Author's note: Thank you to all reviewers! You absolutely made my day, and I luv you all so much! I love reading your opinions on my story so much, it's just great!
Disclaimer: Don't own it!
Thanks to:
Shuuichi-Shindou Uesugi: hehe you are very perceptive! Don't worry about Shu, here is your update!
darknessflame89: Shuichi is…he's in good hands now…muahhahha. No cause for alarm (grins evilly) Thanks for reviewing, I hope you'll enjoy this chapter.
Rujutoshi: You reviewed again (glomps insanely) hehe that credit you gave me wasn't deserved at all! I have issues killing off characters too…at least at the beginning of the fic…muahah thank you very much for the extra long review!
magdareihainteria.pl: you're right, I can't! thanks for the lovely compliment!
girlo: I'm glad you caught onto my implications! Lol there IS a plot twist, you'll see in this chapter…I hope you keep reading!
Julia: No, I luv your rambling! Thanks very much for reviewing, and here's your update!
DemonicDragon666: It's ok! I couldn't hurt dear Shuichi! …physically of course…I'm not speaking for his mental pain.
DeMoN4EvA: Thank you for such a nice long review (wipes her forehead and rubs her eyes) It was so great to read. Haha you figured it out, good job!
Kemet: Wow, thanks! I luv to here that from people, it makes me all glowly inside! But about those updates…(shuffles feet back and forth, looking down)…well, you'll see at the author's note in the end of the story…(tries to grin nonchalantly, but fails miserably)
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Chapter Three
Two months later….
Bleep…bleep…bleep. The doctor and the nurse, both wearing sterile white uniforms hovered over the small boy on the bed. Just moments before, his machine had gone crazy, signaling the return of brain activity to the unconscious boy. He had been in this hospital, in the same room for about two months now, and had shown no signs of ever coming out of his coma, and since the doctors couldn't take him off life support without consent (which they couldn't get), it was assumed that he would stay in that bed until he wasted away. But today he might wake up.
The nurse sighed happily.
"Isn't this romantic doctor? It's like a miracle or something!" The doctor, who did not share these feelings simply nodded quietly, without taking his eyes off the boy. It wasn't often that he got to take care of cases like this, and he was very interested in who this boy was.
Suddenly, the kid stirred, his hands flopping around a bit, his forehead drawn. He was mumbling something under his breath.
"Yu…yu…ki…"
The nurse leaned in towards him.
"What's he saying doctor?"
"I can't tell, it's not making sense."
"Maybe he's calling out to his long lost girlfriend…" The doctor rolled his eyes without letting her see.
"Maybe…" He too leaned forwards. And this was the sight that the groggy boy woke up to. He was in a strange bed, wearing strange clothes, and two unknown people were hanging over his head. So he did the only thing that came to mind.
"Ahhhhhh!" He screamed as loud as he could. The nurse gave a little scream of her own, and fell over backwards. The doctor merely jumped a bit, and then looked at the boy.
"Don't worry. It is okay. My name is Dr. James. You are in a hospital downtown New York. Please don't try to get up and walk around quite yet, because your muscles are going to be a little stiff."
The boy looked at him. What the hell was going on? This weird man was talking to him in some weird language.
"Who are you? Where am I? What's going on?" He shot straight up in the bed, staring frightened at the now frowning doctor.
"Do you understand English?" The boy seemed to respond, tilting his head to the side.
"English?" The man almost groaned, but he was a professional, and there was a professional way of dealing with this. He turned to the nurse.
"Can you go call the front desk and ask them to send us up a…south-east Asian-English translator? I'll take care of him."
"My name is Dr. James," he talked very slowly and pointed to himself, "What's your name?"
The boy raised a finger to point to his chest, but it stopped in midair. Dr. James stared intently at him, as he seemed to be about to speak, and was terribly startled when he screamed again.
What the hell? He couldn't remember his name? Desperately, the boy searched his head for any information about himself, but he came up blank. Piecing together a sentence of his scarce English took a moment.
"I…don't know."
"Did you forget?" The boy shrugged helplessly.
"I don't…understand, sorry."
Dr. James exhaled loudly. This was going to be a long morning…
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Later that day, the translator finally arrived, a cheerful Asian man, who specialized in the South East Asia's languages. The doctor sat beside him and clearly spoke, telling him what to ask the boy, then the translator would translate his answer back into English for the doctor.
"What is your name?"
"I can't remember."
"Do you remember who you were with in the plane?"
"No…"
"Anything about yourself?"
"No!"
t was clear that he was getting agitated, so Dr. James moved on.
"Ok, it is possible that you have a case of amnesia, you were in a very bad plane crash."
"Anmesia? Like memory loss?"
"Yes, that is right. You've been in a coma for two months now."
"Two months!"
"Yes, you might find things a little different here than last time you were awake."
"Oh."
"Do you have any questions for the doctor?"
"Yes …do I have any family here?"
"No, but fortunately, despite the plane crash, your suitcase was in good condition, and it had your papers in it, so we know your identity. That is quite rare in these cases."
"That's great? What's my name?" The doctor was slightly surprised at how well the boy was taking this, considering he had almost been in tears a few moments before.
"Tai, Tai Retsuri." The boy tried out saying it a few times, with a proper accent, making the doctor, and even the translator's accent sound awkward.
"It doesn't seem familiar, but I guess I wouldn't know, so what else do you know about me?"
"Well, you are sixteen years old, an official American citizen. You were born in New York, which is where we are now, moved to Tokyo, and have lived there your entire life.
"I'm very sorry to tell you, but your parents died in a car accident, and in their will it said that they wanted you to live in America. You were coming on a plane to live at this orphanage nearby, but the plane crashed just outside the airport. You are really lucky to be alive, because a lot of people died that day.."
Tai was silent for a moment. It was too much information to take in at once, your whole life's story and all.
The nurse, who had been silent until leaned over and put a hand on his knee. "Don't worry honey, you can have a normal life now, you can go to school!"
Tai winced as the man translated. Maybe he should have stayed asleep.
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Eiri stared at the screen of his computer. The meaningless letters blurred before his eyes as his head filled with thoughts of his lost lover. Even after a couple of months, the pain hadn't faded, not even a little bit. Each night he lay in bed and recounted every single time he had yelled, or ignored, or said a horrible thing to the singer. Each day he sat at his desk in front of his laptop and wrote miserable depressing stories where every single character ended up dying a horrible painful death. It didn't make him feel any better. Eiri knew that he was paying for his sins in the cruelest way, without the one person who could make him hurt less, who could dull the terrible pain if only for a while, with only a smile and touch.
His novel that he released just after he had gotten back from Japan had been such a dark book, filled with despair, angst, and anything else guaranteed to make you cry. It seemed to attract a different audience that the author's other books. Shortly afterwards, after his editor told him that he needed a new book, and with an actual love scene before the main characters died, or she would kill him. So he came up with the idea to write about him and Shuichi (changing Shuichi's character to a female) and add a happy ending to the end of the book, where they both escaped the plane crash and got married.
For a while after that, he had stayed in America, where he was renting an apartment downtown New York, and mailed his stories to his editor from there. When he read through his first addition copy of "The Power of Your Smile" (his book) he could almost imagine that Shuichi was waiting for him at home.
But dreams can't last forever, and soon Tohma was at his door, trying to bring him home. Then, after he failed came Mika, and then Tatsuha. Surprisingly the one who convinced him to come home was Hiro, who sat with him quietly and said that Shuichi would want him to be happy.
During this talk, Eiri nodded and cried a bit, exactly what Hiro wanted him to do, but inwardly he laughed, knowing that Shuichi would have wanted him to spill every tear in his damn body over the boy, and then some. He let Hiro triumphantly bring him home to his waiting family, but only because he was tired of New York.
The sight of his empty apartment was a constant tearing in his soul, every thing reminded him of his lover, but he knew that he was being made suffer for a reason, so that he could never do something like that again. Loving Shuichi had been a terrible mistake, especially after seeing what his love did with Kitazawa.
Today, he hadn't even gotten out of bed until one o'clock. Waking up with an enormous hangover was not the best way to start the day, especially when he was still a bit drunk, and having a bad Shuichi day.
That's what he called them, Shuichi days, the days when he woke up remembering every little detail about the singer, everything he loved about him, and he was crying. The day always got worse from there…
His phone was ringing now, but he didn't want to get it. Probably Tohma, telling him to come out of his apartment, get some fresh air, eat something, blah blah blah. He would do that when he was nice and ready thank you very much.
The answering machine turned on.
"Hey Yuki, I know you're there aniki, because you never leave your damn house. Screening my calls isn't going to wooooork, I'm going to siiiinnnnng until you pick up the phoooooonnne!"
Eiri slammed down his fist and grabbed the phone.
"What do you want Tatsuha?"
"I missed you too aniki!
"What. Do. You. Want?"
"Yes, I'm doing fine, thank you for asking!"
"Tatsuha!"
"Ok, ok, just turn on your TV to the news. There's something that you are really going to want to see…"
Eiri rolled his eyes, but walked over and turned on the TV. The reporter's wide face filled the screen, talking about some law against walking your dog in the middle of the subway.
"What is it Tatsuha?"
"Just wait, it's coming up next."
The writer flopped down on the couch, staring at the ceiling. He still held the phone up to his ear, even though neither of them was talking.
"…And now we come to our last story of the night, concerning the famous romance author Yuki Eiri. Two months ago, the man was reportedly leaving on a vacation with Shuichi Shindou. The plane that they were taking to America crashed in New York City, and Shuichi Shindou was reported dead the next day. As of now, according to the airlines, Yuki is still missing, never having checked in with the authorities. It seems that he is still alive, as he released two popular books since the crash, but no one has seen the man the entire time. Is Yuki Eiri still alive? Or is someone else writing his books under his name? Stay tuned for a detailed analysis by our top psychologists…"
Eiri snorted, and on the other end of the phone, he heard an identical snort from his brother.
"You see aniki! You need to leave your house! People actually think you are dead! Relieve your fans of some stress." Eiri groaned.
"People are so stupid." But he grinned.
"Might as well make an appearance, and stir things up a little…"
As the writer grabbed his coat and boots, and left his apartment for the first time in a really long time, Shuichi was pushed to the back of his mind, and he found himself actually feeling something besides misery. The ghost of a smile crossed his face.
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"Hello? Tai?" The boy looked up from the book he was reading.
"…yes?"
"The lady from the orphanage is here to speak to you." Dr. James spoke slowly and clearly. Tai repeated them slowly and out loud, and then, seeming to understand, nodded at him.
"Ok."
A small, but stern looking lady walked briskly into the room. Everything about her screamed order, and Tai, slightly intimidated shrunk back from her.
"Hello young men, my name is Jenna Hift, but call me Ms. Hift please. I work at the Grytern City Orphanage, and I am the matron of the house. Your parent's lawyer contacted me about the will, but I have to interview you before I can let you live with us."
Tai stared at her.
"I don't…understand, sorry."
Ms. Hift turned to the doctor.
"Is he..." She leaned over to him, "Mentally challenged?"
Dr. James stared at her the same way the boy was.
"No, he doesn't speak English."
"What! His lawyer said that he knew the language fluently!"
"Well, due to his amnesia he may have forgotten how to speak it. It can happen in these cases."
Meanwhile, Tai was watching the conversation exchange with a confused expression on his face. He decided that it was time to interject.
"Uh…excuse…me…"
The two looked at him expectantly.
"I…don't know English…good. I can't go to orphanage and school…without speaking… more …well."
"Oh, I don't know about that," Ms. Hift gave a short, somewhat fake laugh, "You can stay in the home and take English lessons from one of the other children until you are ready to go to school."
Tai gave her a helpless look. After realizing that he didn't understand, again, Dr. James repeated it slower, and more simply. Tai nodded finally and smiled.
"Ok."
"Well," Interrupted the doctor, "He still has to stay here for at least a week, while we run tests and he makes a full recovery. He has to be able to eat solid food long before he leaves, and be able to walk around without help."
"Alright, I will come back in two weeks, that should give him sufficient time, and then I will expect to take him back with me."
"We'll see what we do Ms. Hift, but I can't make any promises. When he is ready, he can leave."
Ms. Hift looked like she was about to argue, but thought better of it. Instead, she got up and left.
"Goodbye Tai, I will see you soon."
Dr. James got up too, and seemed about to say something to Tai. Instead, he put a hand on his shoulder, just for a moment, and then left.
A very confused boy was left sitting on the bed.
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Author's note: hey everybody, thanks again so much for all the reviews, I luv em, the way they taste…ok anyways…I have a bit of an issue…in the form of being able to update…I'm going to have to change my schedule to once a week… Thanks again, and I hope y'all stick with the story.
Another thing: Some have figured out – using my subtle (cough you wish cough) hints – that Shuichi is indeed still alive. In case there is any confusion…I'm not trying to trick you. It's supposed to be obvious! Read and review s'il vous plait!