~*!HaPpY NeW YeAr!*~
A/N: Grr... Stupid ff.net screwed up with uploading chapter 9. I really tried to fix it, but I came to the conclusion that it was rather impossible task for me(not very good with computers) so I decided to post it _again_... *sigh* Hope it works! I'll just have to wait and see, I guess...
Fallin' to pieces part nine:
{~Tai's POV~}
Is there anything that's better than a warm, cosy bed in the morning? Well, only if you don't have to get to school, that is... The answer is no. At least I think so!
I wasn't really awake yet, being more asleep than up and about.
Rolling over in the bed, I suddenly found that the bed... well, wasn't there under me any longer.
With a loud thud, I landed on the floor, all tangled up in the white quilt and a plastic figure of a spider somehow stuck in my hair. I blinked, thinking that I probably should try and *organize* my room a tad more. Or a lot more... Or maybe I could just leave it be... I mean I honestly liked it as it was...
When I had gotten myself out of the quilt and in some way managed to get the plastic spider out of my hair, I yawned deeply, then stretched hearing my back making small cracking noises.
"Kaa~," I stopped for a second, letting another yawn escape my lips, "~riii?"
"Yeah?" my sister answered from downstairs.
"Don't eat the last of the bread!"
I didn't receive a reply, but didn't really care; Kari was way too sweet to let me starve. Or at least that was what I thought.
When I, about fifteen minutes later, climbed down the stairs, she had just finished the last piece of bread we had in the house.
"Kari!" I pouted, accusingly looking at her, "When did you start eating so much?"
"Don't worry, there's some yoghurt in the fridge," Kari said, then smiled, "I've learned from the best"
"Yeah, yeah..." I quickly found the yoghurt and sat down by the table.
We ate under silence for a while, but then Kari spoke.
"So, how's Matt doing?" she asked.
"Oh, he's doing fine I guess," My voice trailed off as I remembered what ms Matsuoka had decided about him and Tk, "Though that lawyer is making everything a *lot* worse"
"What about him?"
"She," I said, putting some extra empathising on the word, "has decided that Tk will be adopted by some family and that Matt will be sent to an orphanage."
"What!?" Kari nearly spluttered milk all over the table.
"You heard right. That cow signed the contract herself when Matt didn't! I was there. I saw it with my own two eyes!" I crossed my arms over my chest and scowled, "I hate her!"
Irritably gulping down a few more spoons of the strawberry yoghurt, I heard Kari say something.
"Come again?"
"Is she really allowed to do that?" Kari repeated.
For a moment, I just sat there, my mind suddenly seeing a flicker of hope.
"I... I don't know," I hesitated. Kari looked at me. "But we can always find out..."
{~Matt's POV~}
"As you already know, mr Ishida will be out of the hospital on Monday," ms Matsuoka told us in her customary strict voice. "I have informed the Yu family of this and they will be here to take you, Mr Takaishi, to you new home three o'clock. And your ride to the orphanage," she turned her stone face to me, "will arrive at the same time, so that you two have the time to say goodbye."
None of us said a thing. What could we have said anyway?
'No, I don't wanna!'
Sure.
Ms Matsuoka talked, no scratch that... Ms Matsuoka doesn't 'talk', she *informs*. So ms Matsuoka informed us some more, but I didn't really listen to what she had to say. Before I knew it, she had risen from the chair, and exited the small room, the clapping sounds of her high heels echoing in the corridors. As every time, she had kept her visit short and very formal.
Crossing my arms over my chest in an almost defeated way, I let out a heavy sigh. God, I hated her guts. What did she have against us? Hadn't we been through enough without her coming along, smashing another toboggan of problems in our heads?
I felt so small. As if the ground I was standing on was dissolving right under my feet and that there was nothing left for me to hold on to... Maybe that was one of the things that parents were supposed to do for you? To be a steady rock for you to hold on to when you felt like nothing else was there. To hug you and tell you that everything would turn out okay.
Suddenly, it was like if there was an empty space around me. A space where someone would have been, giving me that back-up I really needed now...
Friends could offer some of that encouragement, but the part I missed was the one I couldn't get. The one that only a grown up could give me.
All I could prey for was that this "Yu-couple" would provide Tk with that. Maybe they would let me come visit from time to time? I hoped so...
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
I sent the clock a quick glance before shoving the last of my belongings into the bag. It showed two fifty-one pm.
"You done?" I asked Tk. The doctors and nurses who worked in the hospital had been kind enough to let him spend the night here in my small room. He nodded, his face tear streaked and his eyes red and swollen. It was easy to tell that he felt just as bad as I did.
Swinging the bag over my shoulder, I sighed, almost wishing that I would just fall over so that Tk and I could stay here, if only for a little longer.
"Let's go then," Tk stood up and I opened the door.
The way through the corridors, down to the entrance hall was probably the longest one I have ever walked. But after what had seemed like an endless eternity of apprehensiveness, we got to the doorway, the lump in throat now nearly choking me.
When we were about to go out of the hospital, Tk grabbed my hand. I looked down on him. His blue eyes were set on two persons outside. Both of them seemed nice enough, the smiling and expectant man holding an arm around his chubby wife. Next to them, ms Matsuoka was, not a single emotion showing in her strict face, and last, a few metres away from the Yu's red Volvo, a white van was parked, one door open. The man sitting in the van didn't seem to be that bad, I guessed, but I didn't like him anyway.
Realizing that we had stopped, I made myself move again, making my and Tk's way out to the street.
At the first sight of Tk, mrs Yu squeaked excitedly and her husbands smile grew wider. When the guy from the orphanage saw me, he got out of the car and greeted me with a "Hey, kid"
Tk didn't return mr and mrs Yu's smiles and neither did I.
My lips tightly pressed together to prevent them from quivering, I stubbornly forced my tears back. 'No more tears, they won't do any good,' I kept on chanting in my mind.
Bending down, I gave my brother, who didn't care about holding his tears back anymore, a hug, mumbled some comforting words and then turned around to walk to the van. It was the 'divorce-separation' all over again.
I turned my head around, just the slightest bit and saw that Tk had done the same. Our eyes met for a brief second, but in that instant I think that the world stopped moving and we became conscious of something... --We couldn't leave each other now... We had been through too much to give up... Far too much to be split up... We were brothers! I was the only *living* relative he had, and it was the same for me. No way that we were being parted, no way!
Before the both of us knew it, Tk was in my arms and we were clinging to each other for all that we were worth. I was sure that I heard mr and mrs Yu gasp and I could imagine ms Matsuoka's face frown disapprovingly, but for all that I cared, they could do whatever they wanted. As long as they didn't try to take my little brother away from me, that is.
After a few moments, the man from the orphanage started to approach us carefully. Knowing that he wanted to go and that he probably didn't have time for this, a sudden fear build up inside of me. Maybe if...
"Tk," I whispered, "Let's run"
Nodding his agreement, Tk got his legs moving and took off down the street, me being right behind him. We most likely caught they adults around us by surprise, as they just stood there for a short while, dumbfounded. A short while maybe, but it was only that much we needed to dash into a narrow alleyway.
Angry and upset voices were heard and if anyone had tried to follow us, we had in all probability already outrun them by the time we came to the old blocks were we had lived with dad.
"Onii-san... Where can we go? Where..." Tk panted, his hands on his knees. He looked up at me when I didn't answer.
"I... don't know," I finally admitted. "Maybe some friend will let us sleep at their place tonight?"
"Tai and Kari?"
"We can always ask them, I guess."
The walk to the Kamiya's house was in complete silence, neither Tk nor I finding anything good to say. Every time a car would drive by, we would jump or try and hide in the shadows, just in case they had decided to go out and look for us. The impression of it all was certainly tense.
After a small number of minutes we found ourselves at Tai and Kari's family's doorstep. I have to admit that I was a bit scared. I mean, what were Tk and I going to tell them anyway? What if their parents were home? Then they'd surely call ms Super-Bitch up, and she wouldn't be that happy about the fact that we ran away from the family that wanted to take Tk on and the guy who was supposed to take me to my new 'home'.
"Rrrr!" the doorbell rang. Tk had pushed it when I was too lost in my thoughts to focus on the outside world, a state I had become highly familiar with over the past weeks.
A voice, Tai's voice, and footsteps were heard inside of the house before Kari opened the front door.
Looking at us in slight surprise, she let us in without a word. I think she noticed the all-but-happy expressions on our faces.
"I didn't know you had gotten out of the hospital, Matt," Kari said. I only nodded. "But weren't you supposed to go to the orphanage..."
"We... We kind of ran." Tk cut her off.
"Hey, Kari. Who was it?" came Tai's voice.
"Tk and Matt," Kari motioned for us to follow her into the living room.
When we got into their actually pretty cosy living room, Tai lay in their old sofa, flipping through a thick book. 'Now that's not something that you see every day', I couldn't keep myself from thinking.
All of the room around the sofa and an armchair where Kari doubtlessly had sat was a disarray of papers, books and several boring-looking magazines. They were all over the floor, the carpet and the small table in front of the sofa. I was just about to ask what they had been doing with all this, but I didn't get a chance as Tai asked:
"What happened?"
Tk made his way to a big, square footstool and I found a nice spot on the carpet. Then we started to talk. Or more like Tk talked and I mostly sat quiet, filling him in on some stuff that he missed out as he spoke.
When Tk was done with the quick summary, he heaved a sigh, shoulders slumping.
"Sooo... What are you going to do?" Kari, who had taken her ordinary seat in the armchair, let her eyes travel from Tk to me, and then back to Tk again.
"Well, we kinda hoped that..." Tk trailed off.
"That we could spend the night here... Just one night," I continued.
"And then what?" Tai wondered, putting that thick book on the table.
I shrugged miserably. It was quiet for a while and then Tai spoke up.
"I'm totally fine with it. Kari?"
Kari nodded quickly. I honestly think she had a thing for my little brother.
"But what about mum and dad?" Tai scratched his head. "What if they call ms Matsuoka? Though I doubt that they would, but still..."
"Maybe we shouldn't say anything?" Kari said.
"But how are we going to have them here without our parents noticing?"
"I dunno, we'll have to figure something out."
The discussion continued. I didn't really listen. My head was pounding and I was starting to feel slightly nauseous and tired. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to run around and feeling stressed when you had just gotten out of the hospital. I *had* had a concussion of the brain, you know, and the best thing to cure a concussion of the brain is not to lie sleepless at the night, worrying.
Feeling my eyelids getting heavier and heavier, I suddenly became aware of how warm it was inside of the house. Man, was I tired...
The voices of Kari, Tai and occasionally Tk started to grow fainter and gradually disappeared. My head dropping slowly, my entire body seemed to loose it's feeling and then bit-by-bit shut down.
I don't know how long that peaceful state lasted, but suddenly, someone's hand poked my shoulder.
"Hey," More poking. "Hey, Matt. Pokey, pokey,"
Ugh, wouldn't they just leave me alone?
"Wake up, Mattie,"
God, I hated that nickname.
"Poookey, pokey..."
'Leave me alone already!' I mentally shouted. The soothing mist that had surrounded me started to clear up.
"Matt, wake up," someone said and started tapping on my back.
"Cut it out..." my voice came out groggily, fitting how I felt. Almost against my own will, my eyes cracked open. I saw that the carpet was abnormally close to my face.
A pair of hands dragging me up into a sitting position, a chuckle and a giggle let me know that Tai and Kari were the ones who had woken me up. 'Tai was surely the one who poked me...' I thought vengefully, my head still spinning a little. I should have figured though.
Stretching, I blinked sleepily. That was followed by my friends' laughs. I realized how I must've been looking; stretching, yawning and my hair almost certainly tussled. Not the ordinary way you more often than not pictured me. Strangely enough, I found myself laughing too. The first time in a long time I laughed... and it actually felt really good.
But the laughter died hastily as we heard someone at outside, on the doorstep.
"Mum and dad!" Kari looked out in the hall. "Quickly, uh... hide in here,"
She opened a small door under the stairs. The sound of a key being pushed into the keyhole was heard. "Hurry!" The key turned inside of the lock.
Tk and I got inside of the small 'room'. It was hard to fit in there, and when the door closed, it was pitch black.
Then the front door opened.
"Hi, mum, dad." Kari greeted.
"Umm, hi, kids," mr Kamiya answered, sounding a bit puzzled.
A/N: *sigh* Sooo, what do you think? Still good, bad? Please review!