Wishing You Were Here
Chapter 4 – Forgotten?
A/N This is sad in a different, distant sort of way...
Yamato couldn't move his fingers. Yamato couldn't move at all.
Blue eyes were clouded over, hidden behind matted, blood-soaked hair. His whole body ached but he couldn't do anything to ease it. Nothing worked. He couldn't feel anything, not really.
Red was smeared all over and his wounds continued to run. He could see them but felt oddly detached from the situation, his nerves wouldn't even let him feel himself bleed to death.
He should have been glad of the small mercy but instead, Yamato just felt deprived of yet another privilege in his life- if you could call it that.
His reflection glared back at him from his bed of glass. A deep cut ran from the bottom of his eye down to his ear which smashed into a large multi-colored bruise. Two gaping slits spanned the length of his throat, making it look as though he had gills. If he tilted his head a little bit to the side, he could just make out the ugly mass of ripped flesh and caked blood that was his chest.
But in some strange arcane way, Yamato felt safe; safe to know that no one would want to look at or touch him while he looked like this. No one, not even his father. Yet even then, Yamato knew that his father wouldn't be coming back. Not now, not ever.
He should have felt something then, relief or anger or bitterness. But there was nothing. Maybe he was too exhausted, but it seemed easier now, to just let things be. Yamato had found his void, the space inside where he couldn't be affected by anything anymore and he was willing to stay there, forever, if he had to.
For now, he was satisfied, though he had to remain in that hated and vulnerable position. Yamato had a feeling that he had broken his spine, the sole reason to why he couldn't move, at all. He was surer still, that unless someone came to find him soon, he would die that way.
But who would?
~~~~~
Tai woke up screaming. Cold sweat poured from his forehead as he jolted upright and kicked his sheets away, his whole being trembling. Yama...
Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. No matter where he'd been, Tai had always felt some sort of connection with Yama, like he could feel his presence. But tonight, when he woke up, the connection broke. He couldn't feel Yama anymore. And all of a sudden, a tremendous loneliness gnawed at him.
Yama...Please be alright Yama.
"Tai?"
Tai looked up wearily. "'Kari?" His sister was standing in the doorway, an expression of concern touching her features. She clutched onto the doorframe.
"Are you okay Tai?" She quickly crossed the bedroom and had a hand on his forehead before he could protest.
"I'm fine 'Kari." He smiled weakly at her and she smiled back, albeit cautiously. "Go back to bed."
She nodded, reassured, and turned, shuffling back outside and half-closing the door. "Goodnight Tai," she whispered.
"'Night 'Kari."
Tai reached for his bedcovers, pulling them up to his chin. He sighed and stared up at the ceiling. 'Night Yama... Wherever you are.
He didn't sleep that night.
~~~~~
"The police found an unconscious boy yesterday in an abandoned apartment. The boy, believed to be Yamato Ishida; was reported earlier to have been missing from school with no communication available from home, and was badly abused and in a critical condition. He was immediately transported to the local hospital and then transferred again to Odaiba's hospital for intensive care. More news tonight."
The television set was never opened that day in the Yagami residence.