Awaking with an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth, the pink haired singer traced the room with his eyes, noticing his visitors quickly.
"You're awake, thank god." Hiro said when he noticed Shuuichi was conscious. "You gave everyone quite a scare, Shuuichi." The guitarist was about to say more when the pink haired singer grabbed at the face mask and proceeded to take it off. Hiro quickly stopped him and said: "The doctor said to keep this on you for a while longer."
"…." Shuuichi stared at Hiro and moved his lips to speak but the oxygen mask muffled his words making them indistinguishable to Hiro's ears. After two more tries, during which he struggled against Hiro to take off the mask, he stopped, furrowed his eyebrows in thought, and then grabbed Hiro's hand. Before Hiro could ask what he was doing, Shuuichi used his index finger to trace the words 'where's Yuki' on the guitarist's palm.
"Oh, he's on his way here—Tatsuha called him two hours ago when they first brought you in." Hiro paused when he saw the pink haired singer's expression change to a saddening one. "C'mon, you can't expect him to make a six hour drive in two hours—he'd have to go near a hundred and even then he would need to avoid all traffic. I highly doubt he'd actually…." Hiro fell silent when the door to the room opened and in stepped the blond. Spoke too soon, Hiro thought sighing, I'll never get those two.
Shuuichi sat up the moment he saw the familiar eyes and face of his lover, his eyes sparkling with emotion, and before anyone could stop him, he rushed into the writer's chest.
"Shuuichi…." Hiro sighed and shook his head, dismissing the urge to scold the singer—he wouldn't've listened anyway, not with Yuki in the room.
The writer stared at the pink-haired singer holding onto him, his customary scowl on his lips though his eyes showed silent relief.
"If you're this healthy what was the rush for me to come here?"
"I'm just so happy to see you!" Shuuichi held tighter around Yuki, his face mask finally off. "Yuki! Yuki!"
"Stupid brat."
Elsewhere:
"I don't care what it takes, I want the people who did this found." Tohma, eyes narrowed, spoke maliciously into the phone, spending a good deal of energy to hide his full anger.
When he first heard about the break-in of Yuki's apartment, he'd went nearly ballistic with worry until he remembered Yuki was out of town for a book signing. He'd relaxed a little bit until he heard what happened to Shuuichi—that had fueled his anger back up. So far he was the only one who realized what the thieves did to the singer had to have been planned—no normal thief would be so creative in how they disposed of witnesses.
Normal thieves would've shot or stabbed a witness, they also would've done their work when no one was home—not wait for one of the residents to return like the thieves who robbed Yuki's apartment did.
This robbery had been planned out too much, it couldn't have been a mere theft—it was something much deeper, Tohma was sure of it. Something deeper and more dangerous.
"As soon as you find any information call me on my cell." Tohma finished, hanging up and breathing deeply to calm himself.
Once calm, he took out the MD with Bad Luck's new song on it, his eyebrows furrowing—he'd been listening to the song earlier, and couldn't get over how familiar it sounded. Almost as though he heard the lyrics before, but that wasn't possible—Shuuichi said he wrote them, so he couldn't've heard them before.
"Unless he lied. For his own sake, Shindou better not have lied." Tohma narrowed his eyes and gripped the MD harder—plagiarism was not something he'd tolerate, for both personal and business reasons.
Meanwhile outside the hospital a girl with shoulder-length blond hair covered with a hat, and green eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses glared up at the building. A smirk playing on her lips, she fingered the knife carried in its belt case on her side, then the wad of bills in her pocket.
Phase one was completed, now it was time for phase two.
"I'm coming for my payment soon, Shindou-chan." She chuckled and turned away from the building, placing a MD in her back jean pocket.
A/N: Whatcha think about the fic so far? I don't know much about medical treatments for gas inhalation, so forgive for any mistakes. Though I do know that Japanese use MDs for music, which look like floppy discs. That info I got from reading the Othello Manga. Speaking of which, have any of you read Satomi Ikezawa's Othello Manga?