A/N: Ugh, I'm getting sick again. A good friend once compared my immune system to one of those henchmen in a James Bond video game- one well-placed karate chop to the back, and it's down and out...
Sorry for any typos.
008: SILENCE
Yoite knew three kinds of silence.
One: the sound that reached his ears too often lately. Yoite could see their mouths move and feel the vibrations in the air, but he did not know what was being said, except for the barest phrases.
Lip reading became an essential skill.
Two: the noise Yukimi made when he was worried. Yukimi's hand would clutch his temple and he'd stare down at Yoite and open his mouth, but words always seem to fail him. Instead, he would just growl something then point to the food on his plate, or the medicine on the counter, or the couch he was always trying to get him to sleep on. Yoite wished he knew what the man was going to say, but he thought he had a pretty good idea, based upon the way Yukimi would kneel down and check his temperature when he thought Yoite was finally drifting off.
Yoite always tried his hardest not to lean into the kind touch.
Three: the gift Miharu had given him. Yoite waited and waited for the questions to come from Miharu's lips. He knew exactly what they would be, knew the answers to the wondering in Miharu's eyes. But Miharu always bowed his head and looked away, somehow understanding that Yoite couldn't bear to speak of any of it.
That silence meant more to him than the whole world, and he feared what would happen should he break it.