Hello there! Time for the first chapter! Warning: If you beg me to update soon or even mention the word update in your review, it will make me angry. I will update every other week. No more and no less.
Please review if you find you enjoy this.
I do NOT own YuGiOh!
Chapter 1:
The Normal Life of Yami X.
Yami bent down slowly, not wanting to get up and drag himself through yet another boring day in his life. He grabbed both of his shoe laces in his hands and tied them in a neat little knot, making sure to tie them tight this time so he wouldn't have to do them up again, which he often did. Somehow, no matter what he seemed to do, his shoe laces always seemed to come untied. As if he needed an addition to his admittedly clumsy nature.
He whipped himself back up, deciding that if he had to go out and face the day he might as well do it with energy. As Anna would used to say (well, sign), "Nothing's worth doing if you can't force yourself to smile while doing it."
Well, what she did say. (Okay, so Yami couldn't hear it, but still.) Anna had been like a mother to Yami- It had been her idea originally that the hospital would keep him instead of putting him in the foster care system and letting him move around from house to house, praying that he might one day find a family generous enough to take him under their loving wing- of course, reminding him constantly that he somehow owed them for taking so much of their precious lives to raise him. No sirree, he'd heard some horror stories of foster parents or adoptive parents treating their children as in-home nannies and workers, and respect without respect in turn was not his cup of tea. He was grateful to Anna for doing that.
He was also grateful to Anna for teaching him what he had to do to stay after she had been gone.
Anna had felt herself growing old- that's the reason she didn't adopt Yami herself in the first place, knowing that she couldn't take care of him the way that she should and balance a job at the same time. So, doing the logical thing, while her mind was still with her, she explained to Yami what was keeping him at the hospital.
"The administrator is only approving your boarding here because you don't know how to speak. Since you're a deaf kid, he doesn't want you to go to a foster home where they'd have to stick you into a private school, because it would be hard as hell finding somebody with that kind of money who wants to adopt," She signed to him, her hands moving furiously as she explained. It was interesting to see her sign, because her mind worked so much faster than her hands could and her body had to desperately try to keep up. "So as long as you don't learn how to completely talk before your eighteenth birthday, and pretend like you don't know how to read lips, you'll stay right here."
Yami had nodded his head, smiling at her. Even though she was sitting in a hospital bed, a patient no different than the ones she had tended for as long as she could remember, she was full of life and energy. She still had hope to fight against old age, but those who tended to her had seen a decline in health recently. She'd begun to grow weaker, and sickness was not as easy to overcome.
Yami had come to visit her every night after school, walking to the other wing of the hospital to spend time with her. She often made jokes about how the tables had turned, because it used to be her going to visit him. She told him stories about how she used to get off work and go straight to the room they had put him in, feed him a bottle and read him a story. That was, until he was two years old and they had realized that he wasn't responding to normal speech. She had been disappointed that her stories hadn't been heard, but that didn't deter her. No, she learned sign language instead and after four months of studying it, she began to pass along the stories that way.
Now, when she was old and her eyesight was not well enough to read the small print of the stories, he would for her. He would stand in front of her and sign it out word by word from the book, occasionally glancing up to make sure that she was still smiling. She always was, so he always continued.
Of course, these were not your average children's fairy tales. These were more dark and twisted, more realistic. Stories of, yes, magic, but also stories where the villain had just as much chance of winning as the hero did. Yami loved stories like that; the unpredictable danger of it all was so thrilling.
After a year of this routine, invariable, Yami noticed some small things beginning to happen. She smiled a little less, ate a little less, slept a little more. Her heart beat would become sporadic at random times before calming down, causing Yami to frown and pause in his storytelling. Her speech was slow and slurred- Yami could tell by the way her nurses had to concentrate to make out what she was saying and asked her to repeat herself several times. (Yami couldn't read lips much, but he'd known a couple of simple phrases since he was a boy. Just a couple of little things, despite his translator's determination to keep saying the words as she signed them to try and teach him the skill.) She was wearing thin, the time it took her to respond to anything was longer and longer. Yami was watching the woman who had been a mother to him slowly whither away, and there was nothing he could do to combat it. He felt so helpless.
One day, while he was there with her, she started coughing. He didn't notice at first, absorbed in signing out the story of 'Peter Pan', but he made the mistake of glancing up while she was in one of her fits. She was hunched over, her arms wrapped around her frail body and the light in her eyes dimming with every breath she was taking. Her shoulders heaved for a moment before finally settling down and sitting back, and Yami stared at her incredulously. He hadn't wanted to acknowledge what had just happened. So, with tears stinging his eyes, he blinked the wetness away and continued to read, knowing that it would be his last chance.
He still wasn't quite prepared for it when he came into her room the next day to find it empty. Confusion had flickered across his face only for a moment when he saw the folded blankets, the stony-faced nurse cleaning the sides of the bed with disinfectant. The rag moved over the bed, the sheets and walls pristine white, and Yami felt his eyes fill with tears again. He felt a warm hand on his shoulder, and he knew that it was his translator, Rebecca. He closed his eyes and put his hand over his mouth, breathing a deep breath against the rising pain in his chest. Everything felt too overwhelming, too new, he could see no traces of the woman who raised him in the plain white room. Just like her, all proof she had been here had been gone. Gone.
Yami had gripped his translator's shoulders, turning around to bury his face in her hospital uniform. He couldn't see her, but he could feel the vibration as she consoled him, her voice and her hands slowly pushing down his hair in comfort. What he really wanted was to run, to push everything away, but he knew that wasn't healthy. So, he let her hold him. As long as he could stand it, he cried into her shoulder. It was almost dark outside by the time he stopped.
The world didn't feel quite right, moving on without her. It kept spinning and moving and turning round and round, and she wasn't there to see it. It hurt. Yami had half a mind to be angry at it for taking her away and having the nerve to keep spinning. Of course, they say anger is one of the five stages of grief. He supposed he was doing well, or at least as well as somebody in his situation could.
Then, the letter came. It was scrawled with shaky hands, on a scratch piece of paper, but it meant the world to him. He could tell that it had been done within the week of her death, and that made it special. It was from her, recently too. He grabbed it and inhaled the paper, smelling just the faintest hint of her old perfume on the worn page. He'd greedily reveled in the scent, proof that she'd been here, proof that he'd had her once. It took him ten minutes just to get around to reading the letter. It read;
'Dear Yami,
I can tell that I'm not as young as I once was. I'm sure you can tell too, you're deaf, not blind.' Yami chuckled at this. She tended to have what you would call a dark sense of humor. 'I wanted you to know that I love you more than anything. You aren't just my patient, you're my child. I wish I could be there to see the beautiful young man I know you're growing up to be. Sadly, I know that I can only last so long in this condition. You know me, I've always been a realist.
'The point of this letter is, you're just as entitled as my other children. I have written you into my will. Don't you even think for one minute about refusing it, you need it. Because I want you to have a choice in all of this.
'You have enough money now, you can go to a deaf college. You don't have to learn to speak and read lips if you don't want to. Do whatever you feel like. Either way, you have the ability to do whatever you wish now. Once you get out of high school and you're legal, you can choose your own path without the worry of the financial burden. Even if you don't want to use the money for college, you can use it for something. I believe that you'll make the right choice, whatever you decide to do.'
Underneath the writing was written instructions on how to access his inheritance. He blinked at the paper, his eyes full of tears, and he had to resist the urge to let out a very unmanly squeal. He didn't want to accept that she was gone. She just kept giving and giving, even in death she was giving.
Anna was probably the most beautiful person in the world to Yami. Now, she was gone.
Of course, that had been two years ago now. Yami had learned to move on and cope with what was happening, he'd learned to take what life would give him in most circumstances. He still got sad and still felt lonely sometimes, but he was learning to deal with it.
After all, he did live in a hospital, it was to be expected.
Most of his friends were temporary. Yami was friendly enough, he had plenty of casual acquaintances, but nobody really stuck around long enough to be a real companion. He never felt like he could truly open up to anyone but Anna, anyone else would have to communicate with him through the translator, and as much as he loved Rebecca, he didn't want her to know everything about his life. So, in most cases, none of his interactions got too personal. Most of his free time was spent watching television or browsing the computer, (boy was he happy he'd learned how to read when he found the internet) alone.
Yami ran a hand through his wild hair, deciding that he'd just let it go and deal with taming it at a later date. He tended to make this decision most days. His shoes felt a little loose as he stepped out the door, and was promptly greeted by one of the nurses signing hello. He smiled and signed it back, almost regretting that he couldn't have a full-blown conversation with her. The nurses knew most of what they knew by observing Yami and Rebecca's interactions, and a couple had taught themselves to spell words out. Yami couldn't remember if the nurse had been one who knew or not. Either way, spelling everything out would be annoying and he was going to be late to class soon.
Believe it or not, Yami attended class regularly. Since this hospital did take long-term patients, it offered schooling as an option to sick kids who were going to be there longer than a month. The teacher was equipped to handle all ages and grades, and she had been handling Yami's schooling ever since he was five years old and ready for Kindergarten. Of course, he had to teach himself a lot of things because the classes were small (never more than ten students at a time, never less than three) and she had to take care of varying ages and therefore didn't have a lot of time to explain things thoroughly. The good news was that being in a hospital class, the days were considerably shorter to account for kids being too weak to attend.
Of course, Yami had to witness a few of his friends die, and that was hard on him. It always took him by surprise, no matter how long it had dragged out or how hard the child had fought or how pale they had been the day before, he was always just the slightest bit caught off guard when the teacher, stony-faced and possibly having cheeks wet with tears, stood at the front and announced that a student would no longer be with them.
When a student graduated from their treatment and was ready to move back in with their parents, now that was the best. Yami had seen a lot of death, but he'd also seen a great deal of hope and healing through his years. Students who walked into the classroom with huge smiles on their faces to announce that they were cancer-free or strong enough to go home, who had fought their battle and stood victorious. Those days were filled with laughter and bittersweet goodbyes, sometimes happy tears and goofing off instead of getting work done. Those were days when parents would sweep their children, no matter how old, into their arms like they were weightless and profess how proud they were of them for being so strong. Beautiful days like that gave Yami hope.
Things were usually calm around the hospital- but it could be both uplifting and depressing, so it also had its days where it was loud. Yami stayed away from the emergency section as often as possible though, because that was the one section of the hospital that always seemed chaotic. It was a constant swarm of people and doctors and screaming and/or panicking family members, (which, by the way, Yami had learned did nothing but distract and deter the doctors from taking care of the patient in need) and you could very easily be run over by a stretcher or hospital bed just standing in the wrong area. He hated how nervous it made him to be there in the midst of the swirling sound and motion and unpredictability, so he preferred to stay in the regular wing if at all possible.
Of course, there were inevitable times when he had to venture down into the mayhem. For example, the best vending machines were down in the lobby, and Yami sometimes volunteered to do extra chores or file papers for some money. When he had done things like this, he had used it in various places- the gift shop, some stores down the road, (they were in a big city, so they had several stores within range) or his favorite, the vending machines. It was around the age of thirteen that he discovered his love of coffee.
Aaaah, Caffeine. He cherished the stuff like it was gold. It never failed to turn a bad day good and had the power to change his mood in a snap, especially if he didn't get much sleep the night before. The way the liquid clung to his taste buds and filled the area around him with its warm, rich scent was absolutely delightful.
Unfortunately, the only coffee dispenser in the entire building was down on the bottom floor, in none other than the ER's waiting room. Not only did he have to deal with feeling awkward getting coffee around the anxiety-ridden friends and family of those being taken there, but the waiting room had a clear view of the large double doors that patients often came through to receive treatment. So, if a new patient was to arrive, he would have to see the chaos and confusion and noise firsthand. Of course, it didn't bother him as much as it would a normal person. Again, Yami was raised around tragedy, he'd learned to adjust long ago.
Still, whenever he wasn't craving caffeine, he tended to avoid trips down there.
The off-white hallways were empty as he passed through them, odd for a hospital at eight o'clock in the morning. Typically the morning shift was hustling and bustling around, still energetic with very little time so far to drain it. However, the days had just started to get warm, (a welcome change from the usual freezing that they were previously receiving) and it appeared as if everybody was feeling the heat- it made everyone want to curl up and sleep the day away. He could tell that today was going to be a lazy day for everyone.
His steps increased, knowing that he would be late if he didn't hurry the heck up and get into the classroom. Not that the teacher would mind- Mrs. Cecelia (She preferred her students call her by her first name, since it was such a small class and they ended up knowing each other on such a personal level by the end of it all) didn't even scold him for being late like a public school teacher. He still wanted to be on time to class though, because if he was late to class he would probably be taught last, and he would have less time to complete his work. If he finished his work early enough, sometimes, Yami was permitted to go and help out with filing papers and talk to the nurses. Well, at least, the ones who knew sign language.
Yami passed through the waiting room, seeing a pair of anxious parents biting their nails and a couple of children playing with blocks on the floor. He increased his pace just a little bit more, seeing the clock and knowing that he was running late. He finally abandoned walking and broke out in a sprint towards the classroom, turning down the hallway and running with all his might. He panted from exertion, almost sliding right past the door when he tried to stop. He managed to come to a standstill just in time, slipping into the room just as the teacher was about to shut the doors and begin the lesson.
Mrs. Cecilia gave him a stern and slightly annoyed look as he slipped in, rolling her eyes at the student who always seemed to be a couple of seconds away from late. She wished that he'd take being on time more seriously than he did, but she knew that it was just an average school day, so she couldn't expect her students to always take it seriously. Besides, Yami was a good student. Perfect attendance for the past two years, in fact.
Yami plopped himself down into his seat, picking up his pencil and raising it to his mouth, running the eraser softly over his lips. He'd been chewed out (no pun intended) for biting his pencils too many times to count, but after an excruciating amount of time and effort trying to fix it, he had given up. Most people who had gotten on him about it had eventually gotten sick of telling him not to anyways, so there was no harm in it. Well, okay, technically it was a bad idea to put things in your mouth when you're at a hospital, but it wasn't like anybody sick had handled his pencil specifically. It would be fine, he was sure.
Another advantage of living in a hospital was the sickness. It sounded weird, but Yami had actually developed a killer immune system thanks to being exposed to everything on God's earth since he was born. The hospital staff always tried to keep things as clean as possible, (and usually, everything was a pristine clean) but they were only human. Things got missed, and Yami had gotten sick constantly when he had been little. As he had grown though, his body had adjusted to the constant onslaught and he'd developed an extremely strong immune system. Now, he was hardly ever sick beyond your common allergies, and for those, well... every medicine he could possibly need to treat himself was at the palm of his hand.
Cecelia walked back up to the front of the classroom, taking out a large textbook and flipping through it. Yami smiled when he noticed that it was his math book. Looks like he would get taught first after all.
"So, what's on the agenda today?" He asked, eying the book.
"We're doing lesson 7.4." She announced, setting the open book onto Yami's desk and grabbing a piece of paper. She used her pen to work out a couple of the problems, going step-by-step to show Yami how it was done. Yami vaguely paid attention, his mind wandering to the last episode of Supernatural. She tapped his book, snapping him out of his thoughts, and he grinned up at her.
"Sorry, I have some stuff on my mind." Yami announced with his hands, smiling just the slightest bit. She narrowed her eyes before sighing and shaking her head, a small smile in place herself.
"Whatever her name is, I'm sure she can wait until later." Cecelia teased. Yami stared at her blankly for a moment before his mouth fell open, finally registering what she had said. He immediately shook his head back and forth violently.
"No, it's not like that! I don't have interest in anyone right now." Yami said honestly. Really, he hadn't. In fact, Yami hadn't taken interest in anyone, ever.
Ever since Yami was little, he hadn't had any interest in girls (or boys) as anything other than playmates. He had plenty of friends, that wasn't the problem. In fact, there really wasn't a problem. While everybody else was focusing on the latest dating drama or pointing out who was cute and who was not, he had been content to just sit back and read or watch television. He never really saw the appeal of dating when you could get all the same things from companionship with someone just as a friend. Well, maybe not all the same things, but was kissing really worth all the drama? He could worry about that when he found somebody whom he knew he belonged with.
It wasn't like he was virgin lips, either. At a young age, one of the girls that was there for a simple blood test had come up for no particular reason and sat down, grabbing a piece of paper and drawing next to Yami. She had more talent than he did and he expressed the thought to her innocently, pointing to the sky and saying that the colors were especially pretty. She had misinterpreted his compliment as flirting and leaned forward faster than he could comprehend and smooched him. Before he even had a chance to react, the girl had been pulled back into the testing room and he'd never saw her again.
Several more instances like that had occurred over his lifetime, a couple of people going in for the kill and Yami being too nice to deny them. All of them had been girls who had just leaned in and kissed him without permission, and he could honestly say that there really wasn't anything that special about it. It was always awkward afterward and he never knew how to tell them that. Most of the time he never saw them again, (a lot of people came into the hospital and never came back) or he saw them very few times (a couple of the girls were admitted to the psychiatric ward, probably for the best if they went around kissing strangers all the time).
"Oh, sure you don't. Just tell me her name when you two make it official." Cecelia teased, winking. Yami never knew why she constantly insisted that he would be dating soon; she should have caught on by now. I mean, if a guy goes his whole life without a significant other, you'd think that people would realize by now that he either didn't want one or wasn't able to get one.
Not that Yami didn't acknowledge that his viewpoint could change if introduced to the right person. He just didn't see the drama of a relationship being worth it if he didn't know whether or not he wanted to be with a person forever or not. If he found somebody before then he thought was special enough to spend his life with, he would have already gone out with them.
He hadn't though, and he wished that people would stop bothering him about it.
Cecelia continued explaining the concept in vivid detail, pausing every once in awhile to make sure that he understood the concept before nodding and moving on. Yami stared blankly at his math book after she was gone, resisting the urge to groan as he looked at the twenty problems staring him down. He reluctantly picked up his pencil and began to work them, being careful not to make a mistake as he went along.
That was another good thing about being in a hospital's school. Due to the constant influx of students, there weren't many tests. Cecelia was only one person, so she couldn't design the curriculum for everything and keep up with things like that. She's go crazy with all the assignments she'd have to grade. Yami knew the concepts well enough; (it wasn't like he was going to be a rocket scientist, so he didn't have to preform without error). He knew that he'd have to adjust and such once he reached college, but for now he didn't have to deal with the extra pressure that excess testing put on students. It was something he was incredibly thankful for.
Yami slowly worked through the math problems, frustrated when he couldn't find the answer to one of them. He paused, biting his pencil as he thought. He finally gave up on that problem with a reluctant sigh, moving forward to try the next one.
He worried sometimes. He didn't have good interactions with people his age. As much as he tried most of the time to get along, he just didn't understand them sometimes. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he had to talk to them through a translator so some things they typically would say don't get said, but he could honestly say he found most of them quite dull. Not that he found himself more interesting, that's not what we're saying here. Yami actually thought himself to be quite boring at times. But other students just seemed constantly obsessed with drama and the likes. He couldn't quite wrap his mind around most of the things they talked about.
Yami was a little odd in his tastes. While most kids preferred to listen to music (which, in case you haven't caught on by now, he can't do) or watch soap operas or play video games, he liked to read up on and study folklore and superstitions. One of the reasons he loved the show Supernatural so much was because he thought it was clever how they worked so much folklore and myth into the show while still maintaining a decent plot line. Yami also enjoyed most of the cast, because they seemed much more lighthearted than his fellow students.
Yami sighed, finally finishing the problem that he had been stuck on. He sighed in relief as he pushed the math away, watching Cecelia glance over and her eyes widening when she realized that he was done. Yami typically took longer than that to finish. She finished up teaching the second grader his five cursive letters for the day, (the state had taken it out of the curriculum, but she hadn't stopped teaching it yet because she found it useful herself) she walked back over to Yami to take out his English textbook and showed him what he should be doing.
The rest of the day went by in a blur after that. His work was fairly easy from then on out, and he finally reached his "elective" time. It was generally agreed upon that Yami's filing work could be counted as an elective, (and Cecelia had already gotten permission from the state to give him extra high school credits for it) so he was dismissed as soon as he was finished. He glanced at the clock and nodded in surprise.
His school work had only taken him four and a half hours so far today. Typically by the time he was done with all of his core classes (and art, his second elective) at least five hours had passed. Smiling a little to himself, he started walking again, towards the nurse's station.
He rounded a couple of hallways, passing some short-term patients that he knew and waving hello. He smiled broadly at the little girl who would get the news that her treatment was successful today. He smiled a little less broadly at the little boy who would find out he would probably never be able to walk. Some of the kids he didn't know anything about; others, he knew their files, illnesses, names, favorites, personalities, like the back of his hand. Yami liked kids for the most part. He didn't want one of his own, but they could be enjoyable.
He stepped back and into the door's scanner, watching as the doors opened automatically, detecting that somebody wanted through. He was hit in the face by a breath of cold air, and he smiled just a little bit. He was comfortable in the cold as well as the warm, but honestly he preferred it to be a little chilly.
"Yami! Hey, how are you doing?" Mai signed. Yami smiled broadly at her and walked forward, taking a seat in the open chair by the break room's table.
"I'm doing fine! How are you? How's your patient doing?" Yami asked.
Mai had taken up sign language herself as soon as she had learned about Yami. She had wanted to be able to communicate with him right away after talking to him. They had often seen each other in passing in the hallways and it frustrated her endlessly that they couldn't talk without a translator's assistance. So, a month after they met, Mai took a week off. Nobody was sure why, and Yami had missed her desperately while she was gone. She had turned out to be one of the few nurses that weren't prone to gossip and ridiculing others for her own amusement.
Yami had been afraid that she had gotten sick of the constant drama and was trying to find a new job. He was depressed the rest of that week, convinced that she wasn't coming back. It wouldn't be the first time a nurse had quit in under two months, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. However, she did come back.
Speaking fluent sign language.
Yami had ran up to her excitedly, dragging poor Rebecca as fast as she would go towards her. He'd thrown his twelve-year-old arms around her waist and she'd chuckled.
"I missed you." He signed happily. Mai laughed and nodded her head, putting up a finger when Rebecca started to talk. Rebecca abruptly stopped, tilting her head to the right in confusion, as Mai got down on one knee to be on Yami's level.
"I missed you too. Sorry I was gone for so long." She signed. Yami;s jaw dropped down, and his eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. Mai laughed, throwing her head back, her breasts bouncing lightly as she enjoyed his shocked expression. Yami shook his head in amazement, snapping out of the surprise that had previously gripped him.
"It's fine! You know sign language?" He signed, his hands slowing down. He knew how hard it was for a beginner to catch everything you were saying at first, so he knew that he had to go a little slower with her. She seemed to have no troubles understanding, though.
"I do now. Why did you think I took the week off?" She asked, giving him a small smirk. Yami smiled broadly. She had learned an entire language in the course of a week for him.
From that moment on, he and Mai Valentine had been best friends. They spent almost all their free time talking and going back and forth with witty banter. She had a couple of times in the beginning where she'd mess a word up or forget a word, but now Yami was convinced that she knew even more sign language than he did. She had actually talked to a couple other deaf kids who had come in, and most of them were incredibly surprised to find out that she was hearing. She looked so fluent and practiced in the way her hands moved, one would assume she had been taught from birth.
"Oh, Mokuba? He's doing fairly well, actually." Mai said, smiling just the faintest bit. Mokuba had been on the road to recovery now for two years, from an unknown disease he contracted from an unknown source. Nobody was quite sure how to go about treating the thing, so they had tried several different methods with little to no success. Every time he started responding to the treatment, whatever it was he had would evolve past that being able to kill it. Hearing that he was doing better was a treat; maybe this would finally be the medicine that worked on the poor boy?
Of course, they had the funding to try whatever they needed to if this didn't work out. Mokuba's older brother was the founder of Kaiba Corp, so he was constantly making donations to the hospital, ever since Mokuba had come here. He visited often, and most people knew to stay out of his way when he did. He was grumpy as hell and extremely overprotective, so nurses knew not to check up on Mokuba when he was around. One wrong face while they were injecting pain killers and Kaiba would be yelling at them that they needed to gain some competence. As a result, poor Mokuba had been tossed between nurses for the first year he was here, some claiming that they couldn't have the stress of having a patient with such... sensitive family.
Well, that is, until he got Mai. As soon as she had talked to him, she had fallen in love. At fourteen years old, Mokuba was a little doll baby and she LOVED to spoil him rotten. Which meant she took the best care of him so far, and that included barging right in on his and Kaiba's family time if it was time for Mokuba's next dose of medicine. She was the only nurse who had the guts to actually stand up to Kaiba and tell him he was being a "disrespectful twat", (she had told Mokuba to cover his ears before she said it, to which he whined out, "I'm fourteen, Mai!") and that if he thought he could do her job better than he should do it himself.
Mai had expected that Kaiba would have her fired after that; after all, he did have the influence to do so. Next time she saw him though, he was entirely silent and didn't comment on her performance with Mokuba. Later, when she was bringing him his lunch, he'd smiled and told her that his big brother was really impressed with her, and had requested that she be the only nurse allowed to touch Mokuba, and if she wasn't there then whoever she said to handle him handled him.
Under her care, Mokuba had gotten better than ever. He was even able to get up out of bed and come to classes a couple of times, instead of having a private tutor come to his room. Yami had always been especially kind to Mokuba when he could, knowing that he was under a great deal of stress and wanting to ease it in any way that he could. After that, Yami had actually started visiting Mokuba on occasion and would often play games with him. (Their visits slowly got more and more frequent, and eventually Yami considered Mokuba a brother).
Yami had learned to be really good at card games. They say when you lose one sense, your other ones improve. Well, Yami lost his hearing and gained a healthy amount of both intuition and observation. Most people you sat in front of him, he could read them like an open book. Therefore, he knew what actions to take and how to win in ninety-nine percent of all situations. He could tell when his opponent was bluffing.
In fact, the teasing nickname that his coworkers had given him was, "King of Games". Nobody dared to bet anything against him, but they all loved to dare each other to go and play against him in poker, monopoly, rummy, even go fish a couple of times. If it was playable, he would play it and most likely win.
"His new treatment is absolutely revolutionary. Not only that, but if this doesn't work out, they've found a kid with a similar case down in California who's responding very well to something we've not tried yet. They actually think he's going to make it through unhurt, and he's only been in the hospital for a year. So if this doesn't work out, we have something for him to fall back on." She signed. Yami nodded his head enthusiastically, smiling at her happiness. Mai was a tough girl, and she tried to act like she didn't care sometimes, but he knew better. Mai had a heart of gold.
"That's great for you Mai. Have you told his brother yet?" He asked. Mai nodded her head, reaching out to grab her coffee. Much to her disappointment, the cup came back light and empty. She frowned at the bottom, giving a deep sigh.
"No, I haven't told Kaiba yet. I want to see if the other kid really does get better and if this treatment will work for Mokuba. If it doesn't, then we'll talk about switching. For now though, I don't see any reason to switch and put his body under even more stress than necessary." She said, smiling just the smallest bit. Yami was happy for her too. It had been quite awhile since he'd seen her so enthusiastic that something was going to work for Mokuba. It made him wonder himself if they might have finally found something that would work for him. Maybe then his dick big brother would lighten up a little and stop being so rude to the nurses.
"That's smart. He might want to jump into something too soon, and that could be a fatal mistake." Yami signed back, nodding his head. He'd seen enough parents flipping out over why the doctors weren't immediately trying things; they needed to proceed with caution in any situation. Some family members got frustrated at the doctors just for doing their jobs.
"Hey Yami," Mai said, grabbing her empty coffee cup and handing it off to him. He had no way to respond since his hands were full, so she continued, "Do you think you could go and get me a refill on a french vanilla latte from the machine in the ER?"
Yami groaned, (or at least he was pretty sure that was the sound that he made; that's what he was trying for) giving a sigh. He knew that he couldn't deny Mai, so he just simply nodded and turned on his heel, holding up one hand and signing a simple, "Yes."
He walked down the nearest flight of stairs, knowing that he needed exercise anyways and didn't have the patience to wait by the elevator. His footsteps made light padding sounds against the concrete as he galloped down the stairs, passing a nurse holding a bunch of towels. He finally came out downstairs just a couple of hallways down from the ER and started down towards it.
As much as he hated it here, he had to admit that it smelled like absolute heaven. He could almost taste the French vanilla from here, and he reached into his back pocket to take out some money. Looks like he would be walking back with one more cup than he expected.
He came around the corner and into the waiting room, biting his lip as he saw a young mother pacing the floor anxiously. He moved right on past, keeping is eyes glued to the floor. He walked over to the coffee machine and put the two cups down, Mai's under the spout first. He put in the money and pushed the button, watching as it slowly filled up with the warm liquid. He breathed in through his nose, letting the wonderful scent make his mouth water in want. He shook his head and snapped himself out of it, switching the cups and filling his own to the brim. The outsides of the cups burnt his hands slightly as he picked them up, but he was used to it by now.
He turned around to find the ER in an almost frenzy. There were three nurses crowded around a bed that had been wheeled in, a couple of them looked a little sick. Two more beds were rolled in after that, and Yami looked out the doors to see some ambulances parked outside. He frowned as he saw the doctor look for a pulse on one of the bodies and then check his watch before declaring a time of death. He quickly moved around to the other bed before frowning and doing the same. Yami shook his head sadly; the third was most likely dead by now too, that was usually how these things worked.
The doctor warily moved to the smaller bed, a small teenager who's eyes were closed. His skin looked especially pale against the red blood coming from a wound in his head, and his hair was matted with the thick red liquid. Yami could smell the rusty scent from here.
The doctor placed a gloved hand on the young boy's neck and his eyes widened in surprise before he nodded to some nurses, gesturing frantically towards down the hallway. They nodded and the bed was wheeled away, Yami just barely catching another glimpse of amethyst-tipped hair, not far off from his crimson-tipped do. He frowned when the boy was gone; he had probably just lost two people who were very close to him, and Yami could tell he would be in a lot of pain when he woke up. Yami wasn't sure why he cared, but he did. He didn't know why, but the boy seemed... significant, somehow.
He had no clue just how right he was.
Yami shrugged and continued about his business, trying to clear his mind of the bloody scene. He'd have to remember to ask about that boy later.
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