Chapter 25: "'Sorry' is the Hardest Word to Say"
By the time Hihara and Shimizu had returned to the hotel, most everyone else was reassembled in the downstairs conference room. They were back hard at work practicing. Hihara manfully decides to go on up and have it out with Yunoki in their room to see what was wrong and if he could help. He leaves Shimizu holding the box of donuts and cookies to divvy out to the musicians.
Fuyuumi felt especially lucky, when her special Austrian marzipan cookie was personalized. The other girls were all presented with lovely frosted blue-and-white angel cookies, while Fuyuumi received a singular yellow and fuchsia pink-frocked aqua haired one. Shimizu's smile as he handed it to her was as golden as the tiny angel's halo.
Once the cookies and donuts were either politely accepted or greedily devoured on the spot, the group of musicians/fangirls (hee hee) begins to settle back to their ensemble practice. Ousaki, who had arranged during lunch time to help out, was there to pick up the reins as OB in charge of the group's musical lead that Hihara and Yunoki left open.
They had all just started to play when Hihara comes barreling back in, a look of sheer terror on his panting face.
"Yunoki! Yunoki!" Hihara was almost hyperventilating, looking like he had just run a marathon.
And he had.
Running as he's never run before, down the hallway, dashing down the stairwell from the sixth floor, racing through hallways, across the lobby and into the conference room like a madman, his eyes were wild with panic.
"Hihara-kun, calm down." Ousaki grabs the boy's tense shoulders and gives them a shake, as Hihara was almost incoherent in his panting.
"Yunoki!" Hihara's terrified look causes more than a few gasps from the girls. Hino rushes over to him, clutching his arm to give him support, though steeling herself for the worst. Her eyes meet Tsukimori's, and he was at her side immediately.
"Hurry! I found him in our room lying on the floor!Yunoki won't wake up!" Hihara huffs fiercely, breaking down in anguished tears as everyone stares at him in horror and fear for their ever suave, though secretly eccentric, wealthy friend.
Paralyzed with fear, frozen still like many of the others, Hino begins to shiver as frightened eyes dart around the room wildly for what to do. Good thing coolheaded Ousaki Shinobu had just arrived. He exchanges a short nod with Tsukimori, as he instructs the remainder of the musicians and girls to:
"Please stay here and stay calm, everyone." Ousaki leaves the room momentarily to inform the front hotel desk to call their in-house medic to Yunoki's room.
"Come with me, Hihara-kun." Quickly, Ousaki returns, putting a comforting yet urgent arm around the sobbing boy's shoulders as the two men swiftly depart.
"I hope Yunoki-san's all right." Kaji says, his brow concerned for his cousin as several of the others nod in agreement. Fuyuumi's palm goes over her trembling lips in shock
Hino was fighting the urge to rush out and dash upstairs, when she feels a cool hand slip into hers.
"Huh?" she asks, looking into a golden pair of determined, understanding eyes.
Silently, wordlessly, his hand in hers, pulls her forward and out of the conference room and into the elevator in clipped haste.
"Tsukimori-kun?" She wonders aloud, her head reeling. But neither of them say a word. Before she knows it, Tsukimori Len had her on the hotel's sixth floor, rapidly traversing the halls towards room 606.
Yunoki Azuma's room.
Thank you. Hino tearfully mouths to the blue boy who knew her feelings so well, so as one they had become, as he swiftly opens the door with the final stalwart glance into Hino's eyes, as if reaching to reassure her, as they enter.
Laboring for breath, Yunoki was lying still on the floor, his sister Miyabi, whom Hihara had quickly stuck his head into her room, informing of her brother's illness, was nowhere in sight.
Hino was about to go to him, to see how he was doing, the distress on his normally smooth-talking, elegant face apparent in his unconscious state,when she hears a terrible wail coming from the other side of the wall.
"AZUMA-SAMA!" Ayano Takashina was a mess, her normally pristine dress and hair style in ruins, her porcelain doll's face awash with terrified tears as she appears, crashing through the door in a very unsophisticated, unladylike manner.
"Azuma-sama!" The girl was a shipwreck, never once seeing either Tsukimori or Hino, her eyes only for her unconscious love. Ayano falls down to her knees at Yunoki's side, throwing herself bodily upon him, totally ignoring the fact that she was in nothing more than a crumpled nightgown and bare feet. Ayano had rushed straight from her tearful bed when she heard Hihara's frantic call into their room next door. Miyabi's pleas and cries on the phone to the hotel lobby for someone to send aid up to her passed out brother had mobilized the frightened dark-haired girl.
"Azuma-sama! DON'T LEAVE ME! AZUMA-SAMA! Ayano forgives you anything. Ayano loves you anyway." She was hysterical by now. Crying herself, Hino crosses over to the girl, trying to pry her devastated form from its prostrate position over her beloved.
"No! Please do not take me from him!"
Miyabi soon returns to the room, the young girl somehow finding enough inner strength to calmly place the phone call at Hihara's command. And now she was not a weeping mess at her favorite brother's side as was his fiancée. No, Miyabi would be strong for him, and she helps Hino with Ayano. Both the young women try to calm the hysterical girl gently, pulling her away altogether from Yunoki's limp body. Tsukimori Len then takes over, and lifts Yunoki's still struggling for breath frame from the floor, to place him on the bed. Tsukimori then checks the indigo man's pulse with concerned knitted eyebrows.
Yunoki's pulse was as erratic as his breathing. Tsukimori was shaken at first when Yunoki's pulse rate was all but nonexistent. But blessedly, after a few seconds, Yunoki's breath comes out roughly, his pulse increasing to an abnormally quick rate. Good thing Tsukimori was not one to freak out immediately, for the three crying girls in the room would've truly gone hysterical if he had not kept his own council. Up and down, fast and slow, stop and start, Yunoki's pulse and breathing play tricks on poor Tsukimori, and the violinist was beyond grateful when Hihara and Ousaki come rushing in with the hotel house doctor they had gone in search of right behind them.
After several silent anxious minutes of the doctor's ministrations with an experienced stethoscope and heart rate meter, the older man turns to the tense group with a grave expression on his face.
"It appears this young man has not been taking proper care of himself, and is now suffering the ill effects with some type of nervous breakdown." He gives his decisive diagnosis, his Austrian accent thick and thought provoking.
"Oh no." Hino breathes into Ayano's sobbing head as Miyabi clutches Hihara's hand, giving each other support in this time of mutual need.
"Are any of you his relations?" The doctor asked, whilst rechecking his patient's unusual, ever-changing pulse rate
"I - I am his sister, sir." Miyabi steps forward with a calmness that was to be commended for her years, with a not-so-collected Hihara at her side.
"Gut." The Austrian doctor seemed at last to meet Miyabi's small but steady gaze.
"Your brother's going to need for you to be strong, Miss -?"
"Yunoki." Hihara fills in her name and that of his best friend, the doctor noting this young man's bond with the siblings, as well.
"Yes, Miss Yunoki. You're going to have to keep a close eye on him-the next few hours are going to be critical ones." The doctor says, his warning as kindly as possible, though he's seen cases like this before where the patient's mind could snap irrevocably at any moment, if not properly monitored. He refrains from saying this though, as, when Yunoki's breathing intensifies in speed, the doctor checks his varied pulse rate yet again. Then the doctor returns to Miyabi with a clinical, wary look in his aged eye.
"Are you aware if your brother has had an emotional breakdown that led to a physical one like this before?"
Miyabi shoots a distressed look at Hihara for help, the doctor picking up the curious intonation there.
"Nothing like this." Hihara answers honestly
"But he has had episodes of strange behavior?"
"Well...sometimes... but he's never been actually sick..." Hihara says cautiously, not quite knowing what to say. He hadn't known for certain, for years. Sure, Yunoki had his weird moments - but-
"If your brother has been displaying odd hot and cold moods, it may be due to some imbalance in his metabolism. He does appear to be rather malnourished." The doctor lifts Yunoki's limp and dreadfully bony forearm to prove his point. Yunoki Azuma had carried himself with such elegance and poise that none had noticed his rather frail, underweight form, nor the sunken unhealthy look to his highbred cheeks.
Not a one of us. Not even me. And I should have noticed. What kind of friend am I? Hihara hits himself hard mentally, for being so unobservant of his best friend's troubles.
"I did note how light he was to lift to the bed." Tsukimori says matter-of-factly. No full-grown man should be that light weight.
"Yes, this young man needs proper nutrition. I'll prescribe for him some nutrient boosters and supplements that will have to be administered routinely, along with a regimen of healthy meals. I'll lay out a plan for you for when he's awake again, Miss Yunoki." Miyabi nods as the doctor fills out some papers and hands them to an eager-to-help-out Ousaki Shinobu, who goes right out to fill the prescription at the pharmacy. Resourceful Amou Nami (who had been intensely listening at the door) had already GPS-ed the nearest drugstore and had informed the pharmacy of their arrival. She had read out the prescription to them over the phone to prepare them, as she directs Ousaki there as soon as he appears from the door, like the seasoned pro she was in emergencies.
"I will be back to check on and administer the supplement injections periodically. Please keep up your own strength in the meantime. I'll go fetch my other bag." The white-haired doctor leaves to get his medical kit for needle injections from hotel's medic center.
"Ich werde dir helfen mit ihre Tasche, Doktor." (I'll help you with your bags, Doctor.) Tsukimori offers the older man politely in German. Len had become even more fluent in the language during his two years spent here. Tsukimori exchanges a calm glance with Hino before he exits the door.
"Vielen Dank, junger Mann." (Thank you, young man.) The elderly gentleman was grateful for any assistance from the well spoken young man. Besides his general politeness, Tsukimori Len was uncomfortable that he was intruding on the emotional feminine turmoil in the room and felt that it would be better if he was not present in the more delicate sex's affairs.
He would leave that in Hino's capable gentle hands, which were still embracing Ayano. The girl's devastated wails had calmed to quieter sobs by now, but her heart ached visibly on the harsh lines creasing her usually flawless face.
"Why didn't I see it? I, of all people. should have seen it! Yunoki's my best friend and I never knew! Stupid Kazuki!" Another heart broken for Yunoki Azuma, Hihara Kazuki starts blaming himself, pounding his dumb numbskull with the back of his hand on the other side of the room, where he stood at Yunoki's bedside.
Miyabi stops his self inflicted pain, wrapping her arms protectively around Hihara's poor head, pulling it to her chest for comfort instead.
"Don't blame yourself, couldn't have known. I didn't know either. Shh." Miyabi murmurs over him. From this scene, one would never have thought she was the younger, more fragile of the species.
"Yunoki-senpai's going to be all right, Ayano-san. The doctor said that we just have to take good care of him, to make him well in body and mind with our love." Hino, too, finds the wherewithall to reassure the distraught girl in her arms.
It was as if a spark of light went off in Ayano's head at Hino's words. All the dark devastation she was sinking in, not just now, but for days, parts to reveal, through Hino Kahoko's golden shining words, a ray of hope glimmering brightly, stemming from her great devotion.
"To make him well in body and mind, with my love."Ayano whispers the positive phrase. She slowly opens her teary eyes and gives Hino an inspired smile that tells Hino this delicate young girl would try to be as strong as her love for him could be.
And that was strong, indeed. Ayano collects herself up and goes to her fiancé's bedside, sitting down and taking his cold bony unconscious hand in her warm, no longer trembling ones.
"Ayano's here, Azuma-sama. Ayano always has been. Ayano always will be."
In this moment Ayano could see the fragile heart behind the eyes that miraculously flutter open, albeit vaguely weak, meet her gaze of assured love. It was as if Yunoki could sense her presence and needed terribly to say something to the girl he'd hurt so many times, before time and tide made it too late.
"Ayano." Yunoki's once so-confident voice was small and thin as he was about to utter two words he's never said to anyone before in his entire self-absorbed, self-pitying life.
"I'm sorry."
The tears, the sadness, the agony and the pain he had inflicted upon this lovely loyal creature over the years, ever since they met as small children, through no fault of her own, had been preying on his warped mind in ways even Yunoki Azuma didn't conceptualize.
Until now.
For amidst his unconsciousness, he had felt her gracious presence, her soft hands upon his, her warmth so generously given to he who deserved nothing but her contempt. And Yunoki Azuma's confused, distorted spirit, for once, is too weak to fight his true heart any longer, as he realizes what this girl's unfailing love now meant to him.
A future where there was really no difference in up or down, left or right, back or forth, black or white- there was only unchangeable, unshakable love. For, no matter who he's been or what he's done, he had still the constancy of Ayano's love.
A love that even enigmatic Yunoki Azuma no longer wished to deny.