Title: Earthquake
By: Kibesen...that's Kibethan in Japanese!
Disclaimer: I don't own Gravitation, Maki Murakami (a manga genius) does.
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?
Half-warning: Yes, there is swearing in this chapter. Beware!
Chapter 10
Instead of following the signs to customs like Yuki had been told to, he followed the giant flood of people. He felt like he was in a school of fish. The group of fish slowly split up into two groups of people. There were the people that were from Japan, and the people that weren't. Luckily, the line for the people that were from Japan was moving quite fast and quite soon Yuki found himself to the front of the line.
"Name?"
"Uesugi Eiri." His birth name was Uesugi Eiri, so that's what it said on his passport as he handed it to the custom's person.
"Are you ever known as something else?"
"Yuki Eiri." The custom's person looked up.
"Ah. So I see. Welcome back to the country, Mr. Uesugi. If you have any agricultural things that you have brought back with you from-" the customs guy looked at the passport, "-Korea or America, there's a place right over there were you can declare them."
"Thank you."
Yuki walked passed the booth and out of the ferry terminal. The part of Japan that Yuki was currently in hadn't been affected by the earthquake that much. Sure, there were a couple of cracks in sidewalks, but that was basically it.
Yuki looked around for a place where he might be able to rent a car to drive from where he was to Tokyo. He knew that he was in for a long drive, especially since some of the freeways around Tokyo were probably impassible. But he didn't care. He'd do anything for Shuichi.
He finally spotted a rent a car place a little while away and he started walking towards it. After he got about halfway there, they thought for a bit and decided that maybe a bus would be the better way to travel. He would've taken the train, but there was little doubt in his mind that some of the track would be out.
Although, he wasn't sure where the bus station was. After he had walked around aimlessly for about half an hour (why ask for directions?) he spotted a bus. He only hoped that it was going towards the station in town, and wasn't leaving. It was clipping at a fairly fast pace, but Yuki didn't need to keep right behind it. He just needed to be able to see it if it turned or anything like that.
But, soon it was starting to go faster and faster and Yuki had to start running to keep it in sight. It began to go even faster, and soon he was sprinting as fast as he could to (with his laptop in his hand) try to keep being about to see the bus.
All of the bus turned a corner and disappeared. He turned the corner, just like the bus did, and it was gone. Vanished. It appeared to cease to exist!
"Damn!" Yuki thought out loud. "I'm going to have to ask for directions!" Yuki walked up to the nearest person and quickly asked where the bus station. He felt really stupid as the person he asked kind of gave him a weird look and pointed behind him. Yuki whirled around and saw a giant station with the word "Bus" written in really big letters. He smacked a hand to his head.
And if he hadn't felt stupid enough, he realized that the station was basically right back from where he had started. In fact, he could see the ferry terminal just off to the side.
Yuki shook his head and walked into the bus station. He got in an ungodly long line to try and find out if he could get to Tokyo. The line seemed like it was moving slower than the line at the airport had been. So, he did the same thing in the station that he had done in the airport. He sat down and began to work on writing his story, shuffling along when the line moved.
Only, the first time he did it, he'd been in America. Now, he was in Japan. Japan was a place of a little bit higher standards and while in America some of them had been staring at him, in Japan all off them were staring. And they weren't staring and then looking away when Yuki looked up, they were staring hard. They continued staring too, even when he gave them the evil mustered up glare.
There were so many people staring at him, that he was having a hard time writing. He was so sure that the people were reading his story. In fact, a little girl (she looked to be about 10 years old) was reading his story. She was staring at it, reading it. Yuki could see her eyes moving back and forth across the screen, taking in every single word.
Nobody could blame him for the events that followed. He was bored, damnit! Knowing that the little girl was reading word for word, Yuki decided to have a little bit of fun. He changed what he was writing to something a little less "G" rated. In fact, he went right through the ratings and landed smack dab on NC-17.
Yet the little girl just kept of reading. Yuki could tell though, that she was starting to have a hard time understand what was going on. She furrowed up her brow and pursed her lips trying to figure out what she was reading. She looked like she was thinking hard, which Yuki readily expected. What he didn't expect her to do though was to ask her mom what it meant.
Her mom turned bright red. I mean, BRIGHT RED. The people around the little girl had heard her ask the question, and even they turned bright red. Her mom immediately asked where she had seen such a thing.
'Uh-oh,' Yuki thought. The little girl gestured to his laptop and told her mom that she had read it off of that. Yuki decided to feign innocence and went just along typing like he had been. The line moved a little bit, and Yuki moved forward a little bit. The mother decided that she was going to have a little talk with Yuki.
"Excuse me!" Yuki looked up surprised.
"Can I help you?"
"What the hell are you doing writing that..." she searched for a word, "shit around kids?!" Yuki could tell that she was pissed, but he was mildly surprised at her swearing.
"Writing what?" He decided that he could pull of innocence quite well.
"That!" The woman gestured wildly to the words on the laptop.
"My story? What in the world was your daughter doing reading my story?" He switched the roles immediately to be the victim.
"Uh...um...uh..." The woman started searching for an excuse.
"And furthermore," Yuki decided that he might as well lay it on thick, "what were you doing using that kind of language in front of your daughter?" The lady really started stuttering then.
"Y-you s-s-still shouldn't be writing that kind of sh-stuff in front of kids!"
"One, I didn't realize that there were any kids behind me. Two, I should be able to write whatever I want. And three, you're child should've been taught to respect peoples privacy." Yuki knew that he had won the argument when the lady grabbed her daughter's hand and had stalked out of line. All the people who had been staring at his before had immediately stopped when they heard Yuki's speech on privacy.
The only thing that kept Yuki from writing with complete abandon was the fact that he was worried that the lady and her daughter were going to return with a scary boyfriend and that he was going to get beaten to death. But, five minutes passed, and there was no sign of any boyfriend, so he settled down and continued on writing.
Like at the airport, he had written a lot by the time that he got to the front of the line, he was almost finished with the story, in fact, because he had written a lot on the ferry too. He was going to have one happy editor by the time that everything was over with. When he got to the front of the line, he saved his work and went to the next available person.
"What can I help you with, sir?"
"I'd like a ticket to Tokyo, if it's possible."
"Oh! I'm sorry, we can't get you right into Tokyo, but if you like, we can get you to Kawasaki..."
"That's fine." If he couldn't find another ride out of Kawasaki, he could walk the last ten miles to Tokyo.
"Okay, I'll just need your name and credit card." Yuki gave her both of them and she happily printed out a ticket for the next available bus to Kawasaki. He grabbed it and sat down in a seat. He glanced at a clock and at his ticket to see when it left. He found out that his bus left in about half an hour and that it would be boarding in fifteen minutes.
He was approximately 450 miles away from Tokyo, but he didn't care. As long as the bus driver drove all day, they'd be able to make it there in about 7-8 hours.
Fifteen minutes later, he was on the bus, and thirty minutes later the bus was moving. Yuki was getting excited at the prospect of being able to get close to Shuichi. The thought that Shuichi was more than likely dead didn't even come into his mind. Yuki was so happy, that he even pulled out his laptop and started writing again. He felt inspired to write a happy ending to the story that he had started.
Two hours later, he was still going strong writing his happy ending. In another three hours he almost started banging his head against the side of the bus. He had finished his story and he was bored again. He didn't really want to start another story. Did you know that long bus trips were very boring? There really wasn't anything to do! Yuki's legs were starting to get cramped from sitting in the seat for so long.
He finally fell asleep again, (he wasn't going to need any sleep for a week after this was all over). He woke up when he felt the bus start to decelerate into the bus depot. He rubbed his eyes, trying to clear them.
"We are now in Kawasaki. I hope you have a pleasant stay," the bus driver said. Yuki looked out the window. It was starting to be dusk, but he could see that the damage in Kawasaki was much worse than the damage near the ferry terminal had been.
Buildings were collapsed, some streets were destroyed, and there were fires going on in a couple of places. Yuki was surprised that the buses were still running there (though he was glad that they were).
He exited the bus and started walking towards where he knew that Tokyo was. He couldn't see it yet, but if he kept walking long enough, he was sure that sooner or later he'd be able to see it.
He didn't even bother trying to find a taxi or someone to take his closer to Tokyo because he figured that no one would be willing to. Nobody is stupid enough to go to a place where it is most certainly dangerous. No one except Yuki that is.
Yuki kept walking. He kept walking even when it got dark. He kept walking even when his feet were crying out for him to stop. He starting scolding himself for having such a weak body, he was definitely planning on joining a gym to get into better shape.
The closer that he got to Tokyo, the worse the destruction became. By the he reached Tokyo two hours later, he was in shock. The pictures on the television had hardly done justice to how bad it was. It was chaos, and he was walking right into the middle of it.
Yuki started walking towards the N-G building. He had entered the city on the completely opposite end. He didn't care though, he had a destination and come hell or high water he was going to make it there. Several times he had to change his route when his path became blocked by debris. He walked around the city all night trying to get the N-G building. He had to retrace his steps so many times that the sun was beginning to rise by the time he actually reached the building.
His body went into shock again when he saw it.
'So, Tohma hadn't been lying. It really collapsed.' Yuki looked at it in wonderment. He was now sure that if Shuichi had been in there, there would be no way that he would be alive.
But, once again, Yuki was trying not to focus on the fact that Shuichi might be dead. He started to think logically. Shuichi obviously wasn't there (unless he was under all that rubble) so where would Shuichi go? He might go back to Yuki's apartment. Yuki ruled that out, there was a good chance that either him or his friends had been hurt. He wouldn't go to the apartment; he would probably go to the closest hospital.
Yuki remembered Shuichi calling him once from the hospital because he was there because Sakano had gotten shot in the foot. Even though Yuki hadn't wanted to go there, Shuichi begged him and eventually Yuki's will had worn down and he had driven to the hospital to help cheer Shuichi up.
He was now extremely happy that he had done so, because he could go check the hospital to see if Shuichi was there. He started racing towards the hospital because the more he thought about it, the more that it seemed likely that that was were Shuichi would be.
The sun was completely up by the time that the hospital was in sight. The first thing he noticed was that the hospital was also collapsed. His heart skipped a beat at the sight of the collapsed hospital. His eyes drifted a little bit further down.
His eyes came to rest on a group of people that were sitting and lying down at the base of the rubble. There were a lot of kids and couple of adults.
His heart stopped beating when he realized that one of the adults had bright pink hair...
End Chapter 10
Ha! Another chapter! This chapter is a lot longer than my other one's though...it's almost a thousand more words than the minimum that I set for myself.
A review of reviews:
MC-88: What's Kuma-chan version three? Is there another versin of Kumagoro, na no da!, Kitty in the Box: Trust me, it scares me too just how strong that earthquake was. It scares me even more how timely that my fic is..., emerald-jade: Her work is a little bit "formulaic" but I still absolutely love it. And you're right! It's from Imadoki! Also, I'm glad that I didn't kill off Suguru, too, goku-the-saru: You only want some people to live, some people you want to die though! cough, Tohma, cough, Dark Mimiru-chan: I'm glad you like it!, lillie chan: Is once a day fast enough for you?, Elements: yes, Shuichi did almost die, and thank you for the congrats! (Once again, I love how your reviews are written...it's so fun to read!), Seven7: That's alright. I can give you fat free cookies too, if you like...and thank you for the review!, Moonfairyhime: I'm glad you loved it!, sol-nemesis: I'm glad that you've been keeping up with it and like it..., baka-onna2003: I thought that it sounded like a sweet thing to do, too..., Don: Thank you for the review...kiddo...hahahaha!
And that is that!
I'm going to beg again...down on my knees...PLEASE...REVIEW! I'm so incredibly happy when I come home and I have an e-mail inbox full of reviews! Please, please, please review!