I think this is one of those situations where there isn't even a point in apologizing. This isn't some chapter that was a few weeks late. Oh no, it has been well over a year. Lots of stuff has been happening and for a long time I completely forgot the existence of this, but I guess that is just life, eh?

Either way, I will give you another chapter and if I don't space, then there may be another soon after that. However, I am not making any promises. Lets all pretend this is rehab and play the "one day at a time" game.

Hahah.

Enjoy. :3

Shuichi remembered he didn't like hospitals the second he walked into one. The smell crawled under his skin and made him madly itchy. Everything so clean. Very white. Yet a sense of death and disease hung in the air. It manifested on sorrowful faces in waiting rooms and stiff bodies in their beds.

Tohma strode followed closely behind. It was obvious that he was uncomfortable too, but it wasn't the emergency room, nor the atmosphere, but the situation itself.

Shuichi wondered about this and felt a flicker of self-loathing. Something unimaginable had happened a countable sum of hours before and he was more upset by the hospital's vibes then the occurrences that led him there.

Pathetic.

A couple knobs turned into the off position in Shu's head. He was examined, he told them what hurt and what didn't. He was questioned, he told them every detail of what he, and Mao, had done. He was asked to go home, he accepted a ride from Tohma.

"Could you...um." Shuichi had attempted to speak, but the request he wanted to make seemed so ludicrous, yet possible.

"What?"

Shuichi grimaced down at the brace the doctors had put his wrist in. It was sprained somewhere in the fiasco of the day, but he couldn't remember when. "Just...could you take me to Yuki's?"

For a moment, just a moment, blind rage flared in Seguchi's stomach and ran through his veins to this hands. Like a slap in the face, he recalled all that had happened and suddenly, it no longer seemed like the worst thing in the world for his little Eiri to have such a harmless playmate.

Well, he corrected himself slightly. Shuichi couldn't be so harmless anymore, considering he had killed somebody. But he was definitely damaged and maybe that was enough to get along with Yuki.

"Of course," Tohma said.

Shuichi was nervous. Yuki had been sent home from the hospital, he knew that much. So had K.

Suguru and Hiro were still in intensive care. Ryuichi and Sakano needed to be observed for the night.

Shuichi's breath caught when they pulled up to Yuki's apartment complex. He didn't know why the hell he had asked to come here. There were still fighting after all.

No.

There were broken up.

The need to be with somebody nagged at him. He craved a familiar bed and face. It was overpowering.

But what if they fought?

It was a risk worth taking.

Shuichi knocked twice, paused, knocked again, paused. He bit his lip as worry seeped to his core. Even for Yuki, who was very slow about getting to the door from his study, didn't take this long. And besides, why would he be working?

"Yuki?!" Shuichi hollered and pounded furiously on the door. He was hurting his already damaged wrist. He was panicking. Still, though, there was no response from inside.

"Dammit!" Shuichi exclaimed. Frustrated tears coated his eyes. He wiped them roughly and walked away, not sure why Yuki wasn't answering the door. He was too exhausted to press on the issue.

He supposed he'd just have to endure the night somewhere else.

Past the door, down the hallway, tucked away in the bedroom, Yuki slept soundly, pain medication fueling his dreamless, yet deep slumber.

Not the best chapter, but a good start after a long break. Things will pick up more. We need to know what is happening with the rest of the gang, of course. Not just Shu.