing of the hospital bed, startling the woman curled up on his chest and making her scamper backwards. "I told him not to say anything!"

"But he had too!" Mine squeaked, suddenly more fearful of her boss than for him. "You can't just keep things like that a secret, Ayame-sama!"

Ayame ground his teeth together, practically snarling at the poor frightened girl. His delicate fingers curled inwards, perfectly manicured nails digging into his palms almost hard enough to draw blood. His entire body shook with rage and frustration at being strapped down when all he wanted to do was go forth and commit murder.

"I didn't try and kill myself! Hatori's just saying that because he wants to get me committed!" He snapped, slamming his battered arms against the rail again.

Mine blinked, backing up until her legs teetered on the foot of his bed.

"Wha...? But Hatori-san wouldn't do something like that. He's your friend!"

"That's what he said, too!" Ayame growled between grit teeth. "He says he's my friend, that he cares about me. Ha! As if that's even remotely true."

Suddenly, all the energy seemed to just drain from his body. He slumped back against the mound of pillows piled up behind him, what flickering light that had burned within his eyes disappearing, leaving them dull, lifeless. He seemed the very image of pain, hopeless and tired, so very tired.

"If he cared, he wouldn't have left."

For a long while, only the quiet thrum of the fluorescent lights broke the heavy silence that hung over the room. Ayame looked out the window, gaze unseeing, lost in some private hell where no one could reach him, not even his exuberant friend. She reached out a shaking hand to touch his shoulder, to try and provide some comfort, some assurance that he wasn't as alone as he seemed.

He slapped her hand away, hard enough to sting.

She left the room in tears.

Yuki didn't want to go to visit his older brother. He would really have much preferred doing his chemistry homework, or going to the movies with Mayuko. In fact, there was really very little that he wouldn't rather be doing than walking down the eerie bleach-clean halls of the hospital. But of course Tohru had to go, and Shigure wanted to come with her, and there was no way in hell he was letting that man alone with her, especially not with Ayame in the room. The only real positive about the trip was that Kyo had refused to come, giving the young man a few precious minutes without the annoying young man.

Although he felt considerably less pleased by this than he thought he would have. In fact, he wished the cat had come, if only to have someone to talk to who wasn't in some sort of hysterics over his goofball sibling.

Tohru he could understand. She panicked over paper cuts. It wasn't at all surprising that a trip to the hospital would make her go berserk. Her trembling anxiety was more or less expected.

No, it was Shigure's badly hidden panic that really bothered him. The older man did a wonderful job of hiding the shear terror lurking just beneath the surface of his serene exterior. He wouldn't have been able to spot it if he hadn't been so accustomed to hiding his own despair. Once you realized it, however, it was everywhere, in every action he took. The way he put his hand on Tohru's shoulder, without any ulterior motive, as much to steady him as to steady her. The way he wouldn't meet Yuki's eye, avoided looking at him at all costs. The way his dark eyes glittered with the barest film of unshed tears.

It was horribly unsettling, seeing Shigure like that. He knew the two of them had been close, best friends and more besides, but he somehow couldn't see the dog getting that worked up over a little injury.

There had to be something more going on.

It was with an ever increasing sense of dread that he pulled open the badly hung door and unleashed the sobbing rice ball that was Tohru onto his unsuspecting brother.

The phone call had gone something like this.

"Sohma residence."

"Yuki? This is Hatori. Could I talk to Shigure for a moment?"

"Sure. He's in his office right now. Did something happen."

"... There's been an... accident. With your brother."

"What happened? Did he fall into a bucket of needles or something?"

"... He fell through a window. He got pretty badly cut up, and they had to take him to the hospital. He's going to be ok, but it might be a good idea if you went to see him."

"I'm sorry, Hatori, but it's the end of the year and you know how busy you get-"

"Yuki. Go see him."

"... Fine."

And then Shigure had materialized out of nowhere, saying something crude about not paying the telephone bills so he could have phone sex with one of his random groupies, and he'd thrown the receiver at the man, and went to go get his coat.