5 years ago
"Can't anyone else see that this is a load of crap?" Artemis asked from the back of the recreation room.
He was sitting cross legged on the table tennis table (purely because he wasn't allowed to) as the other children watched early morning cartoons.
"Be quiet! You're ruining the show," one girl snapped, turning her head to glare at him.
"What's there to ruin?" he asked throwing his arms up.
"If anyone is at all interesting in what bucket hat boy has to say raise their hand," the girl said lightly turning back to the TV.
Nobody raised their hands.
"Pack of arseholes," Artemis grumbled and very carefully got down off the table tennis table. He still had stitches from his latest poke-and-prod so he had to do everything slowly as not to pull them open.
He walked down the corridors and wondered how he was going to spend his day. Hitler and Godzilla were watching him like a hawk since his little performance last week.
Deciding to liven things up for the short-term patients he'd taken all the ward nameplates and had switched them around.
Honestly, the way people going in for X-rays had been screaming downstairs, you'd think they didn't know that leprosy patients were transferred to a nice tropical island for treatment.
'Maybe I'll raid the kitchen,' he thought and keeping in the shadows so Godzilla wouldn't see, snuck though the ward's entrance door.
He sighed with self satisfaction and turned for the kitchen. His attention was averted however by a girl who looked about his age standing next to a suitcase, holding a teddy bear and looking up at the name plate on the wall.
"What do you want?" Artemis asked with a slight frown. He hated wondering loonies and curious parties coming in to spread their sympathetic vibes.
"Um, I don't know if I'm in the right place," the brown haired girl said in a small voice.
Artemis looked at the nameplate and saw that it said 'Anthrax Ward' in big letters. He smiled smugly to see that there was one plate Hitler hadn't changed back.
"Where you going to?" he asked, arms crossed.
"The children's long term," the girl said smiling, quite happy that she'd found a new friend.
Artemis' tough composure melted like the GI Joe his brother had thrown in the fireplace last Christmas because he'd just been told that Santa was running the same scam as the Easter Bunny.
"Really?" he asked blinking. "Where are your parents?"
"Mum's in Heaven and Dad's working," she said holding her teddy close to her. "Grandma and some of my cousins dropped me off outside before they went to celebrate at a theme park."
The mustard coloured boy didn't know what to say. His parents and life time enemy (his brother) visited every once in a blue moon, but the doctors had to pry them off with a crow bar when he'd first been admitted to long term.
He shivered as he thought about those first few weeks back when he was five. He'd cried and screamed for days, begging to go home and asking what he'd done wrong to end up there. He remembered the fear.
"Come on," he said to the girl and both of them worked together to push the suitcase through the ward doors.
Artemis took her to Godzilla but before he could swap names or get the goss on the fresh meat, Hitler pulled him aside and dragged him back to room for his medication.
She threw him on his bed and after jabbing him with some needles and tubes, turned the machine next to the bed on. It whirled and hummed as it secreted bile and performed other various metabolic functions on behalf of his shonky liver.
After a little while the girl came in, escorted to the bed opposite Artemis by Godzilla who held onto her suitcase. She hopped up on the bed with her teddy and after a good telling to by the demonic nurse, was left alone with the boy and his machine.
They pretended not to be looking at each other for a while before she spoke.
"Are you Artemis?" she asked.
"Yea why?" he asked, trying to give the impression that he was number one around there.
"The nurse said you were the devil."
"Yea, well Hitler would know," he said with a sigh, dropping his tough composure. "I guess you're my new roomie?"
"Uh huh!" she nodded exuberantly, happy to be having a conversation with somebody who didn't hate her. "What happened to your old room mate though?"
"Died," Artemis said casually with a wave of one of his long hands.
"Oh that's sad," she said, her smile falling.
"It happens a lot around here if you haven't figured that out yet. The minute they send you here you know you're screwed."
The girl rested her chin on her teddy bear and didn't say anything for a while. Artemis looked on like a sport's spectator before the silence was broken by a sniff.
"So you're saying were all going to die in here?" she asked without looking up.
"Well yea," he said with a cold chuckle. "Healthy people don't get hooked up to theses babies do they?" He gestured to the machine beside him.
More sniffing.
Artemis jumped back and then hissed as pain stabbed at his sore abdomen from his sudden movement.
"Ow! Uh, um don't cry!" he said hastily waving his hands. "You'll be ok I'm sure! Not everybody here dies, just a staggeringly high percent! I mean, I mean uh ah...."
"I want my Dad!" the girl screamed
**********************************************
"Kinky prostitutes can offer fantastically great sex."
"What?" Joan pulled her head out of her Biology book and gawked at Artemis, who sat next to her on the waiting bench near Lily's room.
She had assumed that he was a typical testosterone filled boy by how he had been on her laptop downloading porn till two in the morning, but this talk of prostitutes put a whole new spin on things.
"That's how I remember the Classification Levels," Artemis took her book and flicked back a few pages. "We could never remember the order so Lily and I made up little acronyms. Lily's was 'King Penguins Can Only Fly Going South' and I made up 'Kinky Prostitutes Can Offer Fantastically Great Sex'."
Joan looked at him for quite a while, unsure of what to say. How on Earth was this guy Lily's eldest and most cherished friend? To compare the two would be like comparing salt to pepper.
"It works," Artemis assured her. "Give it a whirl."
"Kinky prostitutes can offer fantastically great sex," Joan muttered, keeping her voice low so that no one would hear her. If word got out that she was talking about prostitutes the Tabloids would be all over her Dad.
"So what is the classification order?" Artemis acted like a school teacher.
"Kingdom, Phylem, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species."
Joan beamed before smothering him in a tight embrace.
"Can't keep them off me," he said to himself and patted Joan's shoulder.
"Hello Joan chan. Any word?"
Shuichi stood before them, his face grey and thin from a sleepless night and having to sing at gunpoint all day.
"Not a thing," Joan sighed and let go of her Biology tutor. "We got here at about nine this morning and they haven't let anyone in there except Yuki sama. And unless he left when we went to buy drinks, he's still in there. Did you see anyone else while I was reading Artemis?"
Joan turned to see that her companion (whom didn't understand any of the lingo) had pulled his hat down over his face and had gone to sleep.
Joan sweat dropped and could feel her cheeks going red. Trust this foul- mouthed pervert to make her look stupid in front of her cute idol.
"You jerk," she growled and picking up the empty cup by her foot, scooped out what was left of the ice and tipped it down the front of his T-shirt.
It was like a bolt of lightning had hit the young male. He jumped three feet in the air sending his hat flying and pulled at his T-shirt viciously before taking the whole thing off.
Artemis screamed a few ugly things that can't be written due to certain laws in literature and Joan was really happy that Shuichi couldn't understand what was being said.
"Is this what happens when you get your period or something?" Artemis asked when he'd finished with the abuse and tried to squeeze his top dry.
"You deserved it!" Joan argued.
"For doing what? I was actually being nice for once! Remind me never to help you with homework again!"
"What is that!" Shuichi gawked at the sight on Artemis' chest.
"Wassa gigga what?" the boy crinkled his brow at Shuichi before looking back at the ice woman.
"He said," Joan translated for him, wearing Shuichi's same expression and pointed at the thing he'd been looking at. "What is that!"
**********************************************
"If there was a stupid Olympics you would have won the gold, silver and bronze," Dr Sullivan held Lily's wrist and looked up at the clock on the wall.
Pulse and blood pressure were normal.
Yuki didn't say anything but continued to glare. Ever since Doctor Sullivan had walked in ten minutes ago all she had done was insult him. He didn't bother to argue back though, she was right.
"She should wake up soon," the young woman put her patient's hand down gently. "I only gave her enough drugs to knock her out for about twenty four hours, and if my watch is right she's entering the home stretch right about now."
She picked up her clipboard and headed for the door. It clicked closed for a few minutes before it burst open again, making Yuki jump a bit in his chair.
"Oh yea and one other thing," Dr Sullivan looked up from her clipboard.
Yuki looked at her expecting to hear something medical.
"You're an idiot."
The door closed and Yuki hunched over in his chair. All day he'd sat there as the rain poured outside. And all day Lily had slept.
He focused his attention back on the sleeping girl and his eyes softened. The doctor was right, if it weren't for him, Lily wouldn't be there. Because of his selfishness, Lily had nearly died.
He tried to think of something else but it was no good, he couldn't block out the memory of Lily on the kitchen floor, struggling for life, begging for help. In his head he could hear his father's voice.
"We must all take responsibility for our actions Eiri, and accept the good along with the bad.
Great advice Pops, had it ever got him anywhere? The old bastard was always so high and mighty with his good old advice from God. Thought that just because he spent his entire life on his knees praying for an absolution that would never come, he could do whatever he liked with other people's lives. The old..
Eiri turned his head away and glared bitterly at the floor tiles. There was no point trying to blame this on his father, the responsibility for this was his and his alone.
It was his habit, his cigarettes and his apartment.
That's right! I had been his apartment, so why should he be the only wallowing in regret and blame? I was his home, he could do whatever he liked for crying out loud. If this brat had of had a problem the door was always there.
And it was her own fault that she didn't say anything. How hard could it have been to say, "Can you not smoke? It makes me sick."
That was when Yuki gave in trying to defend himself. He knew it would have been hard to tell someone like himself something like that. He would have looked down on her for her weakness and his selfishness would have had him still smoke.
"I don't want to leave her alone while she's sick!"
He could remember Shuichi's words as plain as day, and there'd been enough clues. The coughing, the irregular sleeping patterns, the painkillers, the lack of breath, the sudden shots of pain, the hospital visit, the Ventolin and the collapsing performance. He'd had it all figured, he knew exactly what was going on, yet still...
Yuki jerked his head away and glared at the rain spattered window. His reflection glared back at him, showing off his chiselled features and his startling eyes. To a passer by he'd be handsome, but he saw his reflection as ugly.
"Yu....ki....sa...n."
His head whipped away from the window and looked back at the fragile life on the bed, shocked from the sudden noise. Blue eyes embedded in a ghostly white face looked up at his surprised face with a mixture of fear and relief.
"What happened?" her voice was muffled by the mask over her face and she moved to remove it.
Yuki caught her hand and shivered when he realized how cold it was.
"You're freezing in hospital," he said, unable to stop the flood of relief washing over him.
"Have you been here the whole time?" she asked before scrunching her face up in pain.
"Take it easy and lay still," Yuki commanded in his deep voice and stood to reach the spare blanket on the shelf above the bed.
"Oh geez, this is killing me," her frozen hand clutched the bed sheet under her and the pressure rose higher and higher. She closed her eyes tight in the stupid hope that when she opened them again the pain would be gone and that it had all been one big bad dream.
Something soft and warm touched her forehead and a voice filled her ears.
"It will all be ok, the pain will pass."
The clock on the wall ticked away and with each second the pain faded bit by bit. Lily breathed deeply and kept reciting the words of comfort over and over in her head.
Her hand let go of the now crumpled sheet and sighed with relief, the pain was gone.
Yuki opened up the blue blanket and spread it over her, making sure that it didn't get tangled in any tubes or knock anything important looking over. He observed that her IV bag was nearly empty and made a mental note to chase somebody up on it.
"Have you been here-all this time?" Lily asked between breaths.
"Yes. And you're Father stopped by too," Yuki sat back down in his chair and Lily's eyes flicked open. She gazed over, the two met for a second before she closed them again.
"You don't have to make up stories to make me feel better," she said softly.
"I'm not."
"Thankyou for trying to help me Yuki san," Lily said. "But I know that he just doesn't care, and I was a fool to ever hope that we'd meet again."
The last of her energy drained and she fell back into a deep slumber. Yuki looked at her for a very long time, thinking about her, about himself and about Sakuma Ryuichi.
**********************************************
"The morgue parties with everyone were the best ever!"
It was the next day and Artemis and Lily were beaming exuberantly as they recalled memories from a time long ago.
"What?" Joan gasped, covering her mouth with horror.
"Morgue parties," Lily said through her mask. "Nobody ever went down there at night so all us kids in long term used to stash goodies in the cooler along with a body to keep it cool until night time when we could sneak down there."
"Mind you, we always had to pick an oldish body to sit the stuff on," Artemis pointed out. "Once we stashed our loot in with a guy who hadn't been dead long and when we pulled the tray out he sat up. Scared the shit out of us big time."
"It sat up?" Joan gawked.
"Yea, your muscles still contract after you die, which is why they store dead guys in those narrow capsule things."
On the other side of the bed Shuichi wasn't sure whether to laugh or be violently ill. On his knees sat Joan's laptop that she'd hooked a microphone up to and was running a translating program. The poor girl was feed up being in the middle of all of Artemis' conversations.
"Just what kind of school did you two go to exactly?" he asked weakly and turned the computer around for Artemis to see.
"School?"
Lily and Artemis looked at each other before looking back at the confused Shuichi.
"We didn't go to school together Shuichi," Lily explained, clouding up her mask. "We were in the long term ward of hospital together."
"For how long?" Joan asked, equally surprised as Shuichi.
"Four years," Lily sighed.
"Seven years," grunted Artemis before he smiled faintly. "Geez, when I say it like that, it makes me wonder where all the time went."
Nobody could think of anything to say. Joan and Shuichi looked at each other for a second before pretending that they hadn't. Lily gave Artemis a grim smile and sighed.
"What was it like?"
"Horrible!" both teens yelled at the singer. Shuichi jumped and looked down at the computer to try and hide his embarrassment. He didn't need to be told that that had been a stupid question.
"Um Artemis, speaking of hospital and all..." Lily rolled her eyes back to her friend and fiddled with her fingers awkwardly.
"Yes?"
"Well I'd always thought that since you'd never returned my letters and you'd been sick with your liver for such a long time, I sort of assumed that you were.."
"Dead," Artemis finished for her and crossed his arms in a temper and she nodded. "Thanks a bleeding lot."
"Well what was I meant to think?" Lily threw her arms up dramatically. "That you'd suddenly got better after more than half your life in hospital? Life isn't an 'Opra Miracles' special y'know."
Artemis pulled up his T-shirt and ran his finger over his white scar.
"New liver," he said proudly. "It's second hand, but it does the job ok."
"Oh wow!" Lily breathed deeply at the sight and touched his chest. "The donors finally pulled through."
"Yea, it only took seven years," he said with a fake air of casualty.
Lily took her hand away and looked him in the eye. "Well people do have to die before they can donate Artemis."
"I know that!" he snapped as he pulled his top down. "What bugs me is the fact that there are only a handful of people who give their organs to those in need after they die and how people on the waiting list die waiting."
"Some people have an emotional attachment to their organs," Joan said.
"How can you have an emotional attachment when you're dead?" Artemis demanded to know.
"He's got a point there," Lily admitted.
Shuichi felt really left out. In a conversation about hospitals and lack of organs, there wasn't really much that he could contribute. Perhaps it was time for a conversation change, after all he hadn't risked being pumped with lead by a certain manager just to sit by quietly.
"So Artemis kun," he twisted the microphone to face him. "When do you leave?"
Artemis read the translation and looked awkward.
"Good question," Lily agreed. "Just when do you head home?"
"Um, well, tomorrow."
"TOMORROW!?" everyone yelled in disbelief. Artemis had to cover his ears and the voices nearly blew his thin physique over.
"But, but Artemis, you just got here and I," Lily closed her eyes to hold back the tears. "Why do you have to go so soon?"
Joan and Shuichi watched on nervously as an unfamiliar genuine look came over the young man's face.
"I'm sorry Lily, but my parents couldn't afford to send me here for long to start with. New livers don't come cheap you know," he said honestly, holding his palms out.
Shuichi rose to comfort Lily but Artemis bet him there. He eased himself onto the bedside and took her hands in his. She opened her eyes to see a smile that she'd thought had been lost long ago.
"You don't need me here to be ok," he said resting his forehead on hers, "the fact that you got this far on your own proves that. The only thing you need is hope."
"Hope? But you said that hope.."
"Yea, yea, I know what I said," Artemis said with a sigh, hating to admit that he was wrong. "But after you left I thought that I might as well give hope another try. And what do you know, I get a postcard from Tokyo and a new liver, not to mention that I lived through the transplant surgery. Hope does work Lily, you proved that to me."
Lily couldn't help herself, she reached up and hugged him. Mind you it was a rather uncomfortable hug since he was so spindly and she could feel half his bones poking into her.
"Yep, you're not going to be lonely, that's for sure," Artemis said with a satisfied sigh.
Lily's eyes snapped open and seeing Artemis' expression of pure bliss pushed him off the bed and pulled her mask off.
"Artemis you pervert! You were feeling up my breasts as I hugged you weren't you!" she yelled furiously.
"Lily chan please, be careful, your lungs," begged Shuichi.
"Sorry babe I couldn't resist!" Artemis picked himself up off the floor with a triumphant grin and dusted his hat off.
Lily was a deep scarlet and the snorting noise Joan was making as she covered her mouth made her even more embarrassed. She watched the white bucket hat rotate in his hands and she thought of the perfect revenge.
"Hey you," she said with a wicked smile.
"What?"
"Did you say that if I ever set one foot in Japan you'd eat your hat?" Lily asked in a sugar sweet melody.
"Yea so?"
"Where are we Artemis?"
The horror that crept over his face was like a man's who'd just realised that he'd filled his tea with powdered laxatives and not sugar. He was quiet for a few seconds before gulping deeply.
"Anyone got some mustard?"
**********************************************
"Sorry Lily couldn't make it dude," Joan said scratching the back of her head as the two waited outside the Custom's gate. "Yuki sama was going to see if they'd release her early but y'know, hospitals."
"Yea I know," Artemis said nodding his head. "Getting leeway in there is about as likely as the Pope on a pogo stick."
"Nice analogy, may I use it?" Joan asked.
"Sure, but draw my trademark if you ever use it in print. And one other thing, is this Yuki guy that pimp lord who abuses Shoes-itchy?"
"He IS NOT a pimp, and it's Shuichi," Joan massaged her temples and was a bit thankful that he was leaving. There was no denying that he was draining.
"Ok, ok, you don't have to give yourself a hernia over it. But he does look like a pimp lord." Artemis said bluntly. "I'd better get the suitcase inspection and strip search over with now if I want to make my flight."
The two hugged and Joan fell for the same snag.
Artemis smiled as a big red handprint throbbed on his face and picked up his new hat. Joan's face had gone red and was breathing heavily.
"Well ones thing's for sure, I wont miss that or you lying around my house in your underwear," she snarled and zipped her jumper up.
"Hey, I know you worship me," Artemis said and wheeled his suitcase through the Customs gate. He was just about to surrender the banana he'd been saving for morning tea when Joan bowled into him.
"How'd you get in here?" he asked catching his balance as she panted in front of him.
"I managed to fool the guard because I look foreign. Hey wait.... I am foreign!"
She was the only one who laughed at her joke.
Artemis placed his hands on her shoulders and put on a fatherly voice, though failing miserably.
"Now Joan, I know that in our short time together we got rather fond of one another, but there comes a time when people need to say goodbye and go home."
"Lily wanted me to give you this," Joan took no notice of him and handed him a leather bound book. "She said you'd know what to do with it."
He took the book in one of his slim hands and flicked it open. He read for a few seconds before that familiar evil businessman grin covered his face.
"Oh believe me Joan, I know exactly what to do."
"What?" she tipped her head to one side in confusion.
"It's a simple tactic called," he paused for dramatic effect. "REVENGE!"
Other travellers shuffled away from the boy laughing maniacally, which stopped abruptly when the girl beside him yelled excitedly: "Snow!"
**********************************************
"Ah it's snowing! I knew it would start today," Lily said happily as she watched the white fluff balls fall past her window like a curtain of white beads in her purple pyjamas.
"Get back in bed," someone commanded behind her.
Lily turned to see Yuki standing at the door, frowning with his coat scattered with white flakes.
"Oh hello Yuki san," she said smiling. "Isn't it Pretty? Hey, you're name means 'snow' doesn't it?"
He grabbed her wrist and pulled her away from the window dragging her IV behind her, though her eyes never left the marvel outside. She sat back on the bed and Yuki threw the blankets back over her.
"You shouldn't be off your respirator," Yuki said with his hands on his hips, glaring down at her.
Lily was dying to say something like 'Yes Mum' or 'Roger Captain' but didn't think that it was particularly wise.
"Dr Sullivan said that I could stay off it for a few hours if I was feeling up to it," Lily explained happily, though a little confused about this sudden lavishing of worry.
"She said could not should," Yuki said with a raised eyebrow and deciding that it would make things go easier, Lily put the mask back on and flicked the switch on the large machine. Pretty soon she was humming away like a fish tank.
"You know, you don't have to come here everyday," Lily said as Yuki took a seat. "You're a busy man."
"Stop talking and start breathing."
Lily obeyed and Yuki started to wonder how he was going to torture doctor Sullivan when he got his hands on her. What kind of a doctor would say that she could stay off her machine it she was feeling ok? Wasn't misjudgment the thing got Lily here in the first place?
'Well no actually.'
Yuki shook that train of thought off and noticed that Lily was smiling at him.
"What are you so happy about?" he asked coolly.
"Nothing," Lily said still smiling. "Do you want to watch some TV?"
Thanks to her great medical insurance Lily had been put in her own room with a television, armchairs and a room service menu. Shuichi had said the other night that it would be nice to get sick, just to go there.
"Do what you want," the novelist grunted and Lily started to surf through the channels.
Making sure that Lily was completely preoccupied, Yuki concealed a yawn behind his hand. After raiding his sister's house for Sakuma's Ryuichi's address all night he was worn out. Shuichi hadn't been much help either.
"Yuki should we really be doing this?" he asked as he looked at the globs move in the lava lamp.
"Seguchi gave me a key, so therefore he doesn't mind me going through his stuff. And turn that bloody thing off, it's disgusting, I have half a mind to throw it in the bin for breaking fashion laws."
"But Yuki, this is personal stuff we're through," Shuichi whined as Yuki threw wedding photos over his shoulder before pulling the draw out of the cabinet and tipped the contence on the floor.
"Well they constantly go through my personal affairs all the frigging time so it all evens out," he grew frustrated, unable to find his prize.
"Go look in the living room," he commanded and Shuichi slouched off, riddled with guilt and upset at be yelled at.
Three draws later there was still no sign of Sakuma's address written on anything. Yuki threw the draw across the room, causing Shuichi to cry fearfully in the living room.
"Who is this guy? The f$#^ing Phantom? Does he live in a hobo shelter or something?"
Furiously he pulled open the last draw so hard that all the CDs stored in there spilled out onto the floor. Yuki looked down on them and saw the familiar faces of Tohma, Noriko and Ryuichi on the cover.
'So Tohma's hiding it from her too,' he thought and went to join Shuichi in the living room. 'This wont end well.'
"Look! Shuichi's on TV," Japan's best looking man with a bad attitude was brought back to the present by Lily's voice.
He looked up to see the three members of Bad Luck sitting at a long table in the background while a news reporter spoke to the camera.
"Today internationally successful band Bad Luck have publicly announced today their decision to go on a nationwide tour that will take four months to complete."
The reporter disappeared as Lily hit the power button on the remote. She didn't look at Yuki at all and a silence befell the room, the snow still falling the whole time.
"He didn't tell you did he?" Yuki said finally.
Lily shook her head but didn't turn to face him.
"Is this all my life is Yuki san? Is it just a big collection of secrets and lies?"
"Can't anyone else see that this is a load of crap?" Artemis asked from the back of the recreation room.
He was sitting cross legged on the table tennis table (purely because he wasn't allowed to) as the other children watched early morning cartoons.
"Be quiet! You're ruining the show," one girl snapped, turning her head to glare at him.
"What's there to ruin?" he asked throwing his arms up.
"If anyone is at all interesting in what bucket hat boy has to say raise their hand," the girl said lightly turning back to the TV.
Nobody raised their hands.
"Pack of arseholes," Artemis grumbled and very carefully got down off the table tennis table. He still had stitches from his latest poke-and-prod so he had to do everything slowly as not to pull them open.
He walked down the corridors and wondered how he was going to spend his day. Hitler and Godzilla were watching him like a hawk since his little performance last week.
Deciding to liven things up for the short-term patients he'd taken all the ward nameplates and had switched them around.
Honestly, the way people going in for X-rays had been screaming downstairs, you'd think they didn't know that leprosy patients were transferred to a nice tropical island for treatment.
'Maybe I'll raid the kitchen,' he thought and keeping in the shadows so Godzilla wouldn't see, snuck though the ward's entrance door.
He sighed with self satisfaction and turned for the kitchen. His attention was averted however by a girl who looked about his age standing next to a suitcase, holding a teddy bear and looking up at the name plate on the wall.
"What do you want?" Artemis asked with a slight frown. He hated wondering loonies and curious parties coming in to spread their sympathetic vibes.
"Um, I don't know if I'm in the right place," the brown haired girl said in a small voice.
Artemis looked at the nameplate and saw that it said 'Anthrax Ward' in big letters. He smiled smugly to see that there was one plate Hitler hadn't changed back.
"Where you going to?" he asked, arms crossed.
"The children's long term," the girl said smiling, quite happy that she'd found a new friend.
Artemis' tough composure melted like the GI Joe his brother had thrown in the fireplace last Christmas because he'd just been told that Santa was running the same scam as the Easter Bunny.
"Really?" he asked blinking. "Where are your parents?"
"Mum's in Heaven and Dad's working," she said holding her teddy close to her. "Grandma and some of my cousins dropped me off outside before they went to celebrate at a theme park."
The mustard coloured boy didn't know what to say. His parents and life time enemy (his brother) visited every once in a blue moon, but the doctors had to pry them off with a crow bar when he'd first been admitted to long term.
He shivered as he thought about those first few weeks back when he was five. He'd cried and screamed for days, begging to go home and asking what he'd done wrong to end up there. He remembered the fear.
"Come on," he said to the girl and both of them worked together to push the suitcase through the ward doors.
Artemis took her to Godzilla but before he could swap names or get the goss on the fresh meat, Hitler pulled him aside and dragged him back to room for his medication.
She threw him on his bed and after jabbing him with some needles and tubes, turned the machine next to the bed on. It whirled and hummed as it secreted bile and performed other various metabolic functions on behalf of his shonky liver.
After a little while the girl came in, escorted to the bed opposite Artemis by Godzilla who held onto her suitcase. She hopped up on the bed with her teddy and after a good telling to by the demonic nurse, was left alone with the boy and his machine.
They pretended not to be looking at each other for a while before she spoke.
"Are you Artemis?" she asked.
"Yea why?" he asked, trying to give the impression that he was number one around there.
"The nurse said you were the devil."
"Yea, well Hitler would know," he said with a sigh, dropping his tough composure. "I guess you're my new roomie?"
"Uh huh!" she nodded exuberantly, happy to be having a conversation with somebody who didn't hate her. "What happened to your old room mate though?"
"Died," Artemis said casually with a wave of one of his long hands.
"Oh that's sad," she said, her smile falling.
"It happens a lot around here if you haven't figured that out yet. The minute they send you here you know you're screwed."
The girl rested her chin on her teddy bear and didn't say anything for a while. Artemis looked on like a sport's spectator before the silence was broken by a sniff.
"So you're saying were all going to die in here?" she asked without looking up.
"Well yea," he said with a cold chuckle. "Healthy people don't get hooked up to theses babies do they?" He gestured to the machine beside him.
More sniffing.
Artemis jumped back and then hissed as pain stabbed at his sore abdomen from his sudden movement.
"Ow! Uh, um don't cry!" he said hastily waving his hands. "You'll be ok I'm sure! Not everybody here dies, just a staggeringly high percent! I mean, I mean uh ah...."
"I want my Dad!" the girl screamed
**********************************************
"Kinky prostitutes can offer fantastically great sex."
"What?" Joan pulled her head out of her Biology book and gawked at Artemis, who sat next to her on the waiting bench near Lily's room.
She had assumed that he was a typical testosterone filled boy by how he had been on her laptop downloading porn till two in the morning, but this talk of prostitutes put a whole new spin on things.
"That's how I remember the Classification Levels," Artemis took her book and flicked back a few pages. "We could never remember the order so Lily and I made up little acronyms. Lily's was 'King Penguins Can Only Fly Going South' and I made up 'Kinky Prostitutes Can Offer Fantastically Great Sex'."
Joan looked at him for quite a while, unsure of what to say. How on Earth was this guy Lily's eldest and most cherished friend? To compare the two would be like comparing salt to pepper.
"It works," Artemis assured her. "Give it a whirl."
"Kinky prostitutes can offer fantastically great sex," Joan muttered, keeping her voice low so that no one would hear her. If word got out that she was talking about prostitutes the Tabloids would be all over her Dad.
"So what is the classification order?" Artemis acted like a school teacher.
"Kingdom, Phylem, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species."
Joan beamed before smothering him in a tight embrace.
"Can't keep them off me," he said to himself and patted Joan's shoulder.
"Hello Joan chan. Any word?"
Shuichi stood before them, his face grey and thin from a sleepless night and having to sing at gunpoint all day.
"Not a thing," Joan sighed and let go of her Biology tutor. "We got here at about nine this morning and they haven't let anyone in there except Yuki sama. And unless he left when we went to buy drinks, he's still in there. Did you see anyone else while I was reading Artemis?"
Joan turned to see that her companion (whom didn't understand any of the lingo) had pulled his hat down over his face and had gone to sleep.
Joan sweat dropped and could feel her cheeks going red. Trust this foul- mouthed pervert to make her look stupid in front of her cute idol.
"You jerk," she growled and picking up the empty cup by her foot, scooped out what was left of the ice and tipped it down the front of his T-shirt.
It was like a bolt of lightning had hit the young male. He jumped three feet in the air sending his hat flying and pulled at his T-shirt viciously before taking the whole thing off.
Artemis screamed a few ugly things that can't be written due to certain laws in literature and Joan was really happy that Shuichi couldn't understand what was being said.
"Is this what happens when you get your period or something?" Artemis asked when he'd finished with the abuse and tried to squeeze his top dry.
"You deserved it!" Joan argued.
"For doing what? I was actually being nice for once! Remind me never to help you with homework again!"
"What is that!" Shuichi gawked at the sight on Artemis' chest.
"Wassa gigga what?" the boy crinkled his brow at Shuichi before looking back at the ice woman.
"He said," Joan translated for him, wearing Shuichi's same expression and pointed at the thing he'd been looking at. "What is that!"
**********************************************
"If there was a stupid Olympics you would have won the gold, silver and bronze," Dr Sullivan held Lily's wrist and looked up at the clock on the wall.
Pulse and blood pressure were normal.
Yuki didn't say anything but continued to glare. Ever since Doctor Sullivan had walked in ten minutes ago all she had done was insult him. He didn't bother to argue back though, she was right.
"She should wake up soon," the young woman put her patient's hand down gently. "I only gave her enough drugs to knock her out for about twenty four hours, and if my watch is right she's entering the home stretch right about now."
She picked up her clipboard and headed for the door. It clicked closed for a few minutes before it burst open again, making Yuki jump a bit in his chair.
"Oh yea and one other thing," Dr Sullivan looked up from her clipboard.
Yuki looked at her expecting to hear something medical.
"You're an idiot."
The door closed and Yuki hunched over in his chair. All day he'd sat there as the rain poured outside. And all day Lily had slept.
He focused his attention back on the sleeping girl and his eyes softened. The doctor was right, if it weren't for him, Lily wouldn't be there. Because of his selfishness, Lily had nearly died.
He tried to think of something else but it was no good, he couldn't block out the memory of Lily on the kitchen floor, struggling for life, begging for help. In his head he could hear his father's voice.
"We must all take responsibility for our actions Eiri, and accept the good along with the bad.
Great advice Pops, had it ever got him anywhere? The old bastard was always so high and mighty with his good old advice from God. Thought that just because he spent his entire life on his knees praying for an absolution that would never come, he could do whatever he liked with other people's lives. The old..
Eiri turned his head away and glared bitterly at the floor tiles. There was no point trying to blame this on his father, the responsibility for this was his and his alone.
It was his habit, his cigarettes and his apartment.
That's right! I had been his apartment, so why should he be the only wallowing in regret and blame? I was his home, he could do whatever he liked for crying out loud. If this brat had of had a problem the door was always there.
And it was her own fault that she didn't say anything. How hard could it have been to say, "Can you not smoke? It makes me sick."
That was when Yuki gave in trying to defend himself. He knew it would have been hard to tell someone like himself something like that. He would have looked down on her for her weakness and his selfishness would have had him still smoke.
"I don't want to leave her alone while she's sick!"
He could remember Shuichi's words as plain as day, and there'd been enough clues. The coughing, the irregular sleeping patterns, the painkillers, the lack of breath, the sudden shots of pain, the hospital visit, the Ventolin and the collapsing performance. He'd had it all figured, he knew exactly what was going on, yet still...
Yuki jerked his head away and glared at the rain spattered window. His reflection glared back at him, showing off his chiselled features and his startling eyes. To a passer by he'd be handsome, but he saw his reflection as ugly.
"Yu....ki....sa...n."
His head whipped away from the window and looked back at the fragile life on the bed, shocked from the sudden noise. Blue eyes embedded in a ghostly white face looked up at his surprised face with a mixture of fear and relief.
"What happened?" her voice was muffled by the mask over her face and she moved to remove it.
Yuki caught her hand and shivered when he realized how cold it was.
"You're freezing in hospital," he said, unable to stop the flood of relief washing over him.
"Have you been here the whole time?" she asked before scrunching her face up in pain.
"Take it easy and lay still," Yuki commanded in his deep voice and stood to reach the spare blanket on the shelf above the bed.
"Oh geez, this is killing me," her frozen hand clutched the bed sheet under her and the pressure rose higher and higher. She closed her eyes tight in the stupid hope that when she opened them again the pain would be gone and that it had all been one big bad dream.
Something soft and warm touched her forehead and a voice filled her ears.
"It will all be ok, the pain will pass."
The clock on the wall ticked away and with each second the pain faded bit by bit. Lily breathed deeply and kept reciting the words of comfort over and over in her head.
Her hand let go of the now crumpled sheet and sighed with relief, the pain was gone.
Yuki opened up the blue blanket and spread it over her, making sure that it didn't get tangled in any tubes or knock anything important looking over. He observed that her IV bag was nearly empty and made a mental note to chase somebody up on it.
"Have you been here-all this time?" Lily asked between breaths.
"Yes. And you're Father stopped by too," Yuki sat back down in his chair and Lily's eyes flicked open. She gazed over, the two met for a second before she closed them again.
"You don't have to make up stories to make me feel better," she said softly.
"I'm not."
"Thankyou for trying to help me Yuki san," Lily said. "But I know that he just doesn't care, and I was a fool to ever hope that we'd meet again."
The last of her energy drained and she fell back into a deep slumber. Yuki looked at her for a very long time, thinking about her, about himself and about Sakuma Ryuichi.
**********************************************
"The morgue parties with everyone were the best ever!"
It was the next day and Artemis and Lily were beaming exuberantly as they recalled memories from a time long ago.
"What?" Joan gasped, covering her mouth with horror.
"Morgue parties," Lily said through her mask. "Nobody ever went down there at night so all us kids in long term used to stash goodies in the cooler along with a body to keep it cool until night time when we could sneak down there."
"Mind you, we always had to pick an oldish body to sit the stuff on," Artemis pointed out. "Once we stashed our loot in with a guy who hadn't been dead long and when we pulled the tray out he sat up. Scared the shit out of us big time."
"It sat up?" Joan gawked.
"Yea, your muscles still contract after you die, which is why they store dead guys in those narrow capsule things."
On the other side of the bed Shuichi wasn't sure whether to laugh or be violently ill. On his knees sat Joan's laptop that she'd hooked a microphone up to and was running a translating program. The poor girl was feed up being in the middle of all of Artemis' conversations.
"Just what kind of school did you two go to exactly?" he asked weakly and turned the computer around for Artemis to see.
"School?"
Lily and Artemis looked at each other before looking back at the confused Shuichi.
"We didn't go to school together Shuichi," Lily explained, clouding up her mask. "We were in the long term ward of hospital together."
"For how long?" Joan asked, equally surprised as Shuichi.
"Four years," Lily sighed.
"Seven years," grunted Artemis before he smiled faintly. "Geez, when I say it like that, it makes me wonder where all the time went."
Nobody could think of anything to say. Joan and Shuichi looked at each other for a second before pretending that they hadn't. Lily gave Artemis a grim smile and sighed.
"What was it like?"
"Horrible!" both teens yelled at the singer. Shuichi jumped and looked down at the computer to try and hide his embarrassment. He didn't need to be told that that had been a stupid question.
"Um Artemis, speaking of hospital and all..." Lily rolled her eyes back to her friend and fiddled with her fingers awkwardly.
"Yes?"
"Well I'd always thought that since you'd never returned my letters and you'd been sick with your liver for such a long time, I sort of assumed that you were.."
"Dead," Artemis finished for her and crossed his arms in a temper and she nodded. "Thanks a bleeding lot."
"Well what was I meant to think?" Lily threw her arms up dramatically. "That you'd suddenly got better after more than half your life in hospital? Life isn't an 'Opra Miracles' special y'know."
Artemis pulled up his T-shirt and ran his finger over his white scar.
"New liver," he said proudly. "It's second hand, but it does the job ok."
"Oh wow!" Lily breathed deeply at the sight and touched his chest. "The donors finally pulled through."
"Yea, it only took seven years," he said with a fake air of casualty.
Lily took her hand away and looked him in the eye. "Well people do have to die before they can donate Artemis."
"I know that!" he snapped as he pulled his top down. "What bugs me is the fact that there are only a handful of people who give their organs to those in need after they die and how people on the waiting list die waiting."
"Some people have an emotional attachment to their organs," Joan said.
"How can you have an emotional attachment when you're dead?" Artemis demanded to know.
"He's got a point there," Lily admitted.
Shuichi felt really left out. In a conversation about hospitals and lack of organs, there wasn't really much that he could contribute. Perhaps it was time for a conversation change, after all he hadn't risked being pumped with lead by a certain manager just to sit by quietly.
"So Artemis kun," he twisted the microphone to face him. "When do you leave?"
Artemis read the translation and looked awkward.
"Good question," Lily agreed. "Just when do you head home?"
"Um, well, tomorrow."
"TOMORROW!?" everyone yelled in disbelief. Artemis had to cover his ears and the voices nearly blew his thin physique over.
"But, but Artemis, you just got here and I," Lily closed her eyes to hold back the tears. "Why do you have to go so soon?"
Joan and Shuichi watched on nervously as an unfamiliar genuine look came over the young man's face.
"I'm sorry Lily, but my parents couldn't afford to send me here for long to start with. New livers don't come cheap you know," he said honestly, holding his palms out.
Shuichi rose to comfort Lily but Artemis bet him there. He eased himself onto the bedside and took her hands in his. She opened her eyes to see a smile that she'd thought had been lost long ago.
"You don't need me here to be ok," he said resting his forehead on hers, "the fact that you got this far on your own proves that. The only thing you need is hope."
"Hope? But you said that hope.."
"Yea, yea, I know what I said," Artemis said with a sigh, hating to admit that he was wrong. "But after you left I thought that I might as well give hope another try. And what do you know, I get a postcard from Tokyo and a new liver, not to mention that I lived through the transplant surgery. Hope does work Lily, you proved that to me."
Lily couldn't help herself, she reached up and hugged him. Mind you it was a rather uncomfortable hug since he was so spindly and she could feel half his bones poking into her.
"Yep, you're not going to be lonely, that's for sure," Artemis said with a satisfied sigh.
Lily's eyes snapped open and seeing Artemis' expression of pure bliss pushed him off the bed and pulled her mask off.
"Artemis you pervert! You were feeling up my breasts as I hugged you weren't you!" she yelled furiously.
"Lily chan please, be careful, your lungs," begged Shuichi.
"Sorry babe I couldn't resist!" Artemis picked himself up off the floor with a triumphant grin and dusted his hat off.
Lily was a deep scarlet and the snorting noise Joan was making as she covered her mouth made her even more embarrassed. She watched the white bucket hat rotate in his hands and she thought of the perfect revenge.
"Hey you," she said with a wicked smile.
"What?"
"Did you say that if I ever set one foot in Japan you'd eat your hat?" Lily asked in a sugar sweet melody.
"Yea so?"
"Where are we Artemis?"
The horror that crept over his face was like a man's who'd just realised that he'd filled his tea with powdered laxatives and not sugar. He was quiet for a few seconds before gulping deeply.
"Anyone got some mustard?"
**********************************************
"Sorry Lily couldn't make it dude," Joan said scratching the back of her head as the two waited outside the Custom's gate. "Yuki sama was going to see if they'd release her early but y'know, hospitals."
"Yea I know," Artemis said nodding his head. "Getting leeway in there is about as likely as the Pope on a pogo stick."
"Nice analogy, may I use it?" Joan asked.
"Sure, but draw my trademark if you ever use it in print. And one other thing, is this Yuki guy that pimp lord who abuses Shoes-itchy?"
"He IS NOT a pimp, and it's Shuichi," Joan massaged her temples and was a bit thankful that he was leaving. There was no denying that he was draining.
"Ok, ok, you don't have to give yourself a hernia over it. But he does look like a pimp lord." Artemis said bluntly. "I'd better get the suitcase inspection and strip search over with now if I want to make my flight."
The two hugged and Joan fell for the same snag.
Artemis smiled as a big red handprint throbbed on his face and picked up his new hat. Joan's face had gone red and was breathing heavily.
"Well ones thing's for sure, I wont miss that or you lying around my house in your underwear," she snarled and zipped her jumper up.
"Hey, I know you worship me," Artemis said and wheeled his suitcase through the Customs gate. He was just about to surrender the banana he'd been saving for morning tea when Joan bowled into him.
"How'd you get in here?" he asked catching his balance as she panted in front of him.
"I managed to fool the guard because I look foreign. Hey wait.... I am foreign!"
She was the only one who laughed at her joke.
Artemis placed his hands on her shoulders and put on a fatherly voice, though failing miserably.
"Now Joan, I know that in our short time together we got rather fond of one another, but there comes a time when people need to say goodbye and go home."
"Lily wanted me to give you this," Joan took no notice of him and handed him a leather bound book. "She said you'd know what to do with it."
He took the book in one of his slim hands and flicked it open. He read for a few seconds before that familiar evil businessman grin covered his face.
"Oh believe me Joan, I know exactly what to do."
"What?" she tipped her head to one side in confusion.
"It's a simple tactic called," he paused for dramatic effect. "REVENGE!"
Other travellers shuffled away from the boy laughing maniacally, which stopped abruptly when the girl beside him yelled excitedly: "Snow!"
**********************************************
"Ah it's snowing! I knew it would start today," Lily said happily as she watched the white fluff balls fall past her window like a curtain of white beads in her purple pyjamas.
"Get back in bed," someone commanded behind her.
Lily turned to see Yuki standing at the door, frowning with his coat scattered with white flakes.
"Oh hello Yuki san," she said smiling. "Isn't it Pretty? Hey, you're name means 'snow' doesn't it?"
He grabbed her wrist and pulled her away from the window dragging her IV behind her, though her eyes never left the marvel outside. She sat back on the bed and Yuki threw the blankets back over her.
"You shouldn't be off your respirator," Yuki said with his hands on his hips, glaring down at her.
Lily was dying to say something like 'Yes Mum' or 'Roger Captain' but didn't think that it was particularly wise.
"Dr Sullivan said that I could stay off it for a few hours if I was feeling up to it," Lily explained happily, though a little confused about this sudden lavishing of worry.
"She said could not should," Yuki said with a raised eyebrow and deciding that it would make things go easier, Lily put the mask back on and flicked the switch on the large machine. Pretty soon she was humming away like a fish tank.
"You know, you don't have to come here everyday," Lily said as Yuki took a seat. "You're a busy man."
"Stop talking and start breathing."
Lily obeyed and Yuki started to wonder how he was going to torture doctor Sullivan when he got his hands on her. What kind of a doctor would say that she could stay off her machine it she was feeling ok? Wasn't misjudgment the thing got Lily here in the first place?
'Well no actually.'
Yuki shook that train of thought off and noticed that Lily was smiling at him.
"What are you so happy about?" he asked coolly.
"Nothing," Lily said still smiling. "Do you want to watch some TV?"
Thanks to her great medical insurance Lily had been put in her own room with a television, armchairs and a room service menu. Shuichi had said the other night that it would be nice to get sick, just to go there.
"Do what you want," the novelist grunted and Lily started to surf through the channels.
Making sure that Lily was completely preoccupied, Yuki concealed a yawn behind his hand. After raiding his sister's house for Sakuma's Ryuichi's address all night he was worn out. Shuichi hadn't been much help either.
"Yuki should we really be doing this?" he asked as he looked at the globs move in the lava lamp.
"Seguchi gave me a key, so therefore he doesn't mind me going through his stuff. And turn that bloody thing off, it's disgusting, I have half a mind to throw it in the bin for breaking fashion laws."
"But Yuki, this is personal stuff we're through," Shuichi whined as Yuki threw wedding photos over his shoulder before pulling the draw out of the cabinet and tipped the contence on the floor.
"Well they constantly go through my personal affairs all the frigging time so it all evens out," he grew frustrated, unable to find his prize.
"Go look in the living room," he commanded and Shuichi slouched off, riddled with guilt and upset at be yelled at.
Three draws later there was still no sign of Sakuma's address written on anything. Yuki threw the draw across the room, causing Shuichi to cry fearfully in the living room.
"Who is this guy? The f$#^ing Phantom? Does he live in a hobo shelter or something?"
Furiously he pulled open the last draw so hard that all the CDs stored in there spilled out onto the floor. Yuki looked down on them and saw the familiar faces of Tohma, Noriko and Ryuichi on the cover.
'So Tohma's hiding it from her too,' he thought and went to join Shuichi in the living room. 'This wont end well.'
"Look! Shuichi's on TV," Japan's best looking man with a bad attitude was brought back to the present by Lily's voice.
He looked up to see the three members of Bad Luck sitting at a long table in the background while a news reporter spoke to the camera.
"Today internationally successful band Bad Luck have publicly announced today their decision to go on a nationwide tour that will take four months to complete."
The reporter disappeared as Lily hit the power button on the remote. She didn't look at Yuki at all and a silence befell the room, the snow still falling the whole time.
"He didn't tell you did he?" Yuki said finally.
Lily shook her head but didn't turn to face him.
"Is this all my life is Yuki san? Is it just a big collection of secrets and lies?"