Rose of Jericho

by peterpauper

Would we laugh at gilded butterflies? Sequel to Chrysanthemum.

10. Chapter 8

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Chapter 8

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I hate, feeling like this. I'm so tired, of trying to fight this.

I'm asleep and all I dream of is waking to you.

Tell me, that you will listen, your touch, is what I'm missing...

Comatose; I'll never wake up without an overdose, of you.
I don't wanna live. I don't wanna breathe. 'Less I feel you next to me
You take, the pain I feel, waking up to you never felt so real.
I hate, living without you, dead wrong to ever doubt you.

But my demons lay in waiting. Tempting me away.
Oh, how I adore you, oh, how I thirst for you, oh, how I need you.
Comatose, I'll never wake up without an overdose, of you
I don't wanna live, I don't wanna breathe 'Less I feel you next to me
you take, the pain I feel, waking up to you never felt so real.
Breathing life

Waking up

My eyes open up
Oh, how I adore you, oh, how I thirst for you, oh, how I need you.
Comatose, I'll never wake up without an overdose, of you.
Waking up to you never felt so real.
(Comatose, Skillet)

-

"Tamaki?" Yuuki's voice was groggy.

The blonde had just woken up. "Yes?" He sat up and ruffled his hair.

There was a pause, as if she didn't have the energy to tell him. "Watch the news."

"Okay...why?"

"Just, watch it."

Tamaki took the remote from his bedside table and turned the TV on, the news had begun five minutes before and was reporting an oil spill in the Pacific. "Oil spills aren't a cause for alarm."

"Things don't happen like they do in movies, keep watching."

The blonde sighed, contented, and leaned back. He loved mornings. "So...why do you sound so tired?"

Silence.

The news story broke. And in Japan, the heir to the Ootori Empire is in a critical condition in hospital after the brakes in his car gave out. There was an image of the black Maserati, upside-down, roughly twenty meters from the road. The windows were smashed as a result of the roof bending in, the bonnet of the car had been forced back, driving the wheel into Kyoya's chest and breaking his ribs. The only information we have is that Ootori Kyoya has suffered a punctured lung and massive loss of blood. We'll keep you informed.

Tamaki stared, his happy bubble burst. "Yuuki?"

There was a muffled noise on the other end of the phone.

"When did this happen?"

"Yesterday afternoon."

Click.

-

Yuuki was standing outside Kyoya's room. She had stared at him as the run rose, stared at him as the day staff came on, stared at him while she rang Tamaki. She was still there, in her feathery gown, when the blonde arrived. A nurse opened the giant doors and let him through. Tamaki saw Yuuki and rushed through the corridors.

"Is he alright?"

The girl blinked and turned her head to him. "He will be."

"Really?" Tamaki put his fingers against the glass and stared at his friend, the beeping of the heart monitor drilling the reality of the situation into him.

Yuuki blinked again and turned her gaze back to the still figure on the other side of the wall.

Suoh turned to her. "How serious is it?"

"Last night, he..." Yuuki lifted her hand to the glass, imagining she could brush the matted hair off his face. The nurses would do that this morning. "He died, Tamaki."

There was a silence as Tamaki stared at the girl and then at Kyoya.

She continued, her voice soft, weary. "He lost too much blood and his breathing rate slowed because the heart was pumping so little, his oxygen levels dropped...his heart..." She remembered how it had sped up so suddenly, a last bid effort to keep the body alive, to provide it with air. "He's in an induced coma until tomorrow so that his bone marrow can restore the blood count." Pause. "He'll be okay."

Yuuki felt Tamaki's arm wrap around her. He said a classic Tamaki thing. "Why are you wearing a ball gown?"

She smiled; it felt like her face was cracking. It felt strange considering the circumstances. "I had a Vanity Fair shoot."

"Are you on the cover?"

"Not by my own will."

Tamaki squeezed her shoulder and Yuuki dropped her hand from the glass. She was tired. Very, very tired. But she couldn't close her eyes; she couldn't stop watching over him.

I hate, feeling like this. I'm so tired, of trying to fight this.

I'm asleep and all I dream of is waking to you.

Tamaki pulled a chair from the reception to the corridor and set her in it. "I'm going to call Haruhi."

Yuuki nodded and leant her head back against the wall.

Tamaki stood at the glass and spoke down his mobile. He explained what Yuuki had told him. Haruhi had been asleep.

"Don't come in darling; just keep the others under wraps. Keep them away until Kyoya wakes up. I know you want to be here. I know. Yes," He turned to Yuuki whose eyes were slowly closing. "...she's been here since she found out. Yesterday. Yes, before the news got it. Hmm. Yeah. I...." Sigh. "I don't know. Yeah, I will. Love you, bye."

By the time he turned around again, the girl was asleep.

By that evening, she hadn't moved out of the hallway. She hadn't consumed anything but soda and water. The Academy called once, asking why she was a no show at her lecture, why her instructor had been left waiting for an hour and why Zero had feathers in his mane and tail.

"There's been an emergency."

They asked what. She told them to watch the news and hung up. An hour later, Yuuki got another call saying that an oil spill was not a reason to skip training. There was a pause of realisation as the story changed and then permission to take a break.

Yuuki knew that her hesitance to Kyoya was because he used her.

I hate, living without you, dead wrong to ever doubt you.

But my demons lay in waiting. Tempting me away.

But none of that mattered anymore. Not now that she realised the two types of mistakes. Those that were done with intention and tried to change, and those that were done with an intention that never healed. Kyoya and her father. The former allowed her to love, the latter allowed her nothing.

By the next morning, the doctors had checked Kyoya's condition and cleared him to wake up. His blood count was up, his heart was beating steadily and his lung was working with the other in recovery. Tamaki tried calling Mr Ootori and the brothers numerous times, only to be hung up on.

Yuuki was upset that they hadn't come. Upset that Kyoya was as much of an orphan as she was.

In her fatigue and frustration, the girl copied Mr Ootori's number into her new phone, not knowing what she would do with it.

I don't wanna live, I don't wanna breathe 'Less I feel you next to me

Late that night, the first nurse Yuuki met, Dora, let her into Kyoya's suit. Tamaki had gone home to console the Host Club.

"He's waking up now. It will take a while, but the doctors are sure he'll be able to handle it. Seeing as his family isn't here...you should be there." The woman smiled and opened the door.

The girl crept over to the bedside and stood over Kyoya. He had been cleaned small external traces of the accident on his face. There was a short cut along his hairline and another that formed a mark parallel to his jawbone from where he had turned his head to avoid the class. His hands had little cuts over the knuckles from where the windscreen had shattered and pelted the steering wheel. Yuuki ran her fingers over his and then up his arm to his shoulder. He was warm.

The girl pulled a chair over to the bed and sat in it. "Hey." She whispered.

"I know that sometimes they say that people in coma's can hear you and that it's good to talk to them. I don't know if it's true, but I was going to talk anyway. Um." She wrapped her fingers around his gently. "...I got really worried. Your next car can be the Mercedes Guardian, the E-type with bullet proof glass. Five star safety rating...Kyoya, I miss you....Oh, you'd be interested to know that your hospital smells like old people. I also have a theory that all children under the age of five smell like peas. This woman came in today; one of her brood had stuck a button up his nose. He was five, the next down was three and then there was a one year old that screamed. They all smelt like peas, except the mother. She smelt like B.O..." She paused her gentle tone and stared at him. Wanting permission to push the hair off his face, but scared of hurting him.

"I also developed another theory...the night you...um...when you...I couldn't breathe....I guess it's a good thing we were in a hospital...uh...I realised that, you are my life now. I thought I could live without you, but I can't and that scared me. Dependence. I don't like trusting, extending myself to incorporate another person, I am my own person, but I am that within you. I want that, to be...with you. I could go on being with you gone, but I couldn't go on living. I have my hopes and my dreams and my own life, but they just aren't as good as what they used to be when they aren't overlapping with yours...I'm not trying to sound clingy, because that's not how it is, I just...I love you. I don't think I ever stopped loving you."

Oh, how I adore you, oh, how I thirst for you, oh, how I need you.

The girl rested her head on-top of their hands, her heart slowed to normal rate for the first time. He would be alright. She was with him now. She would be alright.

Half an hour later when the nurse came to check up on them, Yuuki was asleep with her one hand in Kyoya's and her other on the blankets, her face balanced on the former. It looked like the Ootori's mouth was turned up slightly, content and happy. At peace. The woman smiled and disappeared into the hospital.

I'm asleep and all I dream of is waking to you.

The first thing Kyoya saw when he woke up was the angel he had seen before. He didn't know how long ago that was, but he knew she had been there. His guardian angel. She had given him reason to come back. She was his life force. The very reason he was alive.

Comatose, I'll never wake up without an overdose of you.

She was sleeping. Kyoya's hand fluttered where it had been resting on the covers and crossed over his body to push the stray hairs off her face.

His chest hurt. It was tight. It burned. Everything ached. It was uncomfortable, but he had his angel.

Yuuki stirred slightly at his touch, but didn't wake up. Kyoya wrapped his previously limp fingers around hers where she held him. This time her eyes opened.

Breathing life

Waking up

My eyes open up

"Kyoya?" Yuuki lifted a tired head. Relief flooded her. He was awake. The girl pressed herself against Kyoya, just making sure he was there. He went to wrap an arm around her but hissed sharply, not yet recovered enough to do more than lie still and sleep.

"I'm sorry." Yuuki sat back. "Do you remember what happened?"

"Yes." His voice sounded strange, strained, weary.

"I'll ask you my barrage of questions later." She gained the courage to wipe the hair out of his eyes.

There was a long silence. A comfortable, relieved silence. "I think your theory about children smelling like peas is absurd."

Yuuki blushed slightly, knowing what he meant.

Kyoya's eyes were heavy. "The rest though, I agree with completely and would have said the same if you were in here not me."

"I wish I was in here not you."

"No you don't." His voice was raspy, broken like his body.

"Stop talking, go back to sleep."

"Okay." It was the only time he was complacent enough to obey orders, and he was in a situation where that would normally have not been the case. He had her. All of her. And she him.

Yuuki watched as Kyoya drifted into a natural slumber. Words could not explain how relieved she felt. How happy she was. Too many emotions were flying through her. He was alive, he was awake, he was alright, and he was hers.

The girl rested her head back on their hands and let a teardrop form between them. A diamond for him. Her promise to never forsake him again.

Kyoya knew Tamaki had arrived when he woke up the second time. It was noisy. Yuuki's hand was still locked in his. His whole torso ached. The Ootori exhaled laboriously.

The girl turned her head to him. There were dark circles under her eyes. "How do you feel?"

"Sore."

"Well, the doctor needs to see you. So please stay awake."

The blonde looked up, exclaimed the Ootori's name, threw himself at his friend, paused, then threw himself into the task of calling the doctor. Yuuki smiled at him and reached over to press the call button before Tamaki could yell into the hospital. A doctor appeared before he had the chance and the Suoh thought it was magic.

"People are drawn to my radiance!" He exclaimed to his friends.

The doctor frowned at him, wondering if it was healthy to have so much optimism contained in such a young body. "Ootori Kyoya. I never thought I'd have to see the man who pays my bills in this room." The man smiled. "I hope reality is the same as when you left it."

Yuuki recognised him as the man who had brought Kyoya back.

"Well..." The doctor looked at his clipboard. "You will be in here for another night, and then you will be moved into a private ward for a week before you're allowed to go home and spend another two weeks recovering. After that, you can go back to having a normal life. You won't even get scarring, my handiwork is that good. You will however, have burn marks on your chest for the next few days." Many thanks to the paddles for that.

There was an awkward silence. Three weeks off was more than Kyoya had taken in his entire lifetime.

"No sooner though. You broke three ribs, punctured a lung, had a heart attack induced by lack of oxygen flow throughout the body and you lost almost all the blood in your body. You are incredibly lucky to even be alive right now, let alone healing as fast as you are." He closed his clipboard and looked at Yuuki. "Which means you can go now, Big Bird's little sister."

Tamaki laughed.

"That's not funny." Yuuki pulled at the annoying garment. "It wasn't funny when I put it on and it's not funny now."

Kyoya turned his head slightly to her. "When did you put it on?"

"Um...Four days ago, that Vanity Fair shoot." Her voice softened further than normal when she looked at him. It was like looking at a ghost.

"Have you gone outside in four days?"

"I stood at a glass door."

"Did you eat in four days?"

"You didn't either."

The doctor cleared his throat; it wasn't good for the patient to do more than sleep. "She's been living off soda, water and soda water. We told her to go home. She wouldn't even go to the cafeteria." He smiled and headed for the door. "I'll be back in a few hours." He turned to Yuuki. "And I'm calling you a cab. Blondie can watch him for a while."

"But..."

"No." He leaned out the room. "Dora, call a cab."

"IT'S ABOUT TIME!" The voice responded down the hall.

Yuuki crossed her arms and sighed. Tamaki seemed somewhat offended at being called 'blondie'.

"Go home." Kyoya said to her, he squeezed her hand. "I'll be fine." He didn't feel it.

"Bu.."

"Go have a shower and ride your horse. Then come back."

"B..."

"Yuuki."

The girl didn't want to argue with him. Not when he was as pale as the sheet with lines under his eyes as deep as canyons. "Okay."

"Good." Kyoya shut his eyes.

Tamaki helped Yuuki up and led her to the front of the hospital where the cab was waiting. "I'll be here. You go and be separated from your love once more! Go dream of him! Go think about him! Go..."

Yuuki clapped a hand over his mouth. "Go back inside and make sure nothing happens to him or I'll have your guts for garters."

Tamaki looked a little frightened for a second, then smug. "Only if it's your wedding garter!"

Yuuki slammed the car door to prevent herself from trying to kill him.

As soon as the car started moving, she felt the weight of the last few days finally fall on her. She hadn't eaten or slept properly in days and all she'd felt was worry and guilt. Kyoya was okay. He was going to be okay. The girl exhaled and laid her head back. What a way to find out you need someone. Sometimes kismet has a hard and a soft way of telling people things, all her life it had given Yuuki the hard end, and at times like these, she couldn't be more thankful. She finally knew what she wanted and where she wanted to be.

-

Yuuki arrived at the Jockey Club mid afternoon. Suki had just arrived and took one look at her friend before almost calling an ambulance.

"Are you intoxicated? It's like...not even four in the afternoon Yuuki. And you're not even old enough yet."

The teen stumbled to her room and unlocked it. "No, I'm not drunk. I'm just, very, very, very tired."

"Yeah, reminds me. Where the hell were you?"

"Sorry." The girl face planted on her bed. "I called the Academy and your dad's into the whole news media thing; I figured you would have worked it out."

The older woman paused, thought for a moment and then went to make coffee. "Well, you could have phoned me."

"Didn't think to." Was the muffled reply.

"Oh, well, thanks." Suki was smiling as she said it.

"It's not like I had better things to worry about. Don't give me coffee, my teeth feel like fuzz."

"Go shower and get out of your Sesame Street outfit, you look like that scene from Twilight where Edward bites all the pillows."

"Don't talk to me about Twilight." Yuuki pulled herself off the bed and into the bathroom. "Don't talk to me about Sesame Street either. This dress cost a year's wage for most people."

"Oooo." Suki pulled the tag out as her friend plucked the feathers from her hair. "Dolce and Gabbana." Pause. "It's still ugly."

Yuuki looked at the woman in the mirror and then told her to leave her alone for twenty minutes while she tried to re-enter a world where hygiene existed. An hour later, she was asleep on-top of her bed covers. The next morning, Yuuki went for her morning session, pulled the last of the feathers from Zero's mane and tail and then called a cab to head back to the hospital.

Her instructor followed her across the gravel drive. "Where are you going?" He was clearly angry.

Yuuki turned, still tired. "Hospital."

"You were there for almost five days!" Tachi yelled. "You have the Olympics!"

"I know." The girl stared at her feet. "I can't really work to the best of my ability when I cant keep my mind on one topic."

The man's face softened. "No. I guess not." His wife had died of cancer two years before. "Just be back for morning training. You're ready for the Olympics anyway."

Yuuki smiled. "Thanks." The cab driver popped the door open and she got in. Half an hour later she was at Kyoya's bedside again, watching him sleep.

The man's skin was still pale, translucent almost. He had dark lines under his eyes and his hair had lost its shine. But his heart was beating steadily and his breathing rate had reached a normal level, signalling that oxygen was now travelling properly through his system. He had a drip in one arm and a cut through the line his ribs made across his torso on the left side.

The same doctor from the day before came in to check on his patient. "Why am I not surprised to see you here?"

Yuuki looked at him. "Because you'd do the same thing."

He stared at the girl. "Yes, I think everyone would."

"Have...his parents come?"

"No." The doctor scribbled something on his clipboard. "He hasn't even been awake to ask."

Yuuki nodded silently. They should be here. If she could be after all the hurt her relationship with Kyoya had caused, then they could be too. They should be there. No one wants to lie alone in the intensive care unit. When the doctor left, Yuuki slid into the hallway and pulled her phone out. She dialled Kyoya's father.

"Ootori." He didn't sound pleased.

"Hello, Mr Ootori. It's Yuuki Cunxin."

"Who?"

"Um...I li..." She was angry at him for his incompetence in matters relating to anything other than business. He was what Kyoya would have turned into if she hadn't got on that plane. "Are you aware that your son is in the intensive care unit?"

"Yes."

"Not trying to sound rude, but, why aren't you here?"

"I have business matters to attend to."

"But sir..."

"Look. I have things to do. If you're going to pester me about Kyoya then I suggest you don't."

Yuuki felt like she had the other night with her father. "Okay. Then meaning all disrespect, sir. You might have a lot of things to do, but your son having died, yes I said died, should be a top priority on your to do list. I personally think you have your head to far up the money machine that you've lost touch with reality and what bonds really matter. If you have any gall at all and any sense of decency, you will get your filthy rich arse on the next airplane out and you will come see your son who is laying, alone, in an annoying room that smells like air freshener and beeps every three seconds without pause; and you'll do it because you love your son more than you love money. If you look deep enough inside that capitalist heart of yours, you'd see that. He works so hard for you to get your respect and love and you don't even have the civility to show him an ounce of the same. I am ashamed of you. I don't even care if you have to fly coach and miss out on the bubbly from your privet jet, just get on the next goddamned plane and come see your son." Pause. "Sir."

Click.

Proof; Yuuki is grumpy and tired and sick of watching people live out the same steps her life went though. No one deserved to be abandoned and used, not even if they'd done it before.

Kyoya was awake when Yuuki returned, looking slightly lost for the first time in his life. He looked relieved when he saw her enter the room, and wearing normal clothes.

"Morning." He called.

"Afternoon." Yuuki corrected. "It's nearly six."

The man blinked, his focus was out without his glasses, everything that was too far away had a blurred edge. "How long did I sleep?"

"Long time." Yuuki sat down.

"How long?" Kyoya was still Kyoya, needing to know everything relative to himself and those directly around him.

The girl paused and thought. "About...since I left....um....27 hours."

The Ootori's face revealed his shock. "Why am I still tired?"

"I'm assuming that's a rhetorical question."

"Assume away." He leant back against the bed. His chest felt like it had been crushed. It had, but it still felt like it. "Talk to me."

"About what?" Yuuki knew he was trying to divert his mind from business, the pain and the grogginess.

"The outside world."

"I won the lotto."

"Really?"

"No."

Pause. "Keep talking." He sucked his breath in sharply.

"Um...I'm on the cover of this month's Vanity Fair? Don't want to be, but the woman at the place told me you said it was a good idea, so I did it."

"If I said jumping off a cliff was a good idea, would you do it?"

"How high is this cliff?" She smiled smugly, he knew why she'd taken the job and it was nothing to do with her obeying him. It was her trying to make him happy and herself in doing so. "It took a long time to de-feather myself, and Zero. Uh...Tamaki and Haruhi are wedding cake hunting today. Well...Hunny, Tamaki and Haruhi, hence why he's not here. The host club knows that you decided to kill yourself and have been trying to get through all day. Doctors say no to anyone but family and me, oh and Tamaki, but he told everyone your cousins." Yuuki grinned.

Kyoya was falling asleep again. "Keep talking."

"Hm...Stock market crashed." The girl regretted saying as the words left her mouth. Kyoya tried to sit upright very suddenly. "I'm joking. I'm sorry. Don't do that."

He flinched, glared and tried to get comfortable, an impossible feat now that he had aggravated his body back into pain.

"My friend Suki is pregnant. Which means I won't see her much in nine months. To busy avoiding the screaming, defecting mess that will smell like peas. They all do. Boiled peas."

Kyoya smiled softly at the absurdity. Yuuki would never be controlled, never be anything but an individual, no matter how hard he tried to pull her to him. She kept coming back and he kept being drawn to her. They were like Romeo and Juliet, and their story had nearly ended just the same.

She was still talking garbage, trying to get him to relax. "...If you mix Coke with Lemonade it tastes like the way shoe polish smells, I discovered that at midnight the second night, trying to stay awake with a big hit of caffeine and sugar all at once...I was really worried."

The Ootori squeezed her hand where it was resting on the bed and shut his eyes. Comforting her as much as she was him, just in his own way.

The girl didn't rely on Kyoya for anything, nor did he on her, but they had retied old bonds that drew their lives together. Aspects of each other that reached out and attached to the empty spaces in one's personal puzzle and completed the picture. No one had to have a completed puzzle, but it felt like one of life's necessities even though it wasn't. She'd learnt to live without him, but it wasn't living as she had known with him. The same went for Kyoya. He had had to die in order for the girl to realise how much she needed his existence to make her own worthwhile and not just another daily struggle. They just fit, it was not a dependence on the other for life, it was an addiction to the other for reason and being. And they would fight to keep it that way. They would fight even death itself.

-

I will always love you no matter what
No matter where you go or what you do
And knowing you
You're gonna have to do things you're own way
And that's okay
So be free, spread your wings
And promise me just one thing...

If you ever need a place to cry
Baby, come to me
Come to me
I've always known that you were born to fly
But you can come to me
If the world breaks your heart
No matter where on Earth you are
You can come to me

Don't walk around with the world on you're shoulders
And you're highest hopes laying on the ground
I know you think you've gotta try to be my hero
But dont you know the stars you wish upon they fall its true
But I still believe in you

If you ever need a place to cry
Baby, come to me
Come to me
I've always known that you were born to fly
But you can come to me
If the world breaks your heart
No matter where on Earth you are
You can come to me

And the seven sea's you sail
All the winding road you're on
Leave you lost and feeling all alone
Let my heart be your beacon home

If you ever need a place to cry
Baby, come to me
Come to me
I've always known that you were born to fly
But you can come to me
When the world breaks your heart
No matter where on Earth you are
You can come to me

(Come to me, Celine Dion)

-

-----

So, liked it, loved it, hated it, whatever. Just review it.

I really appreciate what you think of my chapters and story.

I also really enjoy replying to each of you. ^-^

This was the hardest chapter to write so far. Probably because of the million and one (yes, a whole million) things I need to do as of late. It's hard to find time for writing, so if things slow down a bit, it's not because I've lost interest it's just that I am probably incapable of completing things as fast as I normally do. Just a heads up to let you know.

Again, I really love it when you review, not just for the support and encouragement but because it gives me something to appreciate and strive towards. So, thank you.

Blessings dear ones,

-pp