Finally, his mind cleared but he still couldn't move. The sun was starting to set. He had been there all day. He didn't know what was broken but he couldn't feel his finger in his left hand, he could move his toes however. He leaned all his weight onto his right side and tried to sit up, failing the first time but managing the second time, sitting on the floor and leaning against his bed.
He reached up with his good arm to find his phone on his desk. He didn't know who to ring. He called Dean: no answer. He called again: nothing. It was Sunday, the club was always packed. Akihiko? Well it was probably him who told Takahiro about the stolen stuff, but he didn't really trust him as much as Dean. He called Akihiko without thinking about it too much. He put the phone on speaker so he could hold himself up.
"Hello." The smooth voice said over the phone. "Did you give Takahiro's stuff back?"
So, it was him. Misaki took a slow breath and tried to sound as normal as possible. "Hey, Teach." His voice completely betraying him, he sounded croaky and it hurt to say anything. As he realised this he started crying, silently.
"Misaki, what's wrong?" Concern seeped into the authors voice. Misaki tried to speak but he couldn't stop crying. He hung up the phone before his cries became audible. He screamed in pain and frustration. He wanted Dean and he wanted to be gone before Takahiro got back home.
Before a phone call interrupted him, Akihiko was writing more on his new novel. Once Misaki had hung up, he was racing to his car. Misaki sounded terrible and he was sure he could hear what sounded like crying. Misaki had always had a sarcastic way towards him, so to call him out of the blue and crying over the phone definitely set off alarm bells.
It took less than 20 minutes to make it to Takahiro's and Misaki's home. The front door was locked, so Akihiko used the spare key under the mat to open it. He walked in and looked around: it was dark so he turned the main room lights on. "Misaki," he announced, "are you alright?"
He heard a long groan then, "Hey, Teach." He walked to the bedroom and saw Misaki in the dark. He switched on the lights and ran towards the boy.
"Misaki." He panicked, large cool hands going to the boy's face. Misaki winced a little. "What happened to you?"
"Takahiro. He wasn't very happy with me." Misaki managed to say. Akihiko looked confused. There was no way Takahiro would ever do this to anyone, let alone his own brother.
"Misaki, are you sure it was him?" Misaki didn't answer, his head flopped down. He passed out again. The boy was really in terrible shape, Akihiko didn't try to move him. He called for an ambulance instead and let them handle his fragile body.
The ambulance arrived within 10 minutes. Misaki was moved onto the stretcher with great care and loaded into the ambulance. Akihiko followed behind in his car and they reached the general hospital in minutes.
Akihiko ran in, following the paramedics, keeping close to Misaki. The paramedics handed over to the hospital staff and one of them questioned him.
"Can you explain what happened?" A small lady asked in a nurse's uniform.
"I'm not too sure on the details. He called me sounding bad. He couldn't say much, so I drove over and found him awake, sitting on the floor, leaning against his bed all beaten. He didn't say much before he passed out either, which is when I called the ambulance." Akihiko explained as quickly as he could, leaving out the part about Takahiro, for now.
Misaki was taken away for a CT scan, MRI AND X-RAY. The results shook Akihiko to his core. He desperately held back tears while the doctor explained. 5 broken ribs; punctured right lung; left arm broken; left shoulder dislocated; swelling of the right eye; broken nose; fractured jaw; swollen lip and some internal bleeding. The doctors did what they could for now. They had to do emergency surgery to stop the internal bleeding and fix the damage to the punctured lung.
Akihiko took himself to the bathroom, leaving Misaki in the good hands of the hospital staff. He locked the bathroom door and cried. He cried for the boy he had unintendedly put in harm's way. He cried for losing a good friend he had once trusted explicitly and for what that meant to lose him. He cried out of guilt for calling Takahiro, telling him about Misaki taking his things. He cried for not believing what the boy had said about his friends drinking problem. After getting everything out of his system, he dried his eyes and went into Misaki's room.
Finally, he was awake. As Akihiko entered the room, Misaki looked up. "Hey, Teach." Misaki said weakly. "Sorry about this, you didn't have to stay."
Akihiko smiled warmly at the boy. "Are you saying you don't want me to stay? I needed to make sure you're okay. I can't have my only student left in the hospital on his own."
Misaki smiled back. "I guess that would be bad for your teaching career. I am sorry. I wanted to get hold of my boss, Dean, but he wasn't answering."
"I don't mind. By the way, the doctors where asking for your insurance details. I'm assuming you don't have a very good one." Misaki gave him a look. "Wait, you do have insurance, right?" Misaki looked down ashamed of his situation and shook his head. Akihiko sat down in the chair next to the bed. "Don't worry about it, I'll cover it."
Misaki looked up at him, eyes wide with shock. "You can't do that. I can't ask you to do that."
"You didn't ask, I offered. It's non-negotiable, I'll cover it. Now about this Dean guy, do you want me to call him?" Misaki nodded, opened his phone and gave it to his tutor.
He stepped outside the room, then rang the number. He wasn't sure if he would be awake at 3am but the phone was answered. "Hello, Misa. Sorry I missed your call earlier."
"Hello, I'm Misaki's tutor. He's not in any state to call anyone so I'm calling on his behalf. He's in hospital, and he asked me to call you as he wants you by his side."
"What do you mean he's in hospital?" Panic raising in his voice.
"He was attacked in his home. He tried to call you when he gained consciousness but he couldn't get through, so he called me instead and I called him an ambulance. He's stable now and he's awake."
"Okay, I'll be right there." Dean hang up the phone and Akihiko returned to Misaki's room.
"He's on his way. He shouldn't be long." He said, as he entered the room. Misaki smiled in response, then shut his eyes, feeling tired due to the heavy dose of morphine. Akihiko sat with the boy and waited for Dean to show up. While he waited, he contemplated what had happened over the past 24 hours. Without realising, his hand slipped into Misaki's as he thought. He didn't know what to do and the guilt was eating him up. It was his fault that Misaki was in this state. He wanted to apologise but he didn't know what he could do to make up for his mistake.
It was half an hour before Dean got to the hospital. Akihiko walked down to meet the large man. He wasn't bothered by his appearance, instead, getting straight to the issue and taking him to Misaki's room. "He has fallen asleep again, but that's not surprising: he's been heavily medicated."
"You said he was attacked - what happened?" Dean asked as they reached Misaki's room. The two men stood outside the room, talking in hushed tone as to not wake the sleeping boy.
"Well, he wasn't exactly clear on what happened, but what I do know is that his brother did it."
Dean looked at the author, shocked. "His brother. Did that." His eyes drifted to the window and he looked at Misaki. "That's disgusting. Have you called the police yet?"
"No, I was hoping to get Misaki to talk to one of us first so it wouldn't be so difficult telling a complete stranger, but so far I've had no luck getting him to open up. I thought maybe you would." Dean nodded and walked into Misaki's room. Akihiko stayed outside and sat in one of the waiting areas.
Dean ran his hand through Misaki's hair, waking the boy up. Misaki looked up and smiled at his boss. "Hey." Misaki said, coming out of his sleepy state.
"Hey." Dean said back. "Misa, what happened?"
Misaki looked at his hands. "My brother. Sometimes he loses his temper. This was just one of those times. Except..." Misaki paused. "He wasn't drunk."
"Has he done this before then?" Dean asked feeling horrible that he had never picked up on any signs.
"Only when he drinks, but it's never been anything like this. It was like he just lost all sense. I shouldn't have upset him. It was my fault."
Dean grabbed his shoulders and forced Misaki to look at him. "Misa, this wasn't your fault. If he lost his temper, that's on him. Not you." Misaki went back to looking at his hands. "Misa, this isn't going to be easy on you, but we have to call the police." Tears fell from Misaki's eyes but he nodded. "Okay, I need to go and find your tutor. We'll work this out, Misa. We won't let anything else happen to you."
Dean walked out of the room and went to go and find the author. "This wasn't a one-time thing. He told me that his brother beats him when he drinks. I told him that we need to call the police and he's willing to give a statement, but he need's somewhere to stay. I could put him up for a few days but he'll have to use the sofa."
"It's okay. I have a spare room at my place and he's more than welcome to stay there." Akihiko said. He needed to do something to apologise: at least this was a start.
"Well, that's probably for the best, keeps him away from his brother." Dean said with a little jealously. He wanted to be the one to take care of Misaki, not a man who barely knew him. But if it kept Misaki away from his brother, he over looked it and agreed.
Dean called the police later in the morning to let Misaki get the sleep he needed. Both stayed with him most of the night. Dean kept noticing this look on Akihiko's face but he couldn't place what it was. Anger, guilt, sadness. He was probably just upset with the whole situation, like Dean was.
The police came and took statements from all three of them separately. Dean and Akihiko were taken to the police station to be interviewed, while Misaki was interviewed at the hospital with a social worker keeping notes.
Two officers walked into the room. One stood on the corner of the room, taking notes, and the other approached Misaki. The officer was a thin, tall woman, with a kind smile and a sweet voice. "Hello, Misaki. My name is Detective Koharu. But you can call me Yuna and over there is my partner, Detective Shunji." The male officer nodded in response. "I want to talk to you about what happened. Do you feel comfortable with that?" Misaki just nodded. "Okay. Do you remember how the attack started?"
"I remember everything that happened." Misaki said with a slightly cold undertone.
"Okay, why don't you start from the beginning?" Yuna asked.
Misaki looked at Yuna and took a deep breath. "Well, I came home from school. I hadn't been back in a few weeks: I was trying to avoid my brother. We had gotten into a few bad fights and I needed my space."
"When you say 'fights', what do you mean exactly?" Yuna asked.
"Well, my brother is a drunk. It started four years ago when he broke up with his girlfriend. When he drank, he got violent, and he tended to take his anger out on me. But it was never anything that I couldn't handle. I just got sick of it."
"How would he vent his anger exactly?"
"He would hit me, but only when he was drunk. Sometimes, I provoked him and others he just had a bad day. When it got too much for me, I started working late and did what I could to avoid him. My boss at work let me crash on his sofa more times than I can count. Sometimes, I would just work the whole night and sleep during school."
"So, you'd say the abuse started four years ago, when your brother started drinking? Was there any time before that?"
"No, he was good before. When our parents died, he was the one who took care of me. If I told my younger self what he was like today, I'd never believe myself. He's completely different."
"Okay, going back to the most recent incident. Tell us what happened leading up to the attack."
"Like I said, I hadn't been home in a while. When I came back, it was late afternoon, around 8 o'clock. I found Takahiro in my room. He had rummaged through my bedroom and passed out on the pile of mess he'd made. I dragged him out of my room and put him in the lounge. I was sick of seeing him like that and I wanted my brother back, so I threw all the alcohol in the house out. I also stole his phone and wallet. I also took all the money he had and hid them behind the fridge; somewhere I knew he'd never look. I didn't really know what to expect the next morning."
"Tell me about the morning. What happened after Takahiro woke up?"
"He woke up around 4am: I heard him cursing and throwing things about in the other room. When he came into my room, he seemed shocked. He wasn't expecting me to be home, he was completely sober. He didn't know it was me who took his things, I told him to get out my room and he did."
"Did he find out it was you?" Misaki nodded. "How did that happen? Did you tell him?"
Misaki looked down at his hands. He didn't want to say that Akihiko told him. He was worried about what they might say but he had to tell them the truth. "No, I didn't tell him. I texted my tutor saying that Takahiro was going to have a bad few days. He rang me back."
"Why would your tutor have anything to do with your brother? Did he know that you were having trouble with him?"
"No, he had no idea. They were friends back in school, so I figured that he would help with Takahiro's detox. But it turns out he didn't even realise my brother had a drinking problem. I told him about what I took and he told me to give them back. I didn't think much of it so I just went back to sleep. I think it was Mr. Usami who told Takahiro because next thing I knew I was punched in the face."
"And this was the beginning of the attack?"
"Yes, he punched me in the face; he pulled me up by my hair to get me to my feet then he knocked me to the ground. He got on top of me, his legs stopping me from getting up. He kept hitting my face and asking, well shouting 'where did you put it?' I couldn't answer him: I was in so much pain. He left and came back with a golf club and hit me in the chest. I told him where I put his things. He left to go and get them but when he came back, he was asking where I put his alcoholic drinks. I told him that I threw them out and he picked up the golf club again. He just didn't stop hitting me. I don't know how long it lasted. I don't think he even realised that I passed out. When I came to, he was gone. I kept passing out and coming to throughout the day. I was there all day before I could think straight. I tried calling Dean, my boss, but his phone was off. So, I called Mr. Usami, my tutor, instead. He called the ambulance for me."
"We're interviewing Mr. Akihiko Usami now. Do you think he had any involvement in the attack?"
"No!" Misaki nearly shouted. "He had nothing to do with it. I'm certain. He had no idea about what happened until I called him later." He really didn't want to get Akihiko into trouble.
"Okay, I think that'll do for now. Do you have a recent picture of Takahiro?"
"Yes, there should be one or two back at the house. I don't think I want to go back there just yet though. I'm sorry to be a pain."
"We wouldn't ask you to go back there, actually we would rather you stay away from your house. Do you have anywhere you can go after your released from hospital?"
Misaki thought about it, he didn't want to be a bother. He had no idea who would have him. He couldn't stay on Deans sofa; he knew Akihiko had spare rooms but he didn't want to intrude on his life. He'll have to ask them both when he got a chance. "I think I can sort it."
"Okay, just let us know when you're settled in, we would like to stay in touch with us if that's okay." Misaki nodded and Yuna smiled. She motioned to her partner and they both left. Misaki sighed heavily.
He didn't like being on his own, he forced him to think about what happened. During the entire interview he had held back his tears but now there was no one here to stop him from crying. Everything came out with his tears. He was a horrible crier; everyone had always said so. Misaki wanted to get all the hurt out the way at once, which meant he to do something he wasn't looking forward to. He got out of bed and headed to the bathroom, using a frame to keep him steady on his feet. He opened the door, took a deep breath and looked up.