Forgotten
Chapter Six: Home
He knew that he was called Shindo Shuichi. He knew that his best friend was Nakano Hiroshi and that Seguchi Tohma was his boss. He knew that he was an up-and-coming J-Pop star that was well publicized, well liked, and well on his way to becoming eternally famous.
He knew that he had a disease, but they wouldn't tell him all the dirty details. They wouldn't tell him if it would kill him, if there was a cure. They kept telling him that more tests would tell them, more tests would give them the answer. He saw the lies in their eyes.
He knew that his disease was causing memory loss. He knew that he had a sister and a mother that were worried and a father that either didn't know his son was sick, or didn't give a flying fuck. He knew that he was expected to stay in the hospital for a long time and that his rooms would be kept private. He suspected that it was going to get worse, and almost nobody expected him to get better.
Shuichi knew all these things, was beginning to understand what life was like again, but nobody would answer him when he asked about the blond man from his nightmares. The man who had burst unexpectedly into his hospital room with two doctors trying desperately to hold him back, fighting for some reason to see… him.
It made no sense. At first he thought it was an obsessed fan he couldn't remember, but he changed his mind when he thought about it. An obsessed fan would have been screaming mad, raving to see their idol in the hospital. Or star struck. But this man had been neither, and he had looked at Shuichi with fear and despair and hope and disappointment all wrapped into one.
Shuichi thought he remembered him. But it was a far-off memory. More like a dream or a hallucination, a fake impression of the real and perfect thing.
He sighed and stared dejectedly out the window. In the last week of life that he actually remembered, some things seemed so unfair. Why was he so sick, possibly even fatally ill, with a chance to live life that might be taken from him? So what if he got out of the hospital and eventually learned about his world, so what if he could return to some semblance of normal life. What if he did it all, and was suddenly expected to die?
Some tears escaped his eyes. What if he didn't die, but couldn't remember his childhood, his education, his family? What was the point of his learning life over if he started from scratch as an adult?
He rubbed his eyes and tried to smile for himself, just to feel better. These weren't things to think about now, what he wanted to think about now was just living. For some reason this is what life had handed to him and it was what he was going to have to deal with. By Buddha, he would do it and do it with a damn smile on his face.
He sighed and lay back against the pillows of his hospital bed.
"Shuichi?"
He jumped about a foot and looked to his right. Hiro was standing in the doorway, smiling just a little. "Get up and get dressed."
"Wha—why?" The tiny teen asked, befuddled and bemused by the sudden command.
"We're going home." Hiro said, grinning even more widely.
Shuichi's eyes immediately filled with tears. Home. The word was like pure heaven, a second of bliss in his personal hell. He jumped from his bed and gathered is clothing so quickly he almost forgot his underwear. Then he stopped just as suddenly as he had started and looked at Hiro.
"How?"
Hiro took a few quick steps forward and ruffled the pink mop of hair on his beloved friends head. "The doctors think you're good to go."
Shuichi's ear-to-ear grin was so bright it lit the entire hospital, nay, the entire city with its glow. There were tears in his eyes, his cheeks as bright pink as his hair. Suddenly, he gripped Hiro around the middle in a bone-crunching hug, screaming thank you so fast it sounded like bird calls instead of words.
Like a dancer, he bounded from the room into the adjoining private bathroom, speedily dressing.
Hiro, left dazed behind him, lifted a hand to his face and massaged his eyes for a moment, trying to get himself under control. The doctors, in fact, did not think that Shuichi was good to go. They were giving him a month. Two tops. They said he should go home until he was to sick to care for anymore, and then Hiro was to bring him back here, to die in peace. The thought made him nauseous beyond all belief.
"Let him live a normal life," they had said this morning to a shocked Seguchi Tohma and himself. "After he can't move for himself, after he can't eat for himself, bring him back and we'll make him comfortable." Then the doctor had put his hand on Hiro's shoulder, sympathetic, like he knew how he felt. Hiro's palms had burned with the desire to smack the doctor that instant.
How could they say they would make him comfortable? How could they assume his best friends last moments were going to be peaceful? Shuichi was going to die before he ever saw Christmas.
With a triumphant grin, Shuichi popped out of the bathroom like his old self, grinning and hyper and happy to be alive, all previous thoughts of melancholy forgotten, believing that he would be okay.
Hiro put a protective arm around his friends shoulder and led him to the front desk for check-out.
He was like a child, Hiro thought. Asking questions, wanting to know how the world worked and why it was the way it was. Shuichi bounced down the streets in a baseball cap and sunglasses, twirling around and humming to himself. Hiro followed silently a few feet behind.
"Hiro?" Shuichi asked, turning suddenly to face the guitarist with a thoughtful expression on his face.
"Hmm?"
"How long have we been friends?"
"Since birth."
Shuichi's answering grin was so accepting, so happy that it made Hiro want to burst into tears all over again. How could someone so perfect, so kind, be taken from this earth so early?
"That's a long time." Shuichi replied, turning back to dance down the sidewalk. Hiro caught these moments, moments he was sure even Shuichi wasn't aware of. His friends motions would jerk, sporadic, irrational movements that were to sharp for Shuichi's fluid steps. Symptoms. Signs. Sickness.
"Shu," Hiro called out as they neared an intersection.
"Yeah?"
"Turn left at the next light."
Shuichi's answering nod was all the response he got. Hiro stuck his hands in his pockets and watched as Shuichi gave a ridiculous little twirl, grinning stupidly all the while. At the next street corner, he turned and winked at Hiro, then took off down the street.
Hiro jogged a little to catch up, finding his pink-haired idiot leaning against a brick wall, legs crossed at the ankles as he stared up at the perfect blue sky. As Hiro approached, he heard a familiar melody. Staring at the impossible as Shuichi hummed, he nearly took his friend straight back to the hospital.
Shuichi was whistling the tune to the Rage Beat.
Hiro tried very hard to keep his nerves down, his voice steady as he said, "Shuichi, where did you hear that song?"
"I don't know," Shuichi said. "It's just been stuck in my head all day."
"Wow," Hiro whispered to himself.
"What?" Shuichi asked. "Is it something I should know about? Is it something from before… before I got sick?"
Hiro stared at his friends eyes, hidden behind the dark sunglasses, and could just imagine the pressing curiosity, the dire need to know about his forgotten life. For a second he wondered if he shouldn't be saying this, if he should be keeping the information away from Shuichi like it was the plague. But nobody had forbidden him to talk about the life before the sickness, and he felt like Shuichi should know.
"Yeah, Shu. You wrote that song."
Shuichi's mouth dropped open a half inch, shock radiating from his perfectly still posture. "I did?"
"You did. Do you remember it at all from before?"
Shuichi shook his head. "It's just a tune I had in my head."
Hiro nodded and took his friend by the shoulder. Steering him ten feet down the road, they came in front of Hiro's tiny apartment building, housing Hiro's even tinier apartment. "Welcome home." Hiro said, knowing it wasn't quite Shuichi's real home. But his real home wasn't good anymore.
Shuichi gasped, putting a hand to his mouth. "Wow." He said, and then giggled.
"What?" Hiro asked grouchily, hoping Shuichi wasn't about to diss his new crib.
"I'm home," Shuichi said quietly. "It feels so good, you have no idea."
"Well, let's go check it out." Hiro said, handing Shuichi the key. Shuichi's eyes lit up behind his glasses and he ran for the front door like a child running to get in line at a carnival.
Too Shuichi's untrained eyes, the apartment was a palace. Hiro watched from the kitchen as Shuichi darted from room to room, discovering, investigating, looking for all the world like a puppy brought into a brand new home.
Shuichi stopped his exploration a short half hour later, and as he and Hiro sat down to lunch, he smiled and tears filled his eyes again.
"Hiroshi, I know I can't remember, but I feel like I've known you for my whole life."
"Good." Hiro replied past a bite of his sandwich. "Tomorrow, we'll see about getting you into work, just to check it out."
Shuichi's eyes lit up like beacons before he burst into joyful tears.
End-7
A/N: Thanks so much everyone for your support and reviews! Please let me know what you think. Quickie update for the week.