Title: Earthquake
By: Kibethan
Disclaimer: I don't own Gravitation, no matter how much I want to.
Summary: When an earthquake occurs in Japan and Yuki is in America, how will Yuki and Shuichi cope with being away from each other during this time, and will Shuichi even survive long enough to be able to be with Yuki again?
Chapter 1
Well, Shuichi had been hurt. Though, not too badly. Although, after all the adrenaline coursing through his body was gone, he was going to be in a lot of pain. He had a gash that was right near his temple that was trickling blood down the left side of his face, matting and staining the hair by his ear. His body was also spotted with bruises. But that was nothing compared to how badly Suguru had been hurt.
Suguru hadn't been able to get underneath the desk that Shuichi and Hiro were currently under, and had been thrown back and forth against the walls of the room. He was lying against one of the walls, unconscious. Even though the shaking had stopped, Shuichi was afraid to move out from under the desk to retrieve him.
Shuichi, Suguru, and Hiro had all been in an office in the N-G building discussing the new lyrics when the earthquake had struck. At first, it had sounded like a low rumbling, like someone was driving a huge truck past the building, but soon the rumbling escalated into violent shaking.
All three of them had been thrown against the wall, and they had all three tried to make their way underneath the desk. Shuichi and Hiro had made it, but just when Suguru was about to come over, a particularly bad wave buckled the floor and tossed him into the air and against the wall again. After that, he couldn't get his footing back, and Hiro and Shuichi could only watch in horror as the younger band mate was thrown from side to side. A few times they heard the sickening crack of bones breaking. They could only hope that he hadn't broken his neck or back.
Shuichi took one look at Suguru and all of fear of moving out from under the desk disappeared. He needed to get Suguru to safety. Hiro wouldn't be much help; his left arm had been broken during the initial slam against the wall, so Shuichi told him to stay there.
Shuichi raced towards Suguru, jumping over chairs and shelves that had been overturned. The room was in complete chaos, like a tornado had come through there.
'Only, it wasn't a tornado,' Shuichi thought. 'It was an earthquake.' He arrived in front of Suguru and let out a breath that he didn't know that he'd been holding as he saw that Suguru's chest was rising up and down. That meant that he was still alive.
"Suguru! Suguru! Wake up!" Suguru moaned slightly, but didn't wake up. "Please! Suguru, open your eyes!" Still nothing. It seemed as though Suguru was quite intent on staying in the darkness. Shuichi was worried though, he wanted to get back underneath the desk in case an aftershock happened, but he was afraid that maybe Suguru had broken his back, and that if he moved him, he could snap his spinal cord and paralyze him. "SUGURU!" Finally, Suguru's eyes fluttered open. Shuichi could pinpoint the exact time that the pain returned to him because instantly Suguru's eyes became clouded and his breathing became raspy.
"Shu...ichi?"
"Suguru, where does it hurt?"
"Every...where."
"Okay, I'm going to try to move you to underneath the desk, alright? It's really going to hurt, but try to stand it and stay conscious." Suguru nodded. Shuichi slipped his arms under the boy, and carefully lifted him up. Despite all his efforts to not hurt him, Suguru whimpered in pain, and it broke Shuichi's heart. With every step that Shuichi took, it jostled Suguru a little bit to the point that by the time they had reached the desk, Suguru was unconscious again.
They made it under the desk just in time, too. Right after they made it, but felt a sharp jolt as the p-waves(1) hit. Shuichi counted two seconds before the s-waves(2) hit, making the floor roll and pitch underneath them. Shuichi held on tight to Suguru and the desk, and when the aftershock ended they found out that they hadn't gotten any more injuries.
"We need to get out of here!" Hiro shouted. "This building isn't that safe!"
"I know, but what if another aftershock happens?"
"We'll deal with it; we need to get out of this building!"
"Alright, let's go." Shuichi picked up Suguru and ran towards the door.
The building that they were in had 8 floors, and they were on the 7th floor. Shuichi instinctively went towards the elevator, but realized that that would be stupid, so he veered off course towards the stairs. He was glad that there wasn't anybody else currently in the building because they were all out having lunch. Actually, the members of Bad Luck were supposed to join them, but when K found out that they hadn't finished reviewing the lyrics for their new album yet, he freaked out and threatened to shoot them if they didn't finish. At the time, Shuichi had been pissed, but now he was glad that nobody else had been in the building. There was huge potential for injuries in this building.
Shuichi raced down the stairs, one at a time. He would've gone down the stairs a lot faster, but he was afraid of tripping with Suguru in his arms. Hiro had offered to help, but Shuichi had given him a look that plainly said "And how the hell would you carry him with a broken arm?"
They had gotten down to the fourth floor when they came to a part of the stairway that was collapsed. Shuichi just managed to stop his momentum so he didn't go falling down the hole.
"Now what do we do?" Shuichi asked Hiro.
"We jump."
"What?!" Hiro went back up a couple of stairs, and then took a flying leap across the collapsed part of the stairway. He landed gracefully on the other side.
'Oh, shit,' Shuichi thought. 'There is no way I can do this with Suguru.'
"You have to try!" Hiro shouted, as if reading his thoughts. Shuichi looked skeptical, but nodded and back up a couple of steps. He then proceeded to run down the steps and attempt to jump across the hole.
He almost made it, too.
Luckily, he sensed that he wasn't going to be able to land on the other side, so using all of his upper body strength to flung Suguru towards Hiro on the other side. Suguru landed against Hiro with a loud thump. Shuichi raised his hands up and managed to grab the edge of the stairs. He had been so close.
Of course, now he couldn't pull himself up.
"Hiro! Help!"
"I'm coming, I'm coming." Hiro gently laid Suguru down, with his one good arm and walked over to Shuichi. He grabbed Shuichi's arm and with the strength of both of them combined, they managed to pull Shuichi up. It took a lot out of the both of them, though, and they just sat in the stairwell for a few minutes trying to catch their breaths.
Finally, after their hearts had slowed down somewhat, they decided to continue on down the stairs. Shuichi picked up Suguru, who was still unconscious, again. They got to the first floor with little incident, and then they moved towards the front doors.
Shuichi just happened to look at the walls, and he saw a horizontal crack running across it near the ceiling.
'That's odd,' he thought as he stopped running. 'What is it that horizontal cracks mean? I remember reading it somewhere. Oh yeah! Horizontal cracks mean structural damage. Oh, shit, we need to get out of here!'
Just then Hiro and Shuichi heard a loud crack and groan as the building readied itself to come down on top of them. The front door seemed like it was miles away and they began sprinting towards it.
The building started collapsing.
End Chapter 1
(1) p-waves are the "primary waves" of an earthquake. They're the sharp jolt that you feel at the beginning of an earthquake.
(2) s-waves are the "secondary waves" of an earthquake. They're the rolling motion that you feel during an earthquake. The s-waves travel slower than the p-waves, which is why Shuichi was able to count between the two.
Thank you to Dntfckwifme, Suki, emerald-jade, graviaddict, Karasu32, goku-the-saru (Katie-sempai ), Juliana, and Youko-sama for reviewing. I'm glad that you all like the story.
Still like? Or not? Have any of you ever been in an earthquake? Please review to tell me what you think of the story and if you've ever been in an earthquake. Thank you!