Chapter Nineteen
He heard a rustling sound behind him, and twisted around to look as the patient from the other bed emerged, tousled hair the color of fiery coals shining with darker highlights in the yellow rays of sunlight. The stunned gaze that was holding his own could not have further mirrored the flare of astonishment in his own eyes.
Silence stretched between them.
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Even as he took in the sight of the pale fingers twined around the motionless hand of the other, he could sense the dark blue gaze leaving his face and coming to rest on his bandaged hands.
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"You saved him." It was not a question, neither was it a statement. He rose to his feet, putting his lover's hand gently down back on the cotton sheets and then turning back to face the redhead. Moving forward quietly, he approached the redhead, gazing wordlessly into the eyes that met his directly, frankly. And without warning, he reached forward and caught the bandaged hands, tenderly, softly.
He is everything to me. And you…you were there when I wasn't.
"Thank you."
He looked so heartbreakingly beautiful, standing there, looking back at him. Rukawa trailed the contours of the face, down to the softly curving leanness of body before him. If anything, the first night he had looked at this man, everything he had been aware of was only heightened, emphasized, elaborated on in the light of day. The fluid movements, the easy-going, confident grace that he was faced with now, coupled with the intensity of the emotions he had been tortured with these hours and past, made him remember the words of barely forty-eight hours ago, the words he had mused to himself, the memory of it etched in his mind.
I think about another man, yet I still feel the same way for you. I wonder how his lips will taste, yet my blood still hungers for the sweetness of your mouth. I want to touch him, to see how he feels, and yet my fingers still long for your skin.
And it was true. He wanted. And he wanted with a passion. But he couldn't. Not now, when Sendoh needed him.
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The whisper was soft, but he caught it as though it had been said clearly aloud. There was a lump in his throat as the man whom he knew only as Lincoln brought both his wounded hands up and looked at them intently, before his gaze flickered up to center on his face. In that gaze, indecision warred with want, and he flinched. Unbidden, an image of Haruko came to him, her smiling face, only to be replaced by that of the breathing, living man in front of him, and he pulled away, trembling slightly.
It's true, isn't it? I put so many other faces in front of the one I want.
His gaze slid past Lincoln to focus on the sleeping figure on the bed. I don't know him. But I know that I want him. There's something about them both. And it's pulling me apart, shred by shred.
The phone began to ring on his side, jolting the dreamlike world he had been in. Remembering that someone else was asleep, he turned quickly, hobbling back to the bed, trying to forget of Lincoln's presence, and succeeding completely when he heard the voice on the other line.
"Hanamichi, you made the front page!"
Blinking, he shook his head, then remembered that the other could not see him. "Yohei?" he whispered. And then the humor went out of his friend's voice.
"Are you all right?"
He gulped and looked at his hands, fighting the sudden urge to give in to despair, and forcing cheer into his voice. "I'm fine," he answered quietly.
Yohei was silent for a moment. "I'm just going to pick your parents up, and then we'll be right there to see you, okay?"
Hanamichi closed his eyes and exhaled. "I can't—I can't—" I can't deal with twenty questions right now…
"Don't worry," his best friend cut in soothingly. He could almost see the lopsided smile that he suddenly heard in the tone, beside the concern and reassurance. "I've told them not to ask." Another pause. "Don't shut us out, Hanamichi…it's not polite."
And, hearing that mock berating, for the first time since he had put on his shoes that fateful morning and run to the truth of his heart, he laughed.