Disclaimer: not mine. Not making money.
"Yama?" I asked, keeping my voice soft because apparently, he had a headache. A massive one, if I knew my best friend as well as I thought I did. Our teacher had turned pale when he reached up toward his head. His sleeve had dropped and exposed an inch of mottled purple and yellow bruises, cuts that were either scabbed or still oozing. No wonder he had chosen to wear red today; it wouldn't show the blood. She sent him to the nurse's office and gave me the task of carrying his stuff. We had walked outside when I heard him groan and looked at him in time to his eyes roll back before he collapsed. I dropped the books and caught him before he hit the ground. He cracked open an eye after a few minutes of my frenzied whispering.
"Tai? Tai, I- I feel so- so bad. I-I- my head hurt so badly." He whispered, clinging to me. I could feel him shaking.
"Shh. It'll be ok. You just need a good night's rest. Then your headache will go away." I stroked his hair, the golden, sunshine silk that all the girls fell for. He held on even tighter and his shaking increased; only now he was whimpering. Good Lord, my best friend, the ice-cold Yamato Ishida was whimpering. "It's going to be ok. Shhhh." I rested my cheek against the top of his head. "You'll be ok." What was going on? I didn't ask for fear that it would only upset him further and said nothing. After a few minutes, I decided that he had calmed down sufficiently enough that I could get him home so I helped him up. "Come on, let's get you home." At the last word, he let out a cry of fear and his beautiful sapphire eyes glazed with fear. "Hey, what's the matter? You have to get home."
"No." The word was quiet and wavering but firm. "No. Please Tai, don't make me go there. Please." He stared up at me with veiled eyes barely covering the underlying fear that was in them.
"You have to get home. You can't stay here." I protested, laying a hand on his head. He was burning up. "You're sick. You can't-"
"No. Please, don't take me there." He pleaded, tears splashing down his face. "I can't go home." His voice was getting progressively lower and more child-like. "Please?" Now he sounded like a lost, little boy. I hated seeing him like this. He had been so vulnerable around me so few times that right now, I was at a loss for what to do. No matter how upset he was, he refused to cry. He would blink and blink a million times to keep in the tears, never letting one grace his features. This was the first time I had ever seen him openly crying and it was scaring me.
"Ok, then. Come on, you can stay at my house for the time being." He relaxed with a sigh of relief. "But first, I have to go see the principal about an excuse to get out of school to help you there because obviously, there is no way you are going to be able to get there without help." As I rambled, I gathered the textbooks I had dropped and stuffed them into his bag. I swung it over my right shoulder so it rested at my left hip and swung my own bookbag over the other shoulder to rest at my other hip. Then I hoisted my friend up. He gripped my neck with one arm and with the other, reached over and grabbed the shoulder closest to him. We walked out, or rather, I walked and half-dragged, half-carried Yama to the principal's office where she promised to inform our teachers that we had gone home.
It took us the rest of the day to get home. It was hot and Yama was just a dead weight in my arms. He had passed out right after we left the school and I was carrying him plus everything else we lugged to school. One of my arms was supporting his upper back while the other was holding up his knees. His head rested against my chest and his soft hair tickled my chin. By the time I got home, school was already out and Kari was sitting in the kitchen when I kicked the door as both my arms were occupied carrying him. She opened it and I walked in, careful not to bang his head against the door frame, without so much as a hello. I was too tired and too thirsty to say anything and ignored her completely. I managed to make it to my room where I gently set him on the bed and covered him with a light blanket. He immediately curled up on one side, one arm snaking under the pillow, the other over the pillow and clutched tightly to it. He sighed almost inaudibly and I was reminded forcibly of the sounds babies make when they were pleased. Indeed, he looked so innocent when he was sleeping, like all the years of trials and sadness that life had thrown at him, all the 'growing up' had melted away, leaving the happy child he once was. Smiling, I closed the blinds, turned off the lights and softly, so as not to wake him, closed the door behind me as I entered the hallway. Kari was in the kitchen, eating an apple and she looked up at me, chewing thoughtfully.
"I don't know so don't even bother asking." I said gruffly, before she even opened her mouth. "He doesn't want to go home."
"Why'd you carry him here?" her voice was quiet and when I met her gaze, she was watching me with a kind of innocently curious expression.
"He passed out when we were coming home." I shrugged, grabbing an apple for myself and taking a bite out of it. "Kari, there's something wrong with him but he won't tell me. I'm getting worried." She cocked her head and looked at me, thinking. "I don't know what to do. He won't tell me anything which makes me think- ugh, I dunno what to think. You know, sometimes it's really hard having a friend who's learned how to hide everything. You know he needs help but because he never tells you anything, you don't know how to help." I buried my face in my hands and groaned in frustration. I wish I could help. She placed a placating hand on my shoulder. She had a habit of doing that when someone was upset and the simple gesture comforted me; I didn't like it when people tried to tell me that everything would be okay when it wasn't what I needed or wanted to hear and Kari understood that. She wanted to say something but was hesitating, I could tell. She took a deep breath and began,
"Tai-" Just then, a chilling scream rent through the apartment. Both our gazes snapped towards my room, my blood went cold and only one thought went through my head: Yama.
A/N: I don't really have much to say here. Thanks to those of you who have reviewed. I've changed my settings so I can now receive anonymous reviews. :D
HIKED: thanks for telling me! I never would have noticed … -