Author's Note: I finally got over that disgusting writer's block! Neeway, if you are still with me...
Enjoy!
Thank you all for your kind support and words of ecouragement.
My Inferno
Chapter 11
There's a hand on the wall.
It looked very thin. He thought maybe it could be broken easily. He didn't know, because he'd never tried to break it.
It's my hand.
The skin was very white so that the scars appeared much darker. They glowed red in the dimness of the room.
I closed the curtains because the sun hurt my eyes.
He relaxed his arm and the hand fell against his curled form silently, yet...not silently. Yamato shivered.
The sun hurt my eyes because I am a shadow. Because I don't belong.
The blankets kept him warm. Taichi gave him so many. They were beautifully colored and so very soft. It made such a difference, being warm.
Am I only half alive?
He sighed, and turned away from the wall.
Or half dead?
OOOOOO
"I'm fine," he said. "Really."
Taichi didn't reply, pouring the medicine carefully into a spoon and holding it out to Yamato. The blonde opened his mouth obediently with a defeated air, and Taichi tipped the reddish liquid down his throat. Yamato tried bravely, but he could not stop himself from wincing at the horrible taste.
"Here," and Taichi tipped some water down his throat with hardly a pause. Yamato glared at being treated like a child.
The doctor gave him the all clear a week ago when they left the hospital, but Yamato's body remained weak and vulnerable, catching one kind of illness after another. Years of neglect and abuse had taken their toll, and Taichi sometimes wondered if the other boy would break with one wrong breath.
He reached out gently now to touch Yamato's brow. "How's your head?"
"I told you," the other snapped, "I'm fine."
Taichi frowned. "Your fever hasn't gone down, and you are still coughing. You look pale. Are you cold? I should make you some warm soup."
"Taichi...!" But the boy was already gone.
Yamato clutched the blankets tightly to himself and sulked. It was disturbing, to suddenly receive so much attention and care after almost an entire life of emptiness. It was...painful. He thought he'd lost too much to deal with this life, and any type of recovery, no matter how small, seemed a long, exhausting, and nearly impossible task.
He clenched his frail hands into loose fists, feeling as if he could just fade if he waited long enough. It's not wrong to want to wither away into nothing, is it? No one had ever cared before, why now...? Why...?
His heart beat slowed and his breathing grew shallow. Would I be peaceful, if I died here?
Then Taichi was there, fussing over him, adding still more blankets, taking his temperature, forcing food and more medicine down his throat. The soup went all the way to his stomach and sent waves of warmth to the very tips of his fingers and toes. And suddenly there's a different kind of warmth in his battered heart. It seemed to reach into him every time Taichi touched him so carefully, spoke so gently, and looked into his face with that soft expression.
What is that expression? He wondered sleepily as Taichi tucked him in. Why do I feel so weak when you look at me like that? You are trying so hard to breathe life into me...so hard. Does that make me horrible? To be afraid of you?
"Good night," Taichi whispered, brushing aside his bangs to lay a kiss upon his forehead.
Why am I shivering?
OOOOOO
Days crawled by slowly, as if some hand had gotten a grip on time and was refusing to let go. Taichi went back to school so that only his mom remained to look after Yamato during the day. It was bearable at first, as Yamato's body demanded sleep almost constantly. But as his health improved one tiny bit at a time, Yamato found himself with more and more time to think. Left alone in that darkened room with the silence pressing in from all sides, he had nothing but the misery of his painful past.
And sometimes when he least expected it, he thought he could feel a sharp, insistent pain in the middle of his chest, right where his heart should be. The sensation was often accompanied by a strange burning in his eyes and if he didn't try to stop them, little hurt sounds would escape from his throat. Once he'd felt something hot trickle down the corner of his eye, and he'd clawed at the pillow to stop more from coming. Despair was threatening to swallow him whole, and he didn't think he could possibly fight it.
It was on such an afternoon, when the pain in his chest was making him gasp, that there came a gentle knock on his door.
Taichi? He thought almost hopefully. The other boy always made it better, no matter how miserable Yamato was feeling.
But the door opened to show Mrs. Yagami standing there. "Yamato?"
He stiffened immediately, seeing suddenly in her a younger version of his own mother years before the divorce, when they'd all seemed happy. The pain in his chest worsened and he had to fight to prevent himself from flinching.
"Yamato?"
The voice brought him back to the present and he managed a questioning look.
"I have to go shopping for a while and the others won't be back for another half an hour. Do you think you'll be okay?"
His throat felt dry and he couldn't find his voice. Yamato nodded.
"You won't be hungry any time soon?"
He shook his head and forced a response from his lips. "No, I'll be fine."
Satisfied, Taichi's mother left his room. Yamato heard the front door close moments later. He turned away on his side and curled up. Why was he feeling this way?
It was just like before in the beginning, when he'd think about his brother and something dark and ugly would well up all at once to take and grab at him from the inside and squeeze until he thought he couldn't survive another moment. Only this was much worse.
He hadn't dealt with it before, because he'd always been too tired or too hurt or too weak for it to bother him for long. And when there was always always something to do, to distract him, it had been easy to ignore the things happening deep inside.
He couldn't ignore it now, though, when there was nothing to do except lie here and stare at the ceiling and wait for Taichi to get home and feel himself losing steadily to the dark ugly thing inside...
Or maybe he could do something.
He needed to find that control again, what he used to have before he met Taichi, that iron will which made every part of his body bend to every command of his mind.
Get up. He said silently.
His body twitched in response, then went limp again.
GET UP.
And he did, slowly and unsteadily because it had been so long since he'd been out of bed. The room spun for a moment and Yamato squeezed his eyes shut. I can do this. I will do this.
The trip from his room to the kitchen seemed to take forever and he was thoroughly exhausted at the end of it. But the feeling was so familiar. Pushing, forcing himself beyond his limits to achieve some tangible goal. The dark ugly thing inside faded and left him alone for now as every bit of him concentrated on the task at hand.
Shielding his eyes from the bright sunlight, Yamato scanned the kitchen. There were dirty dishes everywhere. Mrs. Yagami must have left in a hurry. I've been too much trouble for them. He thought, suddenly guilty.
Reaching out tentatively with his right hand, Yamato lifted a bowl off the counter, and as he washed it carefully in the sink, an unwanted memory pushed forward into his mind until he was lost, drowning...
OOOOOO
His hands were bleeding, turning the icy water into a sickening pink color. He didn't think he was trembling, but the dirty plate in his hands was shaking.
Almost done. He thought. Just a little bit more.
It hurt. He wished it would stop. His fingers were turning numb from the water. He wished the rest of him could be numb too.
The front door slammed. But he wasn't done yet! Father was home and he wasn't done making dinner. Fear made him turn around too quickly and the heavy plate slipped from his numb, bleeding fingers. It shattered on the floor.
A gasp escaped him, nothing more. He should be screaming. He wanted to.
Yamato raised his head to look into Father's unforgiving eyes.
I will be silent. Always silent.
OOOOOO
Taichi shut the door none too gently and bounded into the kitchen to greet his mother. Sunlight reflected off golden blonde hair and he froze.
Yamato spun around, and there was such a frightened, wild look on his worn face. The dish he was holding slipped out of his grasp and landed between them, shattering.
The blonde was on his hands and knees in an instant, gathering the glass pieces together frantically, trying to clear the mess as fast as possible, and when Taichi took just one step closer, Yamato flinched as if expecting to be hit. Blood dripped from the places on his hands where the glass had cut him.
Taichi reached out, gently but firmly, and took a hold of Yamato's wrists to stop him from hurting himself any further. Yamato turned his head away and shut his eyes, bracing himself as if he thought Taichi was going to hurt him.
"Yama," Taichi said softly into the other boy's ear. "It's me. It's okay. It's just me."
Yamato's breath hitched as if someone was twisting a knife in his heart, and a single tear made its way down his cheek from closed eyes. Taichi pulled him tightly into an embrace, rubbing his back, kissing his hair, whispering soothing, sweet words.
"You are okay," he whispered. "You are okay."
Yamato pressed his wet cheek against Taichi's, holding on to his comfort as if it were a life line.
OOOOOO
"I was holding a ragged, hurt creature in my arms, and the only thing keeping him to this world was his faith in me to heal him, to make his little piece of the world a bit more bearable, and although he didn't know it yet, to love him the way he couldn't love himself. It was then, I think, that he finally realized his need for me. And though he could not embrace it, I would like to think that he accepted it. This is your home, my angel, here with me. This is your home."
- from The Soul of Yama, as was written by Yagami Taichi
OOOOOO
Rubisco. Is. An. Enzyme.