"Ryuichi! Hey Ryuichi!" a voice snapped him out of his thoughts. He could
see Christina waving at him with her beautiful smile across the road.
"Wait right there! I'll be right over!" she yelled over the noise of the traffic.
Ryuichi lowered Lily down onto the pavement and she started to play with Kumagoro, giving an audio commentary as she went.
"I'm pinching but Kumagoro is counterattacking, hey, wow, arrgh!"
Ryuichi smiled as he watched and he heard the crossing button start to beep. Cars stopped at the sight of red and Christina walked out onto the road, keeping her eyes on her family across the road.
A scream of rubber pierced the air and a car came blazing down the road. What happened next was the worst thing of Ryuichi's life, forging itself into his mind, never to leave him, ever.
It was like watching everything in slow motion. The car hit Christina and she went over the bonnet, being flung and rolled over the roof like a rag doll and smashing the windscreen as she went. A red liquid flew through the air along with shards of fibreglass and her ribs were smashed as she hit the boot before crashing to the ground, where she stayed.
"CHRISTINA!" Ryuichi's screamed crazily. His head was a blend of rage, pain and confusion, not prepared to believe what had just happened.
"Oh my God!"
"Someone call an ambulance!"
"Get that child out of here!"
He heard people screaming behind him as he rushed out onto the road, the crowd of concerned divers that had jumped out of their vehicles moving aside.
"Christina! Look, at me, I'm here," he pulled her into his arms and the tears swelled up in his eyes. He could feel that her whole body was broken beneath his hands.
She could no longer speak, but her sapphire eyes conveyed her last word for her.
'Why?'
A wail rang out as the ambulance appeared at the end of the road, bright and load as it wove in and out of the halted traffic. But Ryuichi didn't look away, he couldn't, there was nothing there for him but Christina.
She smiled then, a small silly smile like she could see something that others could not. The ambulance braked loudly in front the scene, but she was dead before they opened their side doors.
It took Ryuichi a minute to realize that her eyes no longer saw him.
He knelt there, transfixed as the paramedics checked her vitals and shook their heads, he could feel them pulling the woman he loved out of his arms, he could hear the murmurs of the crowd around him and he could feel the sudden coldness that ran through his body. But none of it registered in his mind.
"Mate," a paramedic placed a hand on his shoulder. "I'm really sorry, but she's dead."
"Someone help! Something's wrong with the girl! Someone come over here quick!"
Ryuichi looked up and saw Lily having a massive asthma attack on the pavement as the paramedics rushed over to save her, but he himself could do nothing. The same words rolled over in his mind again and again and again.
"She's dead, she's dead she's dead."
**********************************************
"Pack your bags kiddo you're going home," Dr Sullivan said cheerfully as she filled out some forms on her clipboard.
"What the Hell are you saying you crazy woman!" Yuki jumped up and grabbed the doctor by the front of her white jacket. "The girl's half dead and you're letting her go? Where did you get your graduation certificate? Mail order off the Internet?"
"I have drugs in my pockets that will make you think that you're a tropical clownfish living on the Great Barrier Reef for the next year of your life," the doctor warned as Yuki held her tightly. "And I won't be injecting them into your arm either if you know what I mean."
There was a silence in which Lily and Shuichi looked at each other before looking back at the two archenemies staring it out before them.
"Would you really do that?" Yuki asked after a very long pause.
"I have friends in Psyche who would put a chair in front of the fish tank especially for you," she said in a matter of fact tone.
He let go and Dr Sullivan smoothed out all the creases in her white jacket with a satisfied smile before turning back to Lily.
"You're lungs haven't show any fresh signs of bleeding and you've been breathing without any mechanical aid for the past forty-eight hours," she informed her patient and pulled a collection of bottles out of her coat pocket.
"Despite what this bright spark says here," she jerked her head at the sulking man beside her, "if you take all the medication I've prescribed and stay away from strenuous activity for four or so weeks you'll be both hunky and doorie. Oh and no school for two weeks."
"Two weeks!" Lily gasped. "But I'll fail the whole year with an absence record of that! If I'm right I don't think I've been to school since I've been staying with these two."
"Stress less," Dr Sullivan waved her hand carelessly and passed over the armful of medication to Shuichi. "I'll send your school a few papers full of medical jargon with the hospital's logo, and if they still bother you I'll come around with sedatives. So just enjoy your holiday."
"Thanks Doc," Lily said with a sigh. Maybe she could sneak off to school once she was back with Tohma tomorrow, things would be much easier without Yuki watching her like a hawk.
Joan's parents had forced her to go back to school and with Shuichi rehearsing like crazy for the Rock Festival on Saturday, Yuki had become chief visitor.
From nine to five he was there, rushing out suddenly at random parts of the day to go out for a smoke or to go eat. Most of the time he wouldn't bother to say anything to her, just work on his laptop while watching her out of the corner of his eye.
Lily realized that he could have quite easily of stayed at home to do his writing and not bother with her at all. Despite how Yuki acted, and even if he didn't realize it himself, he was a good person.
**********************************************
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you." Shuichi said solemnly as they sat on the couch together at the apartment.
"Midn't mell me mhat?" Lily asked with a mouthful of raisin toast. She had mentally noted that the place no longer smelt of smoke, almost like it had been aired out on purpose.
"About the tour," Shuichi said moving closer to her and looking sincere. "I was going to tell you before the press conference but with you suddenly getting sick like that and with all that went on I just.."
He cut off as his lip quivered and tears started to spring from his eyes. He stopped abruptly though as a cushion thumped him fair in the face.
"Stop that," Lily said firmly. "Don't be sorry for things that aren't your fault. You're a performer and performers perform, it's in the job description. Sure I was upset at first, but after thinking it though I realized the selfish one was me. I just wanted to have you around to keep me company and to hang out together for a bit longer. So don't be sorry."
She nodded and held an air of intelligence and wisdom. It ended when she was knocked off the couch.
"But I am," Shuichi held the other cushion in his hand.
"Don't be," Lily said with a dangerous smile and threw the cushion at him from the floor.
"But I am!" Shuichi grinned broadly as he dodged the flying weapon and jumped down on to the floor.
"Don't be!" Lily squealed with laughter as she tried to stop the cushion attacks.
She kicked Shuichi off and grabbed her cushion, thumping him over the head viciously, grinning as they continued their small game of warfare.
Yuki came out of his study reading the start of his new manuscript while carrying an empty teacup. The two halted suddenly, holding their weapons in mid attack. He looked down on the two playing on the floor with an expression of contempt.
"Childish brats," he muttered and went into the kitchen wondering what kind of a playground he was living in. He refilled his cup and walked back to his workstation, still planning the editing for the papers he held.
Lily glared at the back of his head as he walked past. Her blue eyes watched him, turned to the cushion, back to Yuki and then to Shuichi. She rose her eyebrows and jerked her head at the retreating novelist.
Shuichi smiled broadly and nodded excitedly, the potential danger running through him like electricity. She pulled her arm back over her head, took half a second to aim and swung her arm forward, releasing the cushion into the air.
Since she sucked at all kinds of sports excluding rollerblading, she didn't really expect it to hit him, just to miss him and land in his general area.
But it did.
The feather stuffed package thumped him square in the back of his blonde head before falling to the floor. The impact had jolted his glasses and he'd spilled a bit of tea onto his manuscript.
A heavy air formed in the apartment and nobody said anything, both Shuichi and Lily were too scared to.
After what seemed like a century, Yuki sighed, but his manuscript and tea down on the lamp table beside him and removed his glasses. He closed his eyes and placed the glasses on top of the table before taking a deep breath.
The other two sitting by the couch on the other hand weren't breathing at all.
His eyes flicked open suddenly, blazing gold danger. He picked up the cushion and walked towards his prey.
**********************************************
"No! No! I'm ticklish!"
"I know, that's why I'm doing it!"
"I'm sorry I'm sorry! I'll never do it again!"
"Of course not, you'll be dead!"
Mika and Tohma gawked at each other as they stood outside the apartment door. Hearing Eiri talking like that with someone else was really weird, if not slightly scary.
Tohma turned the doorhandle and stepped into the room.
There on the floor was Eiri, smothering someone with a sofa cushion and Shuichi trying to pull him off. The scene would have looked violent if the two lovers weren't red in the face from laughter and smiling. Tohma could also see that the novelist wasn't pushing very hard on the sofa cushion.
"What is this Eiri?" Mika demanded.
Yuki and Shuichi looked up and their smiles faded. Yuki took the cushion off of Lily's face and his eyes hardened, here were two of the last people that he'd wanted to see.
Lily took deep breaths to cool her red face and was about to lecture the adult on appropriate ways to treat people who had just had an operation on their lungs when she saw the two unwelcomed guests.
The anger the two looked at her with washed away her feeling of joy and she put her hand over Yuki's without realizing it. She was in big trouble.
*********************************************
Lily arrived at school the next morning feeling cold. Not only was snow coving everything within sight, but also by the school rules she had wear her school dress all year round. The idea of complaining to the school committee ran across her mind.
She was spinning her locker lock around when Joan popped up next to her, wearing a bright purple snow jacket and snow pants. She peeled them off to reveal her school dress underneath and stuffed her snow gear into her locker a little harshly.
"I got your text message last night," she said with a sympathetic expression. "Did they chuck a spaz?"
"Oh yea," Lily said grimly and yanked the locker door open. "Mind you, although they yelled when they saw me at the apartment, it wasn't until we went back to their place that they really let it rip."
"How bad is the damage?"
"I'm never to consort in any way with Yuki san ever again," Lily said darkly and slammed the locker shut after grabbing her Japanese History book.
"What a pair of arseholes!" Joan couldn't stop herself. "The two are a perfect match for one another."
"Yes well, just goes to show that even out of hospital my life is still controlled by others. It seems to be the story of my life. But I shouldn't be so rude, Tohma san did take me in when nobody else would."
The bell rang and all of the students put their indoor shoes on and headed to their various classes.
"Are you sure that you're feeling ok?" Joan asked as they made their way up the stairs with the herd of students. "Maybe you shouldn't have come back to school just yet."
"Nah, it's ok," Lily lied.
**********************************************
"Christina!" Ryuichi's head shot up and it took him a minute to remember where he was.
The collection of tables and the drink machine told him that he was in the NG building, nine years after that event. Noriko got back from Aomori today so Tohma had scheduled a rehearsal for Tokyo Bay Music Festival. He'd dozed off before due to the lack of sleep he'd been having the past few nights.
Every time he closed his eyes the image of Lily lying in the hospital bed, pale as the moon and riddled with pain would come up. He rubbed his warm face and picked Kumagoro off of his lap before getting up.
He became aware of another presence that had just come close and turned to see Yuki Eiri standing bedside him, his expression hard and cold.
"Sakuma Ryuichi I presume?"
**********************************************
"I don't think I like Japanese History," Lily said with a sigh and put her head down on the desk.
"Why not?" asked Joan as she put her textbook in her bag and grabbed another one out.
The two of them had the next class in the same room as Japanese History so there was no need to move during the ten minute class break.
"I can't read all the kanji in the textbook," Lily admitted with a yawn. "I much prefer World History because that mostly has Hiragana and Katakana."
"You should really stop getting up so early," Joan preached. "You're going to wear yourself out again."
"I slept for about four years of my life thanks to all the injections in hospital so I'm trying to make up for lost time now. And I lived on a farm for quite a while so really it's just a bad habit."
"A farm?" Joan scrunched up her nose. "I thought your relations were backstabbing millionaires. What were you doing on a farm?"
"When I went to stay with my grandmother we went to live at the farm estate, so if I was seriously sick suddenly she could claim that the ambulance never made it on time. Tell you what, she was really spitting chips when I survived the tree incident with Azrael. Though the bastard did manage to break two of my ribs which punctured my lung-thus causing the long term hospitalisation."
Joan had about a million and one questions she wanted to ask but was deprived of the opportunity when the classroom door flew open to reveal the entire female population of the school.
"Ah! Yuki Eiri sama!" they gasped and admired as they all crowded behind the novelest standing at the door.
The two girls took one look at him and sank in their chairs. He did not look happy.
His blonde hair was all ruffled, his eyes were burning with suppressed anger and they could see his fingers flexing like he wanted to rip something-or someone to shreds. On his face just below his left eye there was a big read mark, like he'd collided with something large and heavy.
"Yuki san what happened to your face?" Lily asked with concern. "It looks like somebody dealt you one." She then gasped and covered her mouth, remembering that she wasn't supposed to talk to him.
He stormed over, grabbed Lily by the back of her school dress and pulled her off her chair. Both she and the chair fell with a clatter and she grabbed her schoolbag with one hand before Yuki dragged her out of reach.
"Hey wait a sec!" Joan yelled standing up at her desk. "You can't just walk in here and do what you want! Leave her alone!"
The novelest looked back at her over his shoulder and Joan sat back down very quickly.
"Forgive my impertinent statement. Continue with your business," she said meekly and buried her head in her textbook in a futile effort to hide.
The fangirls stepped aside making a clear path for their God and his accessory, ignoring the fact that Lily was kicking and screaming to go free.
"Hey hands off! Let go already, I have classes to attend! Don't just stand there you stupid heads! Help me!" she screamed at the rabid fangirls watching her being pulled away.
Yuki dragged her down three flights of stairs and across the front yard before waiting for the lights to change and then dragged her across the road where he threw her in the back seat of the Mercedes.
He slammed the door shut and hopped in the driver's seat, furiously turning the ignition key before speeding off down the street in a cloud of smoke.
"A girl is pulled away by a man kicking and screaming and nobody goes to help, that's just great. If he's good looking he can't possibly be a rapist or murderer, what kind of a philosophy is that? Geez, if this is where society is heading you can count me out," Lily grumbled from the back seat as she inspected all the cuts and grazes she'd received on her legs.
"Quit your whining," Yuki ordered as he blazed through an amber light. "You got nothing more than you deserved."
"Deserved?" Lily scoffed. "What did I do? I was being a good hardworking student and you just barged in and grabbed me!"
"You're not meant to be going to school yet," Yuki said simply.
"Why do you care?" Lily snapped crossing her arms, her bad mood getting worse.
"Just shut up and do as I tell you."
"Why should I?"
"Keep that up and I'll give to you what I gave to your father," he warned glaring in the rear vision mirror.
The clouds of anger that had been floating around her head disappeared and she looked at him wide eyed.
"You know my Dad?"
**********************************************
"YOU HIT HIM!?" Shuichi screamed as Yuki sat on the couch in the dark, watching television while smoking a cigarette.
Shuichi had just got in from a very long day of rehearsal, with his throat about ready to bleed but once he'd heard what his lover had done with his day he'd found a second wind.
Yuki frowned at the banshee voice and looked at Shuichi wearily. He'd been in a bad mood with several people all day so the last thing he needed was to have Shuichi making a big deal out of small details in his town crier voice.
"He deserved it," he said with a small shrug and hoped that would settle he matter
"What did he do to you?"
"Nothing."
"So then why did you start a brawl?" Shuichi sagged down onto the couch and let his head fall of Yuki's shoulder. Much to his surprise he was allowed to stay there.
"I was more or less acting on behalf of another," he said with his eyes focused on the television. "The girl has lost faith in him and is angry with him for leaving her alone, even if she wont admit it openly. He has been hiding behind his career all of this time because he's afraid to confront her. He needed to wake up to himself, so I woke him up."
Shuichi lifted his head and looked at his lover with confused tired eyes.
"Are you saying that you did it because you care about Lily chan?"
"Your stupidity grows with every passing day," Yuki grunted and decided that the conversation was closed.
**********************************************
"You're the bestist friend in the whole wide world!" Joan squealed and hugged Lily tightly.
"Is 'bestist' a real word?" Lily asked with a smile as she was pushed across the park bench by Joan's weight.
"I can't believe you got tickets!" Joan ignored her question and sat up again to gaze lovingly at her exclusive backstage pass and ticket to Tokyo Bay Music Festival. "I guess it really pays to make friends on international flights. It's a shame that Artemis had to miss this though."
"You kidding?" Joan received an 'are you stupid' look from her friend. "Can you imagine how many people he would grope if he was in a crowd of over five hundred? He'd have a field day."
"Good point," Joan admitted and acknowledged Lily with her index finger.
It was Friday morning and Lily had waited in the park bundled up in thick jackets and scarves for Joan who was on her regular walk to school.
Yesterday she'd spent the entire day ironing Yuki's clothes and scrubbing his bathroom with Shuichi's toothbrush. Lily wasn't sure which had been worse, the punishment or the fact that Yuki had put so much effort into thinking it up.
Mind you, she had gone and bought Shuichi a new toothbrush before he'd gotten home.
"Hey can you confirm a rumour for me?" Joan asked excitedly bouncing up and down on the bench.
"I suppose," Lily sighed, preparing for the worst.
"Is it true that Yuki Eiri sama hates celery?"
"Go to school!" Lily groaned painfully. Only Joan could ever bother investigating the eating habits of someone famous.
"You're not coming?"
"After what happened yesterday I thick I should play it safe," Lily said with a sigh of defeat. "Today I'm apparently cleaning the oven. Maybe Yuki san has plans to turn the gas on while my head's shoved in it to make it look like suicide."
"Would he really do that?" Joan's eyes grew wider than her glasses.
Lily placed her hand on her friend's shoulder and gave her a comforting smile.
"Joan my dear, you are quite possibly the most innocent and naive person I have ever met. Please stay that way."
"Ok. Bye Bye!" Joan cried perkily and set off down the path at a run.
"Don't forget to get my homework for me!" Lily cried after her and watched her go until she was just a dot in the distance.
'Well, even if Shuichi, Hiro, Fujisaki and the others go, I'll still have Joan. And Yuki san too.'
She shook her head to try remove that last stupid thought. Yuki wasn't really a friend she could console in, well he wasn't even really a friend at all when she thought about it. He was, well, an acquaintance at most.
Thinking of that particular acquaintance reminded her that she had to go to the market to get things off the shopping list Yuki had written just for her.
'Jerk.'
**********************************************
"200 Yen! 200 Yen for a kilo of peaches! You should call yourself 'Bloodthirsty money hungry scrooge' because that's what you are!" Noriko stood in the front of a very nervous line of people as she yelled insult after insult at a green grocer who had now decided to never stock peaches ever again.
The purple haired mother continued to express he rather vocal opinions until the green grocer proclaimed her fruit as a gift, which much to his relief got rid of her.
She regretted having not grabbed a jacket before she left the house that morning and wondered if she should go buy one before she got a taxi over to the beach where the final rehearsals were going to take place. If Ryuichi and Tohma could show up late whenever they wanted couldn't she?
Taking care not to slip on the icy pavement she walked through the tents and stalls of fresh foods thinking about which jacket she'd seen in her fashion magazine and was going to buy.
'Shopping hasn't been the same since she left,' a little voice said in her ear.
Noriko thought of how nice it would have been to be able to go shopping with that particular person now that she could actually buy all the clothes she wanted. Before all the two of them had been able to do was to window shop and circle all of the designer labels in magazines. And that's how it was going to stay, frozen in time.
'You can't live in the past Noriko,' her mind reasoned with her. 'One Grasper is and look at what's happened to him.'
For a second Noriko thought that she was living in the past. She saw the sight in front of her and wondered if it could possibly be real. She was almost too afraid to breathe, thinking that it would disappear if the slightest thing changed.
"Special on snow peas today only."
"No thankyou, he only gave me enough money to get the groceries on the list."
'Christina?'
The eyes were Christina's. The body structure was Christina's as was the face. The hair was...no.
Seeing the thick brown ponytail made the jumpy feeling in her stomach stop. She was her mother in almost every aspect, but the hair made Noriko think of the lead singer she knew well.
Nine years later here she was, the little girl that Ryuichi had left behind at the airport and had thought about every day since then, standing three feet in front of her buying vegetables.
"Lily?"
The girl looked up with surprise to see the woman with two purple pigtails trembling slightly, looking as though she was holding back tears. Yet there was something about her that seemed familiar, as strange as it was, it was the same feeling that she got around Tohma.
She walked up to her wanting to say something but she didn't know where to start. This girl looked so much like Christina that it hurt and a memory was playing in her head, taking her away from the present moment.
Ryuichi was on his knees in front of a white tombstone with his hands covering his red and tear soaked face. Noriko held Lily in her arms as the four-year-old slept soundly on her shoulder, the funeral having sapped her of all her energy.
Tohma stood on the other side of their grief stricken friend and spoke the only words of comfort he could think of.
"She's in a better place Ryuichi."
"Where could she be happier than with her daughter and lover?" he'd wept.
It was then, as the two friends watched the singer crumble to pieces with sorrow and heartache that they made a promise. A silent promise that neither ever had to verbally agree on.
They would look after Ryuichi and Lily, protect them and ensure that they'd never feel this kind of pain again.
"You never had time to see," Noriko muttered and touched Lily's pale face, "how life was like with your Mum and Dad did you baby?"
"Sorry but I think you're confused. You don't know me," Lily said feeling very awkward. She saw by looking in the woman's eyes that she wasn't there any more, but lost in her own memories and feelings.
Noriko smiled and shook her head a little bit. She reached into her bag, pulling out a peach and dropped it in Lily's outstretched palm.
"Of course I know who you are kiddo," Noriko patted her on the head. "You're Ryuichi's girl."
"What!?"
Lily was left feeling amazed and breathless as the woman walked off humming the song Joan had played her in their double bludge.
What had it been called again? Oh yea, Sleepless Beauty. It was a strange name, but for some reason it felt familiar.
'The weirdos just keep coming.' **********************************************
"Take your share first Lily chan before Shuichi scoffs it all," Hiro said with a smile that turned Lily to goo.
"Hey I find that insulting!" Shuichi whined with a pout.
The three of them were sitting around a large pizza on the floor of Hiro's apartment. Shuichi had arrived home that afternoon to find Lily separating the rubbish and recycling in the kitchen bin and had decided to liberate her.
"Don't you two ever invite Fujisaki san to things like this?" Lily asked as she put two slices on her paper plate.
"Well we would," Hiro said reaching for his share, "but he's more, how could I say- articulate than the two of us."
"Whaddya mean?" Shuichi had half a slice of pizza hanging out of his mouth with cheese oozing onto the carpet as he spoke.
"Need I say more?" he asked his admirer with an amused smile.
Lily looked down at her socks to stop herself from laughing. She sure was going to miss being around Shuichi, even if it was for only for four months. The bright haired adult had the ability to make her happy without meaning to.
"Did Shuichi give you your tickets yesterday Lily chan?" Hiro whipped his hands on his napkin. "We were meaning to get them to you and Joan chan sooner but things have been rush-rush at the studio with rehearsals."
"Yea I gave Joan hers this morning. Are you exited about tomorrow? I know I am, I just can't wait to hear the new song!" Lily clapped her hands together with a smile.
Tomorrow looked promising.
**********************************************
Hikaru: Only two more to go guys! I'm so excited though I'm sure that I should be since I'm the writer.......oh well I guess it shows I'm having fun. Thanks for all the tips and reviews and thankyou so much again for all your patience thus far.
I know that Yuki is a bit out of character here but I really wanted to try and get the relationship between him and Lily across, though I'm not sure if I've really achieved it.
I've also noticed that the timeframe might be a little bit off these past few chapters but since it would cause to much trouble to go back and fix it, I'm not going to worry about it-so neither should you. *nods and smiles* (Thank you Austin Powers.)
I have two English SACs (School Assessed Course work) this week so there might be a small delay with the next chapter.
Have faith in me! Bye for now.
"Wait right there! I'll be right over!" she yelled over the noise of the traffic.
Ryuichi lowered Lily down onto the pavement and she started to play with Kumagoro, giving an audio commentary as she went.
"I'm pinching but Kumagoro is counterattacking, hey, wow, arrgh!"
Ryuichi smiled as he watched and he heard the crossing button start to beep. Cars stopped at the sight of red and Christina walked out onto the road, keeping her eyes on her family across the road.
A scream of rubber pierced the air and a car came blazing down the road. What happened next was the worst thing of Ryuichi's life, forging itself into his mind, never to leave him, ever.
It was like watching everything in slow motion. The car hit Christina and she went over the bonnet, being flung and rolled over the roof like a rag doll and smashing the windscreen as she went. A red liquid flew through the air along with shards of fibreglass and her ribs were smashed as she hit the boot before crashing to the ground, where she stayed.
"CHRISTINA!" Ryuichi's screamed crazily. His head was a blend of rage, pain and confusion, not prepared to believe what had just happened.
"Oh my God!"
"Someone call an ambulance!"
"Get that child out of here!"
He heard people screaming behind him as he rushed out onto the road, the crowd of concerned divers that had jumped out of their vehicles moving aside.
"Christina! Look, at me, I'm here," he pulled her into his arms and the tears swelled up in his eyes. He could feel that her whole body was broken beneath his hands.
She could no longer speak, but her sapphire eyes conveyed her last word for her.
'Why?'
A wail rang out as the ambulance appeared at the end of the road, bright and load as it wove in and out of the halted traffic. But Ryuichi didn't look away, he couldn't, there was nothing there for him but Christina.
She smiled then, a small silly smile like she could see something that others could not. The ambulance braked loudly in front the scene, but she was dead before they opened their side doors.
It took Ryuichi a minute to realize that her eyes no longer saw him.
He knelt there, transfixed as the paramedics checked her vitals and shook their heads, he could feel them pulling the woman he loved out of his arms, he could hear the murmurs of the crowd around him and he could feel the sudden coldness that ran through his body. But none of it registered in his mind.
"Mate," a paramedic placed a hand on his shoulder. "I'm really sorry, but she's dead."
"Someone help! Something's wrong with the girl! Someone come over here quick!"
Ryuichi looked up and saw Lily having a massive asthma attack on the pavement as the paramedics rushed over to save her, but he himself could do nothing. The same words rolled over in his mind again and again and again.
"She's dead, she's dead she's dead."
**********************************************
"Pack your bags kiddo you're going home," Dr Sullivan said cheerfully as she filled out some forms on her clipboard.
"What the Hell are you saying you crazy woman!" Yuki jumped up and grabbed the doctor by the front of her white jacket. "The girl's half dead and you're letting her go? Where did you get your graduation certificate? Mail order off the Internet?"
"I have drugs in my pockets that will make you think that you're a tropical clownfish living on the Great Barrier Reef for the next year of your life," the doctor warned as Yuki held her tightly. "And I won't be injecting them into your arm either if you know what I mean."
There was a silence in which Lily and Shuichi looked at each other before looking back at the two archenemies staring it out before them.
"Would you really do that?" Yuki asked after a very long pause.
"I have friends in Psyche who would put a chair in front of the fish tank especially for you," she said in a matter of fact tone.
He let go and Dr Sullivan smoothed out all the creases in her white jacket with a satisfied smile before turning back to Lily.
"You're lungs haven't show any fresh signs of bleeding and you've been breathing without any mechanical aid for the past forty-eight hours," she informed her patient and pulled a collection of bottles out of her coat pocket.
"Despite what this bright spark says here," she jerked her head at the sulking man beside her, "if you take all the medication I've prescribed and stay away from strenuous activity for four or so weeks you'll be both hunky and doorie. Oh and no school for two weeks."
"Two weeks!" Lily gasped. "But I'll fail the whole year with an absence record of that! If I'm right I don't think I've been to school since I've been staying with these two."
"Stress less," Dr Sullivan waved her hand carelessly and passed over the armful of medication to Shuichi. "I'll send your school a few papers full of medical jargon with the hospital's logo, and if they still bother you I'll come around with sedatives. So just enjoy your holiday."
"Thanks Doc," Lily said with a sigh. Maybe she could sneak off to school once she was back with Tohma tomorrow, things would be much easier without Yuki watching her like a hawk.
Joan's parents had forced her to go back to school and with Shuichi rehearsing like crazy for the Rock Festival on Saturday, Yuki had become chief visitor.
From nine to five he was there, rushing out suddenly at random parts of the day to go out for a smoke or to go eat. Most of the time he wouldn't bother to say anything to her, just work on his laptop while watching her out of the corner of his eye.
Lily realized that he could have quite easily of stayed at home to do his writing and not bother with her at all. Despite how Yuki acted, and even if he didn't realize it himself, he was a good person.
**********************************************
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you." Shuichi said solemnly as they sat on the couch together at the apartment.
"Midn't mell me mhat?" Lily asked with a mouthful of raisin toast. She had mentally noted that the place no longer smelt of smoke, almost like it had been aired out on purpose.
"About the tour," Shuichi said moving closer to her and looking sincere. "I was going to tell you before the press conference but with you suddenly getting sick like that and with all that went on I just.."
He cut off as his lip quivered and tears started to spring from his eyes. He stopped abruptly though as a cushion thumped him fair in the face.
"Stop that," Lily said firmly. "Don't be sorry for things that aren't your fault. You're a performer and performers perform, it's in the job description. Sure I was upset at first, but after thinking it though I realized the selfish one was me. I just wanted to have you around to keep me company and to hang out together for a bit longer. So don't be sorry."
She nodded and held an air of intelligence and wisdom. It ended when she was knocked off the couch.
"But I am," Shuichi held the other cushion in his hand.
"Don't be," Lily said with a dangerous smile and threw the cushion at him from the floor.
"But I am!" Shuichi grinned broadly as he dodged the flying weapon and jumped down on to the floor.
"Don't be!" Lily squealed with laughter as she tried to stop the cushion attacks.
She kicked Shuichi off and grabbed her cushion, thumping him over the head viciously, grinning as they continued their small game of warfare.
Yuki came out of his study reading the start of his new manuscript while carrying an empty teacup. The two halted suddenly, holding their weapons in mid attack. He looked down on the two playing on the floor with an expression of contempt.
"Childish brats," he muttered and went into the kitchen wondering what kind of a playground he was living in. He refilled his cup and walked back to his workstation, still planning the editing for the papers he held.
Lily glared at the back of his head as he walked past. Her blue eyes watched him, turned to the cushion, back to Yuki and then to Shuichi. She rose her eyebrows and jerked her head at the retreating novelist.
Shuichi smiled broadly and nodded excitedly, the potential danger running through him like electricity. She pulled her arm back over her head, took half a second to aim and swung her arm forward, releasing the cushion into the air.
Since she sucked at all kinds of sports excluding rollerblading, she didn't really expect it to hit him, just to miss him and land in his general area.
But it did.
The feather stuffed package thumped him square in the back of his blonde head before falling to the floor. The impact had jolted his glasses and he'd spilled a bit of tea onto his manuscript.
A heavy air formed in the apartment and nobody said anything, both Shuichi and Lily were too scared to.
After what seemed like a century, Yuki sighed, but his manuscript and tea down on the lamp table beside him and removed his glasses. He closed his eyes and placed the glasses on top of the table before taking a deep breath.
The other two sitting by the couch on the other hand weren't breathing at all.
His eyes flicked open suddenly, blazing gold danger. He picked up the cushion and walked towards his prey.
**********************************************
"No! No! I'm ticklish!"
"I know, that's why I'm doing it!"
"I'm sorry I'm sorry! I'll never do it again!"
"Of course not, you'll be dead!"
Mika and Tohma gawked at each other as they stood outside the apartment door. Hearing Eiri talking like that with someone else was really weird, if not slightly scary.
Tohma turned the doorhandle and stepped into the room.
There on the floor was Eiri, smothering someone with a sofa cushion and Shuichi trying to pull him off. The scene would have looked violent if the two lovers weren't red in the face from laughter and smiling. Tohma could also see that the novelist wasn't pushing very hard on the sofa cushion.
"What is this Eiri?" Mika demanded.
Yuki and Shuichi looked up and their smiles faded. Yuki took the cushion off of Lily's face and his eyes hardened, here were two of the last people that he'd wanted to see.
Lily took deep breaths to cool her red face and was about to lecture the adult on appropriate ways to treat people who had just had an operation on their lungs when she saw the two unwelcomed guests.
The anger the two looked at her with washed away her feeling of joy and she put her hand over Yuki's without realizing it. She was in big trouble.
*********************************************
Lily arrived at school the next morning feeling cold. Not only was snow coving everything within sight, but also by the school rules she had wear her school dress all year round. The idea of complaining to the school committee ran across her mind.
She was spinning her locker lock around when Joan popped up next to her, wearing a bright purple snow jacket and snow pants. She peeled them off to reveal her school dress underneath and stuffed her snow gear into her locker a little harshly.
"I got your text message last night," she said with a sympathetic expression. "Did they chuck a spaz?"
"Oh yea," Lily said grimly and yanked the locker door open. "Mind you, although they yelled when they saw me at the apartment, it wasn't until we went back to their place that they really let it rip."
"How bad is the damage?"
"I'm never to consort in any way with Yuki san ever again," Lily said darkly and slammed the locker shut after grabbing her Japanese History book.
"What a pair of arseholes!" Joan couldn't stop herself. "The two are a perfect match for one another."
"Yes well, just goes to show that even out of hospital my life is still controlled by others. It seems to be the story of my life. But I shouldn't be so rude, Tohma san did take me in when nobody else would."
The bell rang and all of the students put their indoor shoes on and headed to their various classes.
"Are you sure that you're feeling ok?" Joan asked as they made their way up the stairs with the herd of students. "Maybe you shouldn't have come back to school just yet."
"Nah, it's ok," Lily lied.
**********************************************
"Christina!" Ryuichi's head shot up and it took him a minute to remember where he was.
The collection of tables and the drink machine told him that he was in the NG building, nine years after that event. Noriko got back from Aomori today so Tohma had scheduled a rehearsal for Tokyo Bay Music Festival. He'd dozed off before due to the lack of sleep he'd been having the past few nights.
Every time he closed his eyes the image of Lily lying in the hospital bed, pale as the moon and riddled with pain would come up. He rubbed his warm face and picked Kumagoro off of his lap before getting up.
He became aware of another presence that had just come close and turned to see Yuki Eiri standing bedside him, his expression hard and cold.
"Sakuma Ryuichi I presume?"
**********************************************
"I don't think I like Japanese History," Lily said with a sigh and put her head down on the desk.
"Why not?" asked Joan as she put her textbook in her bag and grabbed another one out.
The two of them had the next class in the same room as Japanese History so there was no need to move during the ten minute class break.
"I can't read all the kanji in the textbook," Lily admitted with a yawn. "I much prefer World History because that mostly has Hiragana and Katakana."
"You should really stop getting up so early," Joan preached. "You're going to wear yourself out again."
"I slept for about four years of my life thanks to all the injections in hospital so I'm trying to make up for lost time now. And I lived on a farm for quite a while so really it's just a bad habit."
"A farm?" Joan scrunched up her nose. "I thought your relations were backstabbing millionaires. What were you doing on a farm?"
"When I went to stay with my grandmother we went to live at the farm estate, so if I was seriously sick suddenly she could claim that the ambulance never made it on time. Tell you what, she was really spitting chips when I survived the tree incident with Azrael. Though the bastard did manage to break two of my ribs which punctured my lung-thus causing the long term hospitalisation."
Joan had about a million and one questions she wanted to ask but was deprived of the opportunity when the classroom door flew open to reveal the entire female population of the school.
"Ah! Yuki Eiri sama!" they gasped and admired as they all crowded behind the novelest standing at the door.
The two girls took one look at him and sank in their chairs. He did not look happy.
His blonde hair was all ruffled, his eyes were burning with suppressed anger and they could see his fingers flexing like he wanted to rip something-or someone to shreds. On his face just below his left eye there was a big read mark, like he'd collided with something large and heavy.
"Yuki san what happened to your face?" Lily asked with concern. "It looks like somebody dealt you one." She then gasped and covered her mouth, remembering that she wasn't supposed to talk to him.
He stormed over, grabbed Lily by the back of her school dress and pulled her off her chair. Both she and the chair fell with a clatter and she grabbed her schoolbag with one hand before Yuki dragged her out of reach.
"Hey wait a sec!" Joan yelled standing up at her desk. "You can't just walk in here and do what you want! Leave her alone!"
The novelest looked back at her over his shoulder and Joan sat back down very quickly.
"Forgive my impertinent statement. Continue with your business," she said meekly and buried her head in her textbook in a futile effort to hide.
The fangirls stepped aside making a clear path for their God and his accessory, ignoring the fact that Lily was kicking and screaming to go free.
"Hey hands off! Let go already, I have classes to attend! Don't just stand there you stupid heads! Help me!" she screamed at the rabid fangirls watching her being pulled away.
Yuki dragged her down three flights of stairs and across the front yard before waiting for the lights to change and then dragged her across the road where he threw her in the back seat of the Mercedes.
He slammed the door shut and hopped in the driver's seat, furiously turning the ignition key before speeding off down the street in a cloud of smoke.
"A girl is pulled away by a man kicking and screaming and nobody goes to help, that's just great. If he's good looking he can't possibly be a rapist or murderer, what kind of a philosophy is that? Geez, if this is where society is heading you can count me out," Lily grumbled from the back seat as she inspected all the cuts and grazes she'd received on her legs.
"Quit your whining," Yuki ordered as he blazed through an amber light. "You got nothing more than you deserved."
"Deserved?" Lily scoffed. "What did I do? I was being a good hardworking student and you just barged in and grabbed me!"
"You're not meant to be going to school yet," Yuki said simply.
"Why do you care?" Lily snapped crossing her arms, her bad mood getting worse.
"Just shut up and do as I tell you."
"Why should I?"
"Keep that up and I'll give to you what I gave to your father," he warned glaring in the rear vision mirror.
The clouds of anger that had been floating around her head disappeared and she looked at him wide eyed.
"You know my Dad?"
**********************************************
"YOU HIT HIM!?" Shuichi screamed as Yuki sat on the couch in the dark, watching television while smoking a cigarette.
Shuichi had just got in from a very long day of rehearsal, with his throat about ready to bleed but once he'd heard what his lover had done with his day he'd found a second wind.
Yuki frowned at the banshee voice and looked at Shuichi wearily. He'd been in a bad mood with several people all day so the last thing he needed was to have Shuichi making a big deal out of small details in his town crier voice.
"He deserved it," he said with a small shrug and hoped that would settle he matter
"What did he do to you?"
"Nothing."
"So then why did you start a brawl?" Shuichi sagged down onto the couch and let his head fall of Yuki's shoulder. Much to his surprise he was allowed to stay there.
"I was more or less acting on behalf of another," he said with his eyes focused on the television. "The girl has lost faith in him and is angry with him for leaving her alone, even if she wont admit it openly. He has been hiding behind his career all of this time because he's afraid to confront her. He needed to wake up to himself, so I woke him up."
Shuichi lifted his head and looked at his lover with confused tired eyes.
"Are you saying that you did it because you care about Lily chan?"
"Your stupidity grows with every passing day," Yuki grunted and decided that the conversation was closed.
**********************************************
"You're the bestist friend in the whole wide world!" Joan squealed and hugged Lily tightly.
"Is 'bestist' a real word?" Lily asked with a smile as she was pushed across the park bench by Joan's weight.
"I can't believe you got tickets!" Joan ignored her question and sat up again to gaze lovingly at her exclusive backstage pass and ticket to Tokyo Bay Music Festival. "I guess it really pays to make friends on international flights. It's a shame that Artemis had to miss this though."
"You kidding?" Joan received an 'are you stupid' look from her friend. "Can you imagine how many people he would grope if he was in a crowd of over five hundred? He'd have a field day."
"Good point," Joan admitted and acknowledged Lily with her index finger.
It was Friday morning and Lily had waited in the park bundled up in thick jackets and scarves for Joan who was on her regular walk to school.
Yesterday she'd spent the entire day ironing Yuki's clothes and scrubbing his bathroom with Shuichi's toothbrush. Lily wasn't sure which had been worse, the punishment or the fact that Yuki had put so much effort into thinking it up.
Mind you, she had gone and bought Shuichi a new toothbrush before he'd gotten home.
"Hey can you confirm a rumour for me?" Joan asked excitedly bouncing up and down on the bench.
"I suppose," Lily sighed, preparing for the worst.
"Is it true that Yuki Eiri sama hates celery?"
"Go to school!" Lily groaned painfully. Only Joan could ever bother investigating the eating habits of someone famous.
"You're not coming?"
"After what happened yesterday I thick I should play it safe," Lily said with a sigh of defeat. "Today I'm apparently cleaning the oven. Maybe Yuki san has plans to turn the gas on while my head's shoved in it to make it look like suicide."
"Would he really do that?" Joan's eyes grew wider than her glasses.
Lily placed her hand on her friend's shoulder and gave her a comforting smile.
"Joan my dear, you are quite possibly the most innocent and naive person I have ever met. Please stay that way."
"Ok. Bye Bye!" Joan cried perkily and set off down the path at a run.
"Don't forget to get my homework for me!" Lily cried after her and watched her go until she was just a dot in the distance.
'Well, even if Shuichi, Hiro, Fujisaki and the others go, I'll still have Joan. And Yuki san too.'
She shook her head to try remove that last stupid thought. Yuki wasn't really a friend she could console in, well he wasn't even really a friend at all when she thought about it. He was, well, an acquaintance at most.
Thinking of that particular acquaintance reminded her that she had to go to the market to get things off the shopping list Yuki had written just for her.
'Jerk.'
**********************************************
"200 Yen! 200 Yen for a kilo of peaches! You should call yourself 'Bloodthirsty money hungry scrooge' because that's what you are!" Noriko stood in the front of a very nervous line of people as she yelled insult after insult at a green grocer who had now decided to never stock peaches ever again.
The purple haired mother continued to express he rather vocal opinions until the green grocer proclaimed her fruit as a gift, which much to his relief got rid of her.
She regretted having not grabbed a jacket before she left the house that morning and wondered if she should go buy one before she got a taxi over to the beach where the final rehearsals were going to take place. If Ryuichi and Tohma could show up late whenever they wanted couldn't she?
Taking care not to slip on the icy pavement she walked through the tents and stalls of fresh foods thinking about which jacket she'd seen in her fashion magazine and was going to buy.
'Shopping hasn't been the same since she left,' a little voice said in her ear.
Noriko thought of how nice it would have been to be able to go shopping with that particular person now that she could actually buy all the clothes she wanted. Before all the two of them had been able to do was to window shop and circle all of the designer labels in magazines. And that's how it was going to stay, frozen in time.
'You can't live in the past Noriko,' her mind reasoned with her. 'One Grasper is and look at what's happened to him.'
For a second Noriko thought that she was living in the past. She saw the sight in front of her and wondered if it could possibly be real. She was almost too afraid to breathe, thinking that it would disappear if the slightest thing changed.
"Special on snow peas today only."
"No thankyou, he only gave me enough money to get the groceries on the list."
'Christina?'
The eyes were Christina's. The body structure was Christina's as was the face. The hair was...no.
Seeing the thick brown ponytail made the jumpy feeling in her stomach stop. She was her mother in almost every aspect, but the hair made Noriko think of the lead singer she knew well.
Nine years later here she was, the little girl that Ryuichi had left behind at the airport and had thought about every day since then, standing three feet in front of her buying vegetables.
"Lily?"
The girl looked up with surprise to see the woman with two purple pigtails trembling slightly, looking as though she was holding back tears. Yet there was something about her that seemed familiar, as strange as it was, it was the same feeling that she got around Tohma.
She walked up to her wanting to say something but she didn't know where to start. This girl looked so much like Christina that it hurt and a memory was playing in her head, taking her away from the present moment.
Ryuichi was on his knees in front of a white tombstone with his hands covering his red and tear soaked face. Noriko held Lily in her arms as the four-year-old slept soundly on her shoulder, the funeral having sapped her of all her energy.
Tohma stood on the other side of their grief stricken friend and spoke the only words of comfort he could think of.
"She's in a better place Ryuichi."
"Where could she be happier than with her daughter and lover?" he'd wept.
It was then, as the two friends watched the singer crumble to pieces with sorrow and heartache that they made a promise. A silent promise that neither ever had to verbally agree on.
They would look after Ryuichi and Lily, protect them and ensure that they'd never feel this kind of pain again.
"You never had time to see," Noriko muttered and touched Lily's pale face, "how life was like with your Mum and Dad did you baby?"
"Sorry but I think you're confused. You don't know me," Lily said feeling very awkward. She saw by looking in the woman's eyes that she wasn't there any more, but lost in her own memories and feelings.
Noriko smiled and shook her head a little bit. She reached into her bag, pulling out a peach and dropped it in Lily's outstretched palm.
"Of course I know who you are kiddo," Noriko patted her on the head. "You're Ryuichi's girl."
"What!?"
Lily was left feeling amazed and breathless as the woman walked off humming the song Joan had played her in their double bludge.
What had it been called again? Oh yea, Sleepless Beauty. It was a strange name, but for some reason it felt familiar.
'The weirdos just keep coming.' **********************************************
"Take your share first Lily chan before Shuichi scoffs it all," Hiro said with a smile that turned Lily to goo.
"Hey I find that insulting!" Shuichi whined with a pout.
The three of them were sitting around a large pizza on the floor of Hiro's apartment. Shuichi had arrived home that afternoon to find Lily separating the rubbish and recycling in the kitchen bin and had decided to liberate her.
"Don't you two ever invite Fujisaki san to things like this?" Lily asked as she put two slices on her paper plate.
"Well we would," Hiro said reaching for his share, "but he's more, how could I say- articulate than the two of us."
"Whaddya mean?" Shuichi had half a slice of pizza hanging out of his mouth with cheese oozing onto the carpet as he spoke.
"Need I say more?" he asked his admirer with an amused smile.
Lily looked down at her socks to stop herself from laughing. She sure was going to miss being around Shuichi, even if it was for only for four months. The bright haired adult had the ability to make her happy without meaning to.
"Did Shuichi give you your tickets yesterday Lily chan?" Hiro whipped his hands on his napkin. "We were meaning to get them to you and Joan chan sooner but things have been rush-rush at the studio with rehearsals."
"Yea I gave Joan hers this morning. Are you exited about tomorrow? I know I am, I just can't wait to hear the new song!" Lily clapped her hands together with a smile.
Tomorrow looked promising.
**********************************************
Hikaru: Only two more to go guys! I'm so excited though I'm sure that I should be since I'm the writer.......oh well I guess it shows I'm having fun. Thanks for all the tips and reviews and thankyou so much again for all your patience thus far.
I know that Yuki is a bit out of character here but I really wanted to try and get the relationship between him and Lily across, though I'm not sure if I've really achieved it.
I've also noticed that the timeframe might be a little bit off these past few chapters but since it would cause to much trouble to go back and fix it, I'm not going to worry about it-so neither should you. *nods and smiles* (Thank you Austin Powers.)
I have two English SACs (School Assessed Course work) this week so there might be a small delay with the next chapter.
Have faith in me! Bye for now.