Written 28.o2.o8

I heart SpiffyCookie, nickygirl, Phoenixe825, SkuAg, little0maggie, the-lionness, AnimePinkCess, Mrs. Radcliffe 13, jerseygrl90, Yamora Love n Friendship, Waltz Turner & Raspberrycharm for still reading this story!

(a/n) Another quick update! I'll reply to your reviews in 1-2 days. Sorry!

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My Funny Valentine

Chapter Fifteen

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It was raining sunlight as he walked the broad footpath – no longer was it a gloomy season. Yamato took a deep sigh, absorbing the heat. Even though it wasn't particularly as hot as it could be, he was satisfied with every single degree the weather went up. It was a great change from the frostbiting cold that he, and the rest of Japan, had been engulfed in.

When he had spotted the Yuki Rehabilitation Centre, he scampered inside the building and slipped in between the sliding doors before they closed. He strolled down to the ward he was accustomed to and knocked on the glass window of the nurse's station.

A woman with grey hair and a pair of spectacles turned around to face his direction. She got up from her chair to meet his acquaintance. "Why Mr. Ishida…isn't it pleasant to see you this fine afternoon. How may I help you?" When she had uttered the last word, she had lightly prodded his chest with the other side of her pen she had been holding.

"I'm here to see-"

"I know, Mr. Ishida. You've been coming to see him every Thursday. He's at the physio right now, but you can wait in his room. Go straight ahead," the nurse's lips turned upwards into a friendly smile before turning to her paperwork.

He bowed his head in thanks before going to the patient's room. Once he had arrived there he couldn't help but peek over the new box he hadn't seen from his prior visits. A simper formed on his face when he saw that it was his friend's keyboard. It was a good sign.

"Yamato, you're here," a voice disrupted the silence. "I thought you'd come."

"Akira," he welcomed, pacing to his side to help out the nurse, whom had been leading his friend back from his physiotherapy session, to sit down. The crutches were put aside, but as usual the nurse didn't leave them alone but stood around to listen to their conversation. The keyboardist had earned himself a special ever since the not-so-good incident. Yamato was pretty much used to the nurse listening on to their conversations now, so it didn't really matter. The nurse's role there was practically to prevent Akira from doing another idiotic thing like that again.

From the incident there was a possibility that his ex-band mate might have been given sentences for the founding of illicit drugs in his bloodstream. But after a more thorough investigation, the court ruled out it considering the main reason for his actions were more or less related to clinical depression and anxiety.

He observed the keyboardist. Yamato had honestly thought that one of his closest friends would die. Every time he saw him, he couldn't help but feel like it was a miracle that God – if there even was one - had kept him alive. And that was a big thing for him considering Yamato had never been religious.

From the suicide attempt he was more or less getting better now. His residential situation at the rehab was to strengthen and relearning how to walk on his two feet again (after dislocating and breaking a few bones from the fall); and also to fight his history for substance abuse. Akira was gaining back some weight, but the thing that still caught Yamato's eye was that he was still ghostly pale. Not only that, Akira was now suffering from relapses and cravings.

Yamato took a seat on Akira's bed. When he was about to string up a conversation his eyes diverted to a blur of yellow besides his friend. "Sunflowers?"

Akira chortled. "A guy has to have his favourite flower."

The room was pretty bland looking and dull, but the sight of the flowers carefully arrange in the vase was enough to liven it up.

"Why sunflowers?"

"I don't know. I used to have a lot of them where I was raised," Akira replied. "They always made me feel happy. They're so bright and calming. How bout you? You've got to have your favourite flower, even if it is you…"

"Orchards. Blue orchards," he clarified without a second thought. He then frowned when he realised what he had said. He never had a favourite flower, but when she had said they were hers…he kindled and found their unique beauty.

Not wanting to emphasise on her any longer, his gaze studied the patient again. Yamato was glad with the Akira's progress. He was both physically and mentally healing well. Even the course of their conversation was actually leading somewhere and wasn't as blank and incoherent as it had been. But he wasn't going to deny the various times he caught the keyboardist's body shake violently. Right now, it was subtle…but he still could see it.

Akira knew what he was observing. "It's withdrawal symptoms," Akira laughed bitterly. He was a lot talkative now, "Sometimes I just want it to stop. It's hard. It's much easier prowling the streets and getting a next hit than dealing with this. You saw me before. It was worse when I was admitted here – I threw up a lot that the amount of water I lost was lethal. I literally wanted to slit my throat to stop myself from shaking."

"If you ever mention any sort of suicidal attempt…I'll kill you myself," Yamato growled with a threatening look. There was a little giggle. Yamato had almost forgotten that Akira's nurse special was still in the room.

"Don't worry…that's why I'm here. I'm here to prevent him from doing anything like that."

"I wasn't going to," Akira muttered, sticking his tongue out. By now the nurse and him had formed a brotherly-sisterly relationship and were used to teasing each other. It was sort of therapeutic. Perhaps one of the reasons why Akira had turned to drugs was because he was always alone and one every checked up on him.

His parents had passed away when he was quite young and he had no other siblings like Takeru always checking his back. That was partly why Takahashi, Yutaka and him blamed themselves for what had happened. Lately each one of them would visit. Yamato even caught Yutaka bring in baked scones. The lead singer wouldn't let the drummer hear the end of it – even though Yamato already knew that they were actually made by Yutaka's mother.

"At least I'm not as bad as the person in the room next to me. He bragged that he would have 10 Asahis a day. I mean, if I wanted to kill myself I would rather do it in a quick way than slowly like that," he described.

"That's not funny," Yamato sighed. "Sometimes your jokes can be so humourlessly terrible. Like now, for instance."

"It was just sarcasm. I wasn't intending to be funny."

Funny.

It was a strange word. But the word cemented into his mind, trailing off the particular thing they were talking about. The words and tune of My Funny Valentine stung his ears. He almost closed his eyes to shut himself from thinking of it…of her. Who was he kidding? For the past months there wasn't a nostalgic day that the image or thought of her diminished from his mind.

"Who knows," Akira commented cynically. "I'll fight these cravings. But once I'm out of rehab there's still a chance that I'm going to go back to the pattern."

"You won't. She won't let you," the nurse slid into the conversation with a smirk.

"Kayla?" Yamato guessed. The nurse confirmed his question with a brief nod.

Kayla was practically Akira's main source to his recovery. She was Akira's highschool lover. They broke up during their senior years because she disagreed and didn't believe that she should become a musician because it would lead to a dead end – blatantly she was wrong. When she had found out about Akira's case through the media (which had finally caused a good purpose), she had rushed back from Kyoto to Odaiba. It has been years since they hadn't kept contact – and she only had Mimi's telephone number from their high school. Then Mimi distributed Yamato's phone number to her…and after so many years of not keeping contact, she ran back to Akira and was there to look after him throughout it all as being the main support the keyboardist had.

The positive outcome from Akira's attempt was that she was brought back into his world. They still cared for each other. Now that he thought about it, Yamato was really certain that the sunflowers given to him were from her. It was stupid because then Yamato figured out that Akira's breakup with her triggered his substance-abusing addiction. Hopefully everything would go uphill in Akira's life now. Hopefully.

"So how's all the recording been going? You usually pop in before physio…you must be busy," Akira said.

"You could say so. It's just harder going solo now. I'm used to being with a band. Being on my own feels like singing without a voice," he said. "It's strange. I don't think I'll ever get used to it."

It was true. Akira had chosen to leave the band to catch up with time and have a new slice of life with Kayla. Yutaka didn't really care where the band went. He only really continued playing with them for the years was for the money. Now that he had accumulated the money, he didn't care less. Whereas Takahashi took this opportunity to propose to his childhood lover by finally settle down in his hometown. After all the years he'd have to tear himself from her to go on tour with the band, he was glad to throw in his towel.

"You're talented, Yamato. You've got the skills, charisma and looks. You're going to get somewhere…you don't need us."

"How about you, Akira? You could play one of Berman's difficult pieces while stoned. That's what you call talent, right there. Not that I'm influencing you to get high again," Yamato shook his head.

"Still…you'll get somewhere. You will. I know," Akira said with full confidence. "Do it for all of us. Do it for yourself…I still can't believe you're going to give your rock roots a rest and convert into becoming a jazz musician."

"It's been my inner calling for a while," the blond haired man admitted. "Kanji still hasn't gotten over it either."

"How has that ol' man been up to?"

"Same old. He's as strict as ever. Stricter than he's ever been because I'm his sole focus now," he flinched.

"He didn't want to get you out of his hands yet. He hasn't fully finished taming you," Akira chuckled.

"I still miss the band. You guys will always be my boys, you know?"

"Of course. But it was inevitable. This was bound to happen. We were bound to separate eventually. Life's like that. Things come about when you least expect them to. It's unpredictable."

"God, I hate that word," he said, laughing at his inward joke. "Anything relating to predictability in fact."

"What?"

"Nothing," Yamato neglected the question. "You're just too whipped with Kayla right now."

The nurse laughed, "I double that."

"It won't be easy. But I know, you'll get out of here soon. You can get through this. I assure you will."

"Thanks Yamato."

After a few more quirks in their friendly discussion, Yamato became conscious that it was time to depart. With an impulsive salute, they exchanged good-byes and Yamato was once again feeling the sun's rays tickling his skin.

A lot had happened in the couple of months that had passed. His career pathway had taken a peculiar change, his grandparents weren't in Odaiba now – but visiting some rural parts of Japan, one of Takeru's novels was nominated for best sci-fi, Jyou aced his exams and she…well, he didn't know. He only saw the occasional news report how her label was doing well overseas. The franchises in Japan were yet to opened. It was rumoured that it would be held next week – not that he cared.

"RETARD!"

His head spun to the direction where the insult came from and saw the idiot.

"You weren't meant to respond to that…but I knew you would since you are a retard."

His teeth was set in one of his typical goofy grins, his eyes sparking in amusement as he waved his hand vigorously in the air from where he was standing. Yamato couldn't help but smile as he jogged up to his brunette friend.

"It's been a while, man. Where have you been, doofus?" Taichi Kamiya said. "You've been snubbing me off for the past months. I haven't seen you since…how is he?"

"I've been quite busy…nothing new. Akira? He's doing a lot better. I just went to see him, actually."

"Good stuff," Taichi replied. "You know…I finished early today. You look like you have some free time to spare – so let's catch up."

"Sure thing."

"Billiards?"

"Okay. I'll kick your ass."

There were times in both of their lives that they were to busy with the real world to notice the amounts of time they'd be apart from each other. There would be no contact whatsoever…but when they were together it was as if no time had passed. They meshed and clicked easily like that.

The pair settled for a bar on the corner. It thankfully wasn't crowded with too many people because it was still broad daylight. If it were in the evening they wouldn't have space to breathe…or a billiard table in that case. Yamato bought a couple of beers and handed on to Taichi who was already concentrating competiveily at the game.

By the end, Taichi had triumphantly won and repeated 'owned' so many times to Yamato that he felt as if his head was going to explode. Since he was 'owned,' Taichi said that he owed him another beer. They took seats at the bar. As Yamato watched Taichi swig down his third beer, he pondered the possibility that Taichi would go into rehab if he took even more. His best friend had always been a heavy drinker.

"So…how's it been with Sora? You still got that petty game going on?"

He scratched his head. He hadn't gotten around to telling Taichi that they weren't talking anymore. It was more that he knew that he would open his big mouth and tell Mimi. He purchased another beer.

"What's going on?" Taichi recited.

"She's not speaking to me anymore," he said honestly.

"Why?" Taichi asked.

"I don't know," Yamato said uncomfortably, taking a few sips just to be greeted with Taichi's curious eyes. "Fine…well..i don't know it just happened."

"You can't just suddenly stop talking to someone. What happened? I really thought that you were going to get with her."

"Excuse me?"

"C'mon Matt. You're single. She's single. Add a fake pseudo marriage…and kapeesh! Just admit it…you like her…I know you. Plus, you're smiling now."

"Shut-up," he grunted in counter-attack. But Taichi was right. Somehow when he spoke everything made a bit more sense. "Fine…maybe I do. But I don't…you know?"

"That's gotta be the most stuffed up confession I've ever heard," Taichi guffawed. "Really…what happened? Have you at least made out?"

"Well…we did go over the line. It wasn't even for the fake-marriage purpose," Yamato conceded.

"You kissed? So? What's the big deal?" Taichi said, but then his eyes widened when he saw from Yamato's look that it wasn't just a kiss that confused him. "You're kidding me?"

"I told you! It just happened," Yamato said, feeling flustered as he turned to his beer to avoid facing him.

"Mimi said-"

"If Mimi knew…why the hell did you even bother asking?" he spluttered.

"I only heard that the both of you weren't talking…I didn't know you went that far. Fuck," Taichi cursed, slamming his glass on the counter causing the bartender to give him a domineering withering look. "Now it makes sense. No wonder Sora's been talking to Mimi a lot more lately. I really didn't think you had it in you, you dog."

"I wasn't a virgin, Tai," Yamato rolled his eyes. "At least I don't sleep around in other people's apartments!"

Taichi laughed heartedly.

"Fine. Her. I didn't know she had it in her. Don't have to get so pissed off about it. I doubt you regretted it," Taichi said. "Did you?"

"No," Yamato finally said. "But we leaped too many steps ahead even if I were to consider doing anything like that with her. And no, Tai. I didn't force her to if you're thinking that."

"Sure you didn't."

"Then quit being darn sarcastic," Yamato grumbled kicking his friend. "Anyway, she hasn't contacted me since. I've been ringing her up, leaving messages…done practically everything. But she still avoids me."

"What do you expect? She's the same as you. You don't even know if you really like her or not. She's confused, Yamato," the brunette spoke. "I've told you so many times that if you hurt her I'll kick you in the balls…something amongst those lines...but you've both screwed up on this one."

"If we hadn't slept together…it would be normal. Now it's just all complicated and I can't stop thinking about her. It's like I've got a new acquired OCD problem," he said. He roughly ran his hands through his hair in frustration. "Why does it have to be so complicated?"

"You like her, that's why. Just admit it."

"Well…I never really did hate her."

"So let's just say…how long have you contacted her?"

"The week after what happened," Yamato said.

"So it was just a week? You didn't bother to keep or at least try and make a bigger effort to talk to her? From what I see it as…it's a two way road. You both are avoiding each other."

"I've been busy-"

"Bullshit. And so has she. But both of you are still effected about it. If Sora's still talking to Mimi over the phone about concerns and you're obviously still dwelling on her…there's gotta be something there," the brunette headed man spoke matter-of-factly. "She's the only girl that you've talked about with so much respect, Yamato. I already know you really like her."

"If you think it's that easy…what do you propose I do?"

"I'm just saying…at least make some more effort. Screw your career, for once. Sometimes it's the little things in life that matters the most."

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(a/n) I don't know if these frequent updates are a good or bad thing. I'm still used to juggling three stories at once, but with only this story to update I'm always stuck in the same train of thought and have to get all these descriptions down before I forget them. The bad thing is that if I keep continuing like this, this story will be over soon. I've estimated that there are only 5 chapters to go now. It's quite sad to know that this story will end soon because this story has pretty much been one of my favourites to write.

I think the stress of starting this school year has also contributed to these updates. Maybe my inner mind wants to finish this story (so it'll be one less thing to think about) before getting really into this schooling year.

Again, thanks for reading this story thus far. If there are any questions, feel free to ask them. Sora will be coming back for the next chapter. Take care and heart

flipstahhz

PS. I thought this would be a long chapter because the content was a lot to cover, but surprisingly it turned out short and didn't expand as much as I had expected it to. Sorry again!