Hey. I'm alive. Don't hate me. Send me some love, you have no idea how much it helps. (Although, not gonna lie, I've been spending a lot of my time on Archive of our own)
Yamato
As I approach the driveway of Hiroshi's house, I notice Kai's truck immediately. "Oh no," I say out loud, causing Kali to look up at me. It is getting dark now though, I've been gone hours. I'm hungry, tired, and my body aches.
Not far off is Taichi's mom's car. "Fuck." Kali whines. And of course, worst of all, is the social workers bright orange car. Taichi is sitting outside and notices me, but doesn't move. He offers me a smile. I keep walking up the driveway. Kali starts barking, and it brings out the other people inside the house. Takeru, who comes flying down the driveway to hug me, Hikari, Taichi's mom, Kai, my social workers, and of course, Hiroshi.
Takeru clings to my shirt as we make our way slowly to the other people. Taichi's mother approaches me next.
"How could you do that!?" She demands, before yanking me into a hug that makes my head throb. I have no fight in me, so I don't try and pull away, but I stare blankly past Taichi, who convinces his mom to let me go by tugging on her arm.
Kali stays protectively by my feet as the social worker and Kai demand to know what the hell I was thinking. I don't answer. I stare blankly at the door, desperately wanting to go and sit. When the social worker (why can't I remember her name?) raises her voice, I jump. Kali snarls and takes a snap at her feet, causing her to leap back. Hiroshi tells everyone to stop yelling. By yelling over them.
"I'm willing to bet he's sore and hungry, so maybe questioning can wait until tomorrow."
"When I'm drugged really good?" I ask. Hiroshi rolls his eyes.
"Your drugs aren't that good, unfortunately." I sigh, but he waves me inside, and I go. Kali trots happily along beside me. Takeru still clings to me, only detaching once we're inside. I hear Hiroshi and Taichi talking in hushed voices behind me, but mostly choose to ignore them.
As we head down the hallway in a huge file of people, Taichi's hand touch my back, and propels me past my door, like he thinks I'm going to hide in there. I know it's Taichi, because Hiroshi won't touch me if I'm not looking at him, and Taichi gives off heat. Like his own little sun or something. Hiroshi doesn't. At least I don't think so. Once we're past my room, Taichi's hands drop, and I almost miss them. I'm freezing.
I collapse onto the couch, and Hiroshi keeps moving. Past all of us and into the kitchen, I assume to get me food and water. And pain killers. Please, please, please let him bring me pain killers. Takeru hops up with me, and nestles himself firmly into my side. My chest and head go thump, thump, thump, thump in time with his breathing and my heart beat. I can't be bothered to tell him to move. Who knows when I'll see him again.
The room is mostly silent. Kali is still at my feet, panting. The silence stretches on. Until Taichi breaks it.
"You and 'the dog' are friends now?" He asks.
"She isn't so bad." I say quietly. Kali's tail thumps at my voice. I fell the weight of her head ontop of my foot. The room goes quiet again.
Hiroshi comes back, water and food in his hand. He places it on the table, which I can't reach, before addressing the room as a whole. "I'm sure Yamato is tired. He needs to eat, take his medication and sleep. Maybe tomorrow he'll be up for talking."
I splutter out a laugh, which makes them all look at me. He basically, very polietly told them to get the fuck out. But apparently they're not getting the message because after a few seconds where no one moves, Hiroshi sighs.
"Please leave so I can deal with Yamato." Takeru curls tighter into my side, and I pat the side of his head.
"I'll see you later," I whisper to him. Takeru squeezes against me again, before sliding off the couch to follow Taichi's mom away from me. Taichi and Hikari follow after them. Taichi throws me a look over his shoulder, which I pretend not to see.
The social worker and Kai are a littler harder to convince to go, but eventually, Hiroshi gets them away. He offers me the plate of food and water. I eat silently. I thought I was hungry, but now that the room is empty, and my brain isn't fighting the urge to run, the real pain starts to settle in and I lose my appetite.
When Hiroshi notices, he holds his hand out, and offers me pain killers. I take them with the water.
"So," Hiroshi starts. "What happened, exactly?" I shrug, not having the energy to answer. "You and Kali are friends now?" He asks.
"Yeah, she was good. Kept me safe," I mumble. Hiroshi makes a noise in the back of his throat that I don't really understand.
"Then she did her job." He says to me, then to Kali, "Good girl." Kali's tail thumps against the floor.
The room falls silent, my eye's slipping closed. I hear Hiroshi get up, I just can't bring myself to open my eyes. He walks away, then I jerk as something is draped across me. Hiroshi has thrown a blanket over me.
"We are going to talk about this," I hear him mutter. I don't answer, falling into sleep.
I wake up on the couch alone. I'm not at Hiroshi's place, and I know I fell asleep there. The entire house is deathy silent.
Slowly, I sit up. "Kali?" I call into the gloom of the house. I can't see more then a few feet in front of me, so I guess it's late. Kali doesn't come. "Hiroshi?" I try.
Still nothing. Only silence. I bunch the blanket to the side before standing up and glancing around the other side of the couch. Something about the place is so familiar. It hurts, and my body wants me to run as far and as fast as I can.
The floor below me is wood, and it's cold. I take a few steps forward, and I make no sound. No footsteps, or clothing rubbing against clothing, no sound of my breathing, even though my chest is heaving.
I move towards the darkest place of black, that I assume is a doorway, because I have no idea what else I can do. The feeling to run in the opposite direction gets worse the closer I move towards the should be doorway, but there's doesn't look to be anyway out of the room.
As I get closer, it becomes clear that it is a door way. The closer I get, the brighter it becomes on the other side. Things come into focus. A coat stand, a shelf, stairs.
There's something on the floor in front of the stairs, though, that's just a black mass. I step through the door and light floods the room. The black mass becomes clear.
I try to scream, but there's still no noise. I stare at the form of Takeru on the floor, blood surrounding him. He's pale, and so obviously dead. The location hits me so suddenly I jerk...
My eyes snap open and I jerk off the couch, smashing into the table in the process. Kali darts to her feet, and I hear Hiroshi's feet above me.
"Yamato?" He calls. I don't answer, still too dazed by my dream. His footsteps pad down the stairs.
I shiver violently. "Yamato?" He asks again, softly. All I can do is hide my face in my hands.
Hiroshi
I sit behind Yamato as he holds his head in his hands and just breathes. There's nothing more I can do, right now. As much as I'd like to reach out and touch him, somehow I just know he doesn't want the contact. Eventually, though, Kali nudges her way under his arm, and licks his face.
"Don't," Yamato grumbles at her. Kali ignores him, and licks his fingers. When that doesn't work she starts to tug on his shirt. "Alright," He finally says, and looks up at her. Kali's tail wags wildly back and forth. Yamato just manages to clear the nothing off his face, into something that's still blank but not empty.
I decide to busy myself with drinks. I make us hot chocolate, because..why not? Yamato accepts his mug when I pass it to him, but has one sip, winces, and abondons it on the table. After we sit in silence, with Yamato staring at nothing on the wall, and me watching Yamato and drinking my hot chocolate, Yamato looks like he's fighting sleep.
"Ready to talk yet?" I ask. Yamato doesn't respond to me, having not actually heard me or doing a damn good job at pretending he hadn't. "Yamato." I say, firmly.
His head turns towards my voice but there's nothing in his eyes to say he, himself, is actually there. I sigh.
"No, I guess not." I tell him. There's no response to this, either.
I spend the rest of the night watching him struggle to stay awake, and when he fails jerking back into an empty awareness.