"Eiri Yuki…" Hiro muttered, clenching his fists so hard his nails punctured his flesh.
"How did this happen?" Fujisaki mouthed. He couldn't seem to find his voice. K had told him on the phone that Shuichi was in the hospital, but…knowing that didn't prepare a heart for the sight before them. Shuichi Shindo wasn't in his hospital bed, only his living carcass. The teen idol's skin was bleach white and paper thin. In a mere seven days he had become emaciated. His violet eyes were open but unseeing.
"Eiri Yuki is going to pay for this."
He was running away from it all. Everything…his skeptical friends, his pointless career…the lover that had thrown him aside. But he would throw them away first. He would run into the abyss and cast them all away. But she was there, in his way, a blazing red figure embracing his formless body warmly. Her radiant orange tendrils tearing through the darkness of his heart.
"…Shuichi?" slow awareness of another's presence. Slumped against a slimy brick wall. Stinging knees. Someone else was kneeling before him. Light fingertips brushing his check. If he hadn't been so numb, he would have winced away from their ice cold touch.
"Shuichi," unfamiliar lips forming the syllables of a distantly familiar name. Dripping red strings clinging to damp white skin. Pink swirls trailing behind her fingertips…
Shuichi woke on his side, burrowed into soft warm blankets and huge squeezable pillows. He snuggled deeper into the mound of feather soft things and closed his eyes.
"Konbanwa, Shuichi-kun!" Harley Johnston winked, tilting her chair back so it rested on its hind legs.
"Um…h-hi," Shuichi blushed, pulling the blanket tighter around his naked form. Harley snickered.
"Sorry. You were soaking; I didn't want you to get my bed all wet!"
"So…this is your house then?" the foreign diva sighed.
"Yeah…for the time being anyway." She gestured to an empty chair across from her. Shuichi didn't seem to notice. He was staring at his feet uncomfortably. She smiled at him reassuringly. "I'm sorry. I'm so rude. Would you like your clothes back? They should be dry by now…" she mused and promptly disappeared into an adjacent hallway.
Shuichi's cheeks flushed bright red as reality began to sink in. Harley Johnston did my laundry…Harley Johnston touched my underwear…AGHH! HARLEY JOHNSTON SAW MY—
"Here you go. You can go back in my room and change."
"I'm sorry!" Shuichi blurted, clutching the warm bundle of clothes to his chest. She smiled brightly again, and laughed, a low throaty sound.
"Don't worry about it, Shuichi-kun! Look," she rested a hand on his shoulder and bent down slightly to bring them eye to eye as she squinted through her smile. "I don't know what happened to you…but whatever devastated you like that, I know how that feels. So don't worry, okay? Stay here as long as you want, and I'll show you how to forget all about that horrible thing that happened to you."
"Th…thank you," he said, his eyes clouding with tears of gratefulness. This ultra-famous foreign stranger was being so kind to him. Why couldn't Hiro have been as understanding as this?
"So, Shuichi-kun. First step is…whaddya say we get good and drunk, huh?" it sounded like an excellent idea to him.
"What do you mean you're going to go to America? Hiro, do you even understand what you're contemplating right now?"
"You know what your problem is Fujisaki! You never do anything that could complicate your perfect plans. Well get real already!" Hiro growled. He'd thought this through far better than Fujisaki was willing to give him credit for.
"Fine. If that's your opinion of me than so be it," Fujisaki trembled, with hurt or anger Hiro could not tell. "But it doesn't change the fact that you're acting like a fool!" the synth player argued and Hiro was shocked to see the beginnings of tears in his eyes before he ran out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him. Hiro glared after him for a moment before slamming the rest of his clothes into his bag. No damn synth player was going to talk him out of this. He was going to hunt down Eiri Yuki.
"I sincerely hope you did not reveal Mr. Yuki's whereabouts, Suguru. That would only serve to complicate things even further."
"I…I know, Seguchi-san. I…I didn't tell him. He didn't ask me. I don't think he knows you're with him."
"Well…if he manages to piece it together before his departure, see to it that you learn to lie," Tohma said and their connection ended.
"I can't help it, Seguchi-san. I…I love him…" Suguru whispered into the blank receiver.
"Flight 480 from Kyoto now arriving in New York, New York. Please check your baggage before disembarking."
It was the most exhilarating feeling he had ever experienced. It was just as she had promised. Soon, he had forgotten that Eiri Yuki had ever existed…
When he woke up late afternoon the next day, the pain was only more real. He hadn't forgotten Yuki existed, he'd forgotten Yuki had ever left. When he finally mustered the will to crawl out of Harley's bed, he ventured out of her bedroom to find her seated once again at the kitchen table, mulling over a hot cup of coffee. She must have been able to see his spirit through the violet portal of his eyes because she smiled at him weakly and said, "I know…it only seems worse now doesn't it? That goes away…then eventually you'll just sink into a blissful nothingness…that's what you want, isn't it?" Shuichi didn't respond. He didn't need to. She understood him all too well.
He didn't hesitate the second time a foreign substance was offered to him. He would give almost anything to feel that good again, even if it meant he would feel a million times worse in the morning. Without it, he couldn't see himself ever feeling the slightest bit of true joy ever again.
This way he could see Yuki's face as if he really were just hovering over him after a midnight tussle. This way he could sink into Yuki's protective embrace, even though those slender arms were no longer there to encircle him when he awoke at night, afraid. This way…everything was better than reality.
So what. Fujisaki had a point. Hiro hadn't thought. Hiro had been too enraged to think. He knew that now. All he really knew was that Yuki was kickin' it somewhere in New York while Hiro's best friend was lying in a vegetative state in some Tokyo hospital as a result. It didn't deter him from his chosen course of action. He had meant it when he said Eiri Yuki was going to pay for the damage he had caused. He flagged down the first Taxi he saw and directed him in almost perfect English towards the nearest hotel. He didn't care if it was the most expensive place in the state or the most run down in the country. After he reserved a room for himself he could catch up on some sleep and search relentlessly for Eiri Yuki the next day. Celebrities were rarely hard to find.
Foreign celebrities proved to be an entirely different matter. In Japan Eiri Yuki was a household name, in America Hiro had yet to meet a woman who didn't follow the question, "Excuse me ma'am. Could you help me find Eiri Yuki?" with a blank stare. He sighed in frustration but he wasn't about to give up. The sun was going down, but that didn't mean he couldn't keep looking. The stupid bastard was probably more likely to be found wandering the streets of New York City around midnight. Trouble was, New York City was a big city, and it was big cities host big trouble.
A high pitched scream pierced the smoggy New York night. Hiro could tell it was nearby, and not the sort of scream that was to be passed off easily.
"Quiet, bitch!"
"Hey. Why don't you back off!" the thug looked over his shoulder at Hiro's figure blocking the entrance of the alley.
"Who the fuck are you?" the thug said, but he couldn't do anything about. He was using all of his strength to pin down the struggling girl. There was more than one to deal with. Hiro was a strong guy, but not strong enough to hold his own against five gangbangers. Caught in the midst of the chaos, he never knew exactly which one stuck the knife in him.
The next morning the pain was still there. It was still in him. But all it took was a little bit of the angelic white substance taking a trip up his nasal cavities and he was Yuki was taking him in his arms again.
"Do you trust me, Shuichi-kun?" Shuichi nodded. There was still a little pain left in him, but most of him had become blissfully unaware. "Good," she chuckled. "I'm happy for you."
He groaned as he rose into murky consciousness, and vaguely he wondered if he'd made the right choice. He was beginning to wonder if this was a path he wished to follow; he had only just begun. It wasn't too late to give this up. But then he remembered his pain and changed his mind. It took him awhile to register that Harley was no longer in the bed beside him.
"Harley?" he called, but it came out as little more than a whisper. He was answered, however, by a muffled voice coming from another room. The androgynous voice sent chills down his spine; it held the epitome of evil within its icy tone HE couldn't hear the stranger well enough to understand the words, but he could hear well enough to know that Harley wasn't around, and this person clearly was not supposed to be here. Slowly he willed himself to rise and peek out the door.
The person halted in the middle of a sentence and hung up on whoever had been on the other end of the telephone line. It was as if another person inhabited Harley's body. They had her body and her face, but she didn't walk the same, she didn't talk the same, her eyes no longer glimmered with affection, nor did a smile brighten her face. And her eyes…her eyes were vacant, like portals into her empty soul. Vaguely Shuichi wondered if he appeared the same.
"How much of that did you hear?" she asked in that deep cold voice that he couldn't believe was coming from her lips.
"N-none of it…really," he stuttered.
"Bull shit. Look," she said and suddenly she was centimeters away, looking down at him coldly with those eyes. "What you heard? It's true. I killed him. It's called patricide…I killed my mother too, and if you let anyone know, I swear to God I'll kill you too." It didn't come out sounding like a threat; it came out sounding like a threat. She slammed him up against the wall and disappeared into the abyss of her room, locking the door behind her.
Shuichi slid down to the floor and sat in silence; too afraid to stay, too afraid to leave.
Hiroshi awoke to the steady beeping of the machine that was monitoring his heart. He felt light headed and anemic. There was a nurse standing over him with a clipboard in her hands.
"Oh good. You're awake. You're a very lucky boy, you know," she said but didn't smile. For some reason he couldn't comprehend, she didn't seem to have much sympathy for her patient.
"Where am I?"
"Our Lady of Mercy Hospital, in the Bronx," the nurse said stiffly.
"What…happened, exactly?" he asked. His voice cracked on the words from disuse. The matronly nurse frowned at him grimly.
"You suffered a stab wound to your chest. Close to your heart. You would have died if that boy in the next bed over hadn't been willing to offer a blood transfusion to a complete stranger. Think about the goodness in others before you go running off in another gang," she said contemptuously and left. Her dislike made sense now. Vaguely he wondered if the girl had gotten away unscathed or if his near-death had been for nothing. A complete stranger, huh? Hiroshi turned his head to the right and looked at Fujisaki.
"What are you doing in New York? I thought you said it was a stupid idea to come here."
"It was! I just…I had to tell you. I know where Yuki is! He's in this hospital. And then some paramedics came by wheeling you in on a stretcher. They said you needed a blood transfusion and I…I knew your blood type so I offered to give you some of my blood. I…think I love you, Hiro," Fujisaki rambled, the confession bringing him close to tears. Hiro grinned feebly and pulled the synth player down onto the hospital bed.
"So…I guess this blows my whole plan, doesn't it?" Suguru nodded grimly as they stared into Eiri Yuki's stone cold face. "He's in the exact same state as Shuichi; with the exact same chances of survival…I don't understand any of this anymore."
"Seguchi-san found him like this a few days ago. He called an ambulance immediately. In the end, he decided Yuki needed to be separated from Shuichi. So they shipped him out to New York. I…I promised not to tell you, because you would tell Shuichi and—"
"A promise you obviously didn't keep."
"S-Seguchi san?" Fujisaki stuttered as his cousin glared at them from the doorway.
"Get out."
He didn't see her again for the rest of that day. Finally, around three o' clock in the morning, she emerged, her old self again.
"What's wrong, Shuichi?" she asked.
"What do you mean, 'what's wrong?' You threatened to kill me!" he claimed incredulously. She appeared puzzled for a second before she smiled and laughed good-naturedly.
"You're so weird sometimes, Shuichi!" she insisted and tousled his hair.
Disclaimer: Yes. I am fully aware that Hiroshi Nakano and Suguru Fujisaki probably don't have the same blood type, but I thought it was sweet so I wrote it anyway. Please forgive me for being such an idiot.
-Snape