I love the reviews I'm getting! 3333 Thank you wonderful people!
Seven - AGONY
«What's this noise?» an authoritary voice cried out, while Byakuya Kuchiki appeared on the room's door, his delicate beauty irradiating rage. But when the boy noticed Ichigo holding Kira's body, he couldn't help making a confused face. «What the-»
«Call an ambulance, idiot!» Ichigo shrieked, tightening his grip around Kira. He was so cold, damn it, his nice fair skin almost greyish, a sick colour. His pale lips looked like paper. He had always been pale, but this was too much. He noticed the deep purple circles around his eyes, and when he tried to lift his head, the blond's lids opened slightly, uncovering a thin white stripe. «Kira, please...» he begged, tears gathering at the corners of his eyes.
«What's happening here?» a female voice asked, while a dark shilouette entered the room. Professor Unohana made her appearance wearing her nightgown and slippers, and for some reason she didn't look weird at all, while her nice face showed nothing but anger. Behind her back, Byakuya Kuchiki immediately closed his eyes when the crude neon light illuminated Kira's lifeless body.
«Let me see» the woman ordered, pushing Ichigo away. The boy leaned on the wall, while the teacher knelt next to Kira, gently touching his temples, his throat, carefully lifting one of his eyelids. «Kami-sama...» she whispered, distressed. Then she realised about the broken wrist, and she brushed the white skin with the very tip of her fingers. When she turned to talk to Ichigo, she was livid. «Who did that? Do you know anything, Kurosaki?»
«N-no» Ichigo replied, with barely audible voice. Again, he felt as if everything was about to crumble down, while tears pushed at the corners of his eyes. The teacher stared at him for a moment, then she shook her head. Next to Byakuya, Renji and Shuuhei appeared from nowhere, looking wide-eyed at the scene, their faces showing a mixture of shock and fury.
«Kuchiki, Hisagi, Abarai, lift him, and pay attention not to move briskly. Be careful to that injured wrist too.»
The three students complied, kneeling next to the unconscious boy and lifting him up gently, holding him by his shoulders, hips and legs. He was like a puppet in their hands. He looked so sick and frail... Ichigo stood still, tears still refusing to stream down. What happened? What the hell just happened? He couldn't under stand. And Kira's face was so pale, his delicate features still lightly twisted in agony... but he wasn't dead yet, right? He couldn't die like this. It simply wasn't possible.
«Kurosaki» Unohana-sensei whispered, sweetly touching his shoulder to comfort him. «Be strong. We already called 911. Everything will be fine soon.»
Ichigo lightly shook his head, an incoherent reply. The woman sighed, looking piteously the distressed boy in front of her, whose face contracted in pain but the shock prevented him from crying and let his feelings out. His mom was dead, she suddenly remembered, and he suffered a lot, when he came to that school. And now one of his friends probably attempted suicide... She couldn't do much to help him, in a moment like that. Besides...
«As soon as the ambulance comes, I'll drive you to the hospital» she added, caressing the boy's forehead to brush away some of his orange locks, which were glued to his skin. Ichigo instinctively raised his gaze to meet hers, and the teacher's motherly side twitched a little, when she realised about the hope in his eyes.
She smiled to him. «Let's go now, okay?» She held his bony shoulder during the entire path towards her car. Shuuhei, Renji and Byakuya joined too, sitting silently, their eyes still full of disbelief.
Watching intently the paramedics taking care of Kira, Kyoraku-sensei kept being silent. The man looked suddenly older, worried, his face full of thin lines that Ichigo never noticed before. «Shunsui» Unohana-sensei said, looking around, «where's Aizen?»
The professor shook his head, and the woman averted her gaze, frowning. Anyway, that was only a secondary matter. «Come with me, boys» she ordered to the three students. She drove them to the hospital, keeping silent during the whole trip.
Ichigo couldn't have told how long the apparently infinite wait in the white waiting room lasted. His memories of those hours were blurred and confused. He just remembered the pristine white ceiling, the blinding neon lights and the slow, slightly buzzing propellers rolling lazily over their heads. He had been struggling the whole time not to burst out into tears. He didn't even know precisely why he prevented himself from releasing his tension so stubbornly... then, suddenly, he would remember Kira's body, lifeless, grey-faced, and everything seemed to crumble down on him again. His friends weren't coping better than him: the most distressed of all, surprisingly, was Byakuya, whose eyes were wide and whose white, aristocratic hands were gripping tightly one of Renji's. But the dark-haired boy didn't even seem to realise. One of the nurses scolded Shuuhei because he tried smoking in the waiting room, and the boy was so tense he couldn't sit still, and kept nervously strolling around, drumming his fingers on his tighs.
Then, Kira's uncles came too, the tall, seemingly-strict man with his businessman suit and glasses, and the timid and thin woman, pale and nervous, who looked like Kira.
When Kyoraku entered the room, everybody jumped on their seat, rushing to him. The man sighed, shaking his head. «I'm immensely sorry» he began, his eyes full of tiredness and sadness, «they doctors made all that was in their power, but...»
«How's Izuru?» Kira's aunt interrupted, almost hysterical with tension. She wore an uniform of Japan Airlines.
«The doctors couldn't do much, actually. He's very delicate, and he was beaten all over his body. He has bruises and cuts on his limbs and torso, a broken wrist and... and it looks like he was sexually abused» the professor murmured. Kira's aunt moaned loudly, while her husband's arms tightened around her.
«Also, he gulped down a huge amount of sleeping pills, probably... probably to kill himself, there's no other explanation. While the doctors were taking care of him, he gained consciousness for a few moments, gesturing towards me and trying to tell something, but then he closed his eyes again. I'm terribly sorry, madam...» added Kyoraku, his face looking older and sadder than ever before, «but Izuru is in a coma.»
Something happened to Ichigo's mind, when he heard those words. His head span around, making him feel all weird and dizzy. He barely noticed Kira's aunt crying and yelling in her husband's embrace, while the teachers were trying to calm her down.
«Kami-sama help us!» the woman kept shouting, her voice broken. «Just as my poor sister. So delicate, so sensitive... I knew he would have never made it, in that school. I knew it from the beginning! I got everything, everything wrong!»
Renji looked absent, abulic, while Byakuya went on torturing his hand between his. Ichigo realized about Shuuhei's eyes laying upon him, then he felt his strong, warm arms fastening around him, hugging him tight, and only then he started crying. Big, heavy tears rolled down his cheeks, dampening Shuuhei's dark shirt. He still couldn't let out fully the agony in his heart, but at least it was a beginning. He stayed still, listening to the strong, peaceful beats of Shuuhei's heart, and he really couldn't find anything despicable about that hug. Even if Shuuhei and him had still many things to fix between each other.
During the trip to school, he just kept crying silently. He couldn't think to anything else: Kira in a coma, ill, on the verge of death. Kira, who tried to kill himself. Kira, abused, beaten, tortured. In his eyes, and in those of his friends, there was just a question: why?
«Guys, it's half past four am» Unohana said, gentle but strict, from the driver's seat. «When we arrive at school, Kyoraku and me will have lots to discuss about. I don't want anything else to happen tonight. Alright?»
«Sure, Unohana-sensei» Byakuya replied, almost automatically, from the passenger's seat, even if his model student's voice was a little ruined from his sadness. Sitting next to Ichigo, Renji sighed, closing is eyes. Kira had been his classmate since middle school. How could something like that happen to him? What happened? Sure, he'd always been a sensitive one, but... suicide? No, it wasn't like him. Surely something terrible happened to him, something that unloaded the crisis.
«Guys» Renji murmured, when they reached the dorm and the teacher went away, «Guys, I swear, even if I try with all my might, I could never be able to sleep tonight.»
«Let's go on the balcony» Shuuhei suggested, his voice a little blurred as if he was slightly drunk. His arm was still woven around Ichigo's slender shoulders, but no one seemed to notice. «Let's watch the dawn together. I don't think any of us would like going to bed, after a night like this.»
«Sounds fine to me» Renji replied, managing to make a small, brave smile. «I've just a couple special bottles I put aside for a special occasion, and if this isn't a special occasion...»
«I'm going to take my guitar, then» Shuuhei said, letting Ichigo go and running towards his room, while Renji went away too. Ichigo looked at Byakuya, feeling completely blank.
«Hey» the raven-haired growled, in a not-so-noble tone. «What's the exact nature of the relationship between Kira and you?»
«I don't understand what you mean» Ichigo replied, and it was true.
«I swear to God» Byakuya stated, marching towards him and stopping just right before crashing onto him, his grey eyes sending arrows, «that if it was you, who hurt him so bad, I'll find a way to destroy you, Kurosaki.»
«We're back!» Renji announced, a little too loud and a little to cheerfully, holding a couple bottles. They all followed him on the balcony, sitting on the stone benches and raising their faces to the sky. A thin pink line began to show at the horizon, rapidly changing into the pale yellow of dawn.
«What do you want to sing?» Shuuhei asked, plucking on the guitar's strings.
«Nothing melancholy» Ichigo murmured, talking for the first time after the hospital. Shuuhei smiled a little, leaning onto him imperceptibly to let Byakuya sit too.
«Nirvana?» he proposed, but everyone grimaced.
«Got it» Renji butted in, triumphant, «Iron Maiden!»
«Why not Green Day?» Byakuya offered, angel-like. Everyone turned to glare at him. «What's wrong?» he grumbled, offended.
«Such lame taste» Ichigo muttered, folding his arms. Byakuya turned livid, but Shuuhei stopped the fight, making the first chords resound in the terse air. It was "Boulevard of Broken Dreams", a song that everybody, one way or another, found atrociously good to describe the situation. Driven both by enthusiasm and desperation, they all began to sing. Renji's voice was loud and strong, Shuuhei's was baritone and deep, Ichigo just croaked off-key. Byakuya managed to whisper the first few words and his face instantly crumbled and he began weeping.
Ichigo stared at those quivering limbs, wondering why he used to feel angry towards that poor crying boy. Now he wasn't a noble Kuchiki anymore, or a rich guy who could look down on him. He was so terribly normal that Ichigo had to avert his gaze, because his gasps and sobs were making him almost sick.
Renji took Byakuya in his strong arms, holding him tightly, pressing his forehead on his warm chest. Byakuya cried, words coming ragged from his mouth. «Kira-kun was my friend. This is all so unfair!»
Renji leaned his cheek on those wonderful black hair, sighing. He kept holding the boy while the worst of the crisis subsided, then, when Byakuya began to calm down, he helped him on his feet.
«We are going to bed» he said, «even if the alarm will ring in an hour or so. We just need a little tranquillity. Thank you for everything, we'll see in a while, guys.»
«Bye» Ichigo and Shuuhei greeted, at the unison, while the two walked away slowly, Byakuya's head still leaning on Renji's shoulder. Those two... were more than friends, and Ichigo hadn't realised until that moment. That gap, that imbalance between the generous Renji and the cold Byakuya wasn't just hauteur or an excess of humbleness, but it was love. An uncommon, peculiar kind, but always love. And Ichigo had never thought about it before.
He looked at Shuuhei, the first rays of sun driving orange patterns on his thin face. Here was another relationship he still couldn't quite figure out...
«Shuuhei» Ichigo began, his voice tense, «why did you rape me, that night?»
He took him by surprise. Under his eyes, Shuuhei gasped, almost losing the grip on his guitar. «I didn't rape anybody» he whispered, lowering his gaze, showing a weirdly calm face.
«Look at me in the face, when I talk» Ichigo insisted, angry. «You had sex with me without asking first. This is what I call violence. Or rape, if you prefer.»
Shuuhei kept silent, his eyes blank. Ichigo shuddered, lost in the same maelstrom of fear, anger, desperation and solitude he felt in that dreadful night.
«That night...» Shuuhei murmured, straightening his back a little, «yes, now I remember.»
Ichigo stared at him, surprised. «What are you...»
«The night Renji threw that welcome party for you, right? Yes, I remember it.»
He kept silent for almost a whole minute, but Ichigo was too shocked to answer. «That night…» he repeated, and suddenly Shuuhei's good-looking face changed into something terribly similar to an old and pained face that Ichigo never saw before. The tattooed boy bit on his lip, his chin trembling with nervousness. «Cigarette» he muttered, patting on his pockets. He did it a little clumsily, and the lighter fell on the floor. «Fuck!» he cursed.
Ichigo couldn't take his eyes away. That sight was barely bearable, he found out. The sight of Shuuhei suffering because of something... and Kaname's mysterious words suddenly resurfaced: "there are secrets and scars hidden deep into the abyss of his soul".
«What happened to you that day?» Ichigo asked, with a small voice he couldn't quite recognize as his. «Why did you-»
«My stepfather died.»
Ichigo looked at him, frozen. Kaname's voice still resounded into his head: "you two are more similar than you could know".
«He was my stepfather» Shuuhei went on, mechanically, almost talking to himself. It looked like a river of words broke the bank and flooded out from his lips. «I mean, just my stepfather. My mother's husband, the one who decided to took care of a pregnant single girl whose parents, friends and family turned away, marking her as a prostitute. He did his best for my mom and me, to let us live a normal life. I tried doing my best too, but my mom isn't a faithful one. Once she reached financial stability, she abandoned us without thinking twice. And my stepfather... Takashi, that was his name... Takashi never managed to cope with the pain. He loved her so much, you know. She's still a pretty woman, even if she's a traitor and an opportunist. But deep inside... I think I can understood everything she did. As if I already forgave her. And I think Takashi-san did the same too. She's just thirty-four. She had me when she was still a young girl… I can't get mad at her. I tried to. I even tried to hate her, since it seemed the only thing left to do, but I couldn't. I just can't.»
He took a trembling sigh, chewing on his cigarette. «Ichigo, I know that probably you hate me already. But I swear on everything sacred in the world... I'm terribly sorry. I was lost, that night. Takashi was the only family I've left, and now I'm completely alone. I felt... so lost, and I needed someone to hold close.»
Ichigo couldn't take it anymore. He felt the urge to hug him, to hold him to his heart. Love, hatred, forgiveness. Wasn't it what people kept fighting for? Love, hatred and forgiveness?
«Did you cry?» he asked, softly. Shuuhei looked at him, and Ichigo almost managed to smile back. A little, shy grin. «When my mom died, I've cried a lot. When I left my hometown and friends, I cried. When I heard Kira was sick, I cried. I didn't cry many times, in my life, but Shuuhei, believe me: crying will make you feel better.»
He brushed his fingertips on his face, following the black tattoo line. He looked, while the brunette closed his eyes and sighed. «I don't hate you» he added, «how could I?»
Slowly, gently, he took him in a tender hug, fastening his arms behind his back, fingers digging into his short hair. «Stop playing the hero, Shuuhei» he whispered, leaning his chin on the boy's shoulder, «you can cry, now, if you want to.»
He smelled the same as he remembered. Deep, manly. And his warmth, the hard lines of his body, the gorgeous skin, a little rough but tense on the muscles...
With a sigh, Hisagi Shuuhei buried his face on the warm cocoon of Ichigo's neck. He stayed there motionless, trembling even if he struggled to dominate himself, for a long time. No tear streamed down his cheek, no sob wrecked his chest.
His shoulders, though, quivered for long, shaking and tensing in Ichigo's strong grip. «Time for forgiveness» Ichigo said, out of the blue, «why don't you call your song like this?»
«Because it's lame» came the simple answer, before Shuuhei lifted his head and leaned in to delicately kiss Ichigo's lips. «I love you, Kurosaki Ichigo...»
TBC
Next chapter's teaser: «I'm so sorry, Shuuhei… I'm so sorry, but I can't.»
