Heeeellooo! ; Sorry for the long wait, but now this story is up and running again. And you know what? I made an ending! I finally finished it! XP It's all thanks to someone that mailed me and complained about the lack of chapters. So, now I will be putting up chapter 4 & 5. Chapter 6 is yet to be edited.

Thanks for reading. Enjoy.

/Cesia

-----------------------

Chapter 4

At the brink of death. That was were Shuichi was right now. Hiro hadn't left the hospital ever since he came and that was one day and a little into the night. Somewhere at the afternoon, Shuichi's parents had arrived, hesitantly. They had soon after that been faced with meeting Yuki, not being very happy with it. After all, Yuki was their son's "BOYFRIEND". The shock of hearing that from the beginning was not gone yet.

However, Yuki had placed a professional façade upon his feelings and started to talk to the Shindou-couple in a polite and proper way. He had earned their respect after some time, although, Shuichi's father was still a bit hesitant.

Yuki was still talking, Hiro noticed, as he could hear low voices emanating from under the door to the other room.

Everybody else from NG-Records and the Bad Luck team had gone home several hours ago. Only Hiro remained, seated on a chair beside the singer's bed.

Shuichi was, and had always been, his very best friend since they were small. Sure, Shu was always the whiny, over-energic and happy one, while Hiro was the top grade student and the person to help Shu get out of trouble now and then. Everything from schoolstuff to girlproblems. Well, the girlproblems were no more at least.

This… was just too awkward to be happening. This wasn't Shu, lying like that.

Suddenly, the door to the other room opened and Yuki and Shiuchi's parents came in.

"Oh, Hiro-kun? Are you still here? You can go home if you want to. You must be tired," Shuichi's mother said softly with a gentle smile. Hiro looked up at her and then down at the floor again.

"No… I'd rather stay here," he mumbled.

"You know… if you want, you can sleep on the sofa in the other room. I can go and aske the nurse for some blankets," Shuichi's mother said and went out the door. Hiro nodded gratefully.

Yuki had gone over to the window and was looking out at the lights from the city. It was already dark outside and long past 22.00.

"Well then, Yuki-san," Shuichi's father spoke up. "We'll be sure to leave you to the rest of the night and the following day? We old people need to rest and this takes a lot from us."

Yuki turned and nodded.

"Yes, don't worry. I will. And I guess that Hiro-kun here will be able to help is that is the case." He looked down at the guitarst who nodded. Then he averted his eyes to Shuichi's father again. "I'll be sure to give you a call if something happens."

Hiro stood as Shuichi's mother re-entered the room.

"Here you go, Hiro-kun, Yuki-san." She handed out the blankets. "I hope you can get some sleep at least." She turned to Yuki and bowed lightly. "Thank you very much for doing this. We should get going home now. I think I need to take care of Shuichi's little sister. She is totally heartbroken, the poor thing."

Yuki nodded and Shuichi's parents went out the door.

Hiro looked at Yuki.

"I'll go get some sleep," he said simply, headed into the other room and closed the door behind him.

------

Yuki went over to the bed. Shuichi was wearing that pained face. It was hard to look at him like that, all quiet and shut. Slowly, Yuki slid down on the chair by the bed.

"Brat…" he said, near to tears. "You… you…" he silently took Shuichi's hand in his own, caressing the numb fingers.

The singer's hand was cold as ice.

Yuki paled. This was not right. It could not possibly be! Hastily, he bent over to Shuichi's face to feel if there was any breath. At first, he panicked, because he couldn't notice any life at all from the boy. Then, after a short time he could distinguish faint puffs of air slipping past the singer's lips. But they were weak. Really weak.

Yuki pressed the button to call for the doctor. A nurse entered.

"Yes?" she asked, looking a bit tired.

"Shouldn't he be in a respirator?" Yuki asked, anger and worry creeping into his voice. "his breathing is too slow and weak!"

The nurse was by the bed in an instant and checked on Shuichi's breathing, then she looked at the monitor.

"God, you are right! I'll go get the doctor right away!" And she ran out of the room.

------

The doctor checked the monitors one last time before looking down at Shuichi.

"Well, it should be okay for now... but I am afraid I have to say that we can't keep him alive much longer with only a respirator. We need to have compatible blood so he can get a transfusion."

"Then where the heck is this blood!" Yuki shouted, enraged. "I'm tired of hearing about this blood that you don't have!"

"Well, we have to find a fast driver to retrieve it, all our ambulance personal are busy. I don't know what we can do." The doctor said and sighed. "There is nobody available."

"Yes there is! I'll do it!" Hiro stood in the doorway with a stern face. "I'll do it. Where am I to get it?"

The doctor stared at him for a while.

"Now, wait a minute," he said. "Who said that we would let you do it? You are not educated in this matter. Do you know how to handle transportation of medical vares?"

Hiro walked forward and locked eyes with the doctor.

"I said, I'll do it! You don't have anyone else, right? I won't let Shuichi die just because you solely wanted to put your trust into some fucking education. Got that? I can handle it." His voice was sharp and hard. The doctor looked at him searchingly and then nodded.

"Okey. I understand. Since we don't have anyone else…" he walked out the door. "Follow me and I'll give you instructions."

------

Now they waited. Hiro had been gone on his motorcycle in five minutes after he received all information he needed.

Shuichi was breathing heavily through his coma and his face was almost white. Yuki sat by his side, face twisted in worry and regret. Yes, he regretted that he had come home so late he did that night he found the singer's self-molested body. Shuichi had even looked the door.

"If I only hadn't talked that much to the editor…" he silently cursed himself. And further more, he cursed Tohma, since the blonde man had been the one to tell him to visit the editor.

"If I turn off my cell phone and don't answer at the home phone, that means I wan't privacy!" he gritted his teeth at the thought. But that hadn't been the case. Tohma had been slightly worried and had come straight home to Yuki. When he found the novelist typing away at his laptop, he had just left the message to him from the editor.

Shuichi hadn't said anything about Yuki going away, he had just watched the gold-blonde man as he gathered some writing materials in a hurry.

"You didn't complain at all…" Yuki remembered now. "You just asked me how long I was going to be gone. You didn't even ask where I was going to…"

Yuki lifted his head in fear as he stared at Shuichi and realization dawned on him. Had Shuichi planned it? Had he just waited for the right moment when nobody would be home? When no one would be there to stop him? It couldn't be!

Yuki's grip on the singer's hand tightened and his face took on the colour of pale white.

That meant that Shuichi really wanted to die. And Yuki was partly guilty for that. The way he treated his lover wasn't really 'lovingly' if he would put it in that perspective. It was outright cruel.

But Yuki couldn't help it. It was in his nature to be cold and harsh. That was the way his childhood had treated him and that was what he had become.

He closed his eyes at the memory of all the taunts and insults he'd flung in the face of his lover.

"I should be thanking you a thousand fold, Shu… you never cringed of took in those insults. You loved me and cared for me despite the evil remarks I threw your way. You accepted me for whom I was…" he said down to the angelic face of his pink-haired baka.

Then, it had been Aizawa's actions that had pulled the trigger and destroyed Shuichi's stronghold. It had left his pride and feelings of worth crawling amongst the dirt and dust on the ground. Shuichi's soul had been overridden, filled with guilt. Guilt for being a nuisance to Yuki. Guilt for all the trouble he had gotten into. Guilt for existing.

Yuki saw down at Shuichi with a more and more saddened face. He wanted Shuichi to wake up now, so that he could hear Yuki tell him he was sorry. Hear him say he really loved him.

But Shuichi still lay motionless and Yuki sighed. He was getting tired, his wristwatch slowly ticking it's way onto early morning. With a stifled yawn, Yuki let his head rest on top of his hands holding Shuichi's small hand on the side of the bed.

------

The clock was 05:00 in the morning when Shuichi's heart started beating irregularly. Yuki had fallen asleep with his hands still clenching his lover's. He woke to the sound of the monitor beeping loudly.

"No…" He rose to his feet and stared at the pulse-reading. It was going up and down in an unsteady pace. "you can't die now!" He hastily kneeled down by the bed, stroking Shuichi's hair. "Please! Don't die on me now!" he yelled as the monitor kept beeping, alarming him.

"Doctor!" he called and pressed the emergency button several times.

TBC…