Stay Tuned As Life Continues

Yamato sat next to his brother holding his hand, like he did everyday. It had been three weeks since the accident and Yamato had only left his brother’s side for a few hours each day to get what little sleep he could claim. Each night his dreams became worse and worse, causing Yamato’s limited rest to become more and more restless. By a sad twist of fate, Takeru had received his wish of spending the rest of his summer break with his brother, however sadly it wasn’t what he expected. Just adding further proof to the saying, ‘Be careful what you wish for.’ Although Takeru’s wish may have come true, Yamato’s wish still remained ungranted. For Takeru was still in a coma, without showing any signs of coming out of it. The silver lining, if there was one, was that Takeru’s wounds were mostly healed, just a few of the more serious wounds such as broken bones remained.

Hiroaki had been forced to return to working the day shift, which seriously cut into the time he could see his youngest son. Hiroaki came during his lunch break everyday, and would visit with his sons. He talked to his sons now more than he ever had in the past. And although only one son could respond, Hiroaki felt the bond between them grow. He regretted that it took such a tragedy to open up the lines of communication. The same cannot be said of his ex-wife Nancy. She now only stopped by twice that week, visiting her youngest son only a few minutes before leaving.

A knock on the door alerted Yamato that someone was coming in, “How is our little Sleeping Beauty today?” Asked Yutaka walking through the door.

Yamato flatly said, “The same as he has been. No changes.”

Yutaka looked at his band leader. Yamato’s eyes were dark and appeared to have sunk deep into his head, which was further exaggerated by Yamato’s recent paleness. Yamato’s usually wild but stylish hair, now looked greasy, dirty and greatly unkept. Yamato’s once tight fitting clothes now hung slightly off of Yamato’s smaller frame. “Damn Yamato, you don’t look to good. You really need to get more sleep. When was the last time you ate something?”

“I had some Jello and an apple.” Yamato said.

Yutaka raised an eyebrow, “What for dinner two nights ago?”

Yamato didn’t answer.

Yutaka shook his head it disappointment in Yamato and disgust in the world, “How have the nurses not admitted you? Where’s an IV. I’m putting you on one.” Yutaka said as he began searching the room.

“Do you even know how to put in an IV?” asked Yamato.

“Sure. I’ve seen how the nurses do it. You just jab around a person’s arm for about 10 minutes, then try the other arm for about 5. Then go back to the original arm, jab the needle in a few more times, then call it good.” Yutaka joked.

Yamato chuckled coarsely, more to shut Yutaka up than anything else.

Yutaka walked over to Yamato and sat in the chair next to him. Yutaka tried to look Yamato in the eyes, but failed, as Yamato was only looking at his brother. Yutaka then placed a concerned hand on Yamato’s knee. “I’m really worried about you. Everyone is. You need to get out of here. I understand that you didn’t want to rush back to school when it started, but you can’t just be sitting in this room wasting away. I understand that you don’t want to leave your brother’s side, but think about it. Would Takeru want you just sitting here, not sleeping, not eating, and getting sick? Or would he want you to try and live on? We’re all devastated over what happened Yamato, you’re not the only one. And don’t feel like you’re the only one looking out for Takeru, we all are and so are the staff of the hospital. So why don’t we go to that restaurant around the corner and grab a bite to eat?”

Yamato just shrugged his shoulders.

Yutaka let out a sigh, “You’re a pain in the ass you know that?” Yutaka then gave into the futility of the situation and removed his hand from Yamato’s leg. Where it used to be difficult to get Yamato to do something he didn’t want to do, it was now impossible to get him to do anything. He wasn’t going to leave his brother’s side for more than those few hours a day in which he rested. He wasn’t going to leave for no one and for any reason. Yutaka then began to change the subject, “Speaking of pains in the ass, I have Prof. Bakaku again this year…….”
And so went so many meetings between Yamato and his friends. Not many people were able to get words out of him, and none of them succeeded in have Yamato leave his brother’s side. And with school beginning to start up again, the visits from friends decreased. If you dared, you could call what this brought Yamato ‘joy’, for it allowed Yamato more time to spend alone with his brother.

Yamato sat next to his brother, his whole body ached. The hunger pains in his gut, the near constant headaches, the burning eyes, the sore throat. All painful and all deserved, Yamato thought. However, the pain he was feeling must not even be a fraction of what Takeru had felt.

And so things continued, Yamato would sit next to his brother’s side every day. And while his friends would come to see his brother, during their visit they would all try their hand in trying to pick Yamato up out of his stupor. That was life in a nutshell, that is until the fourth week after the accident.

It was half way through the fourth week, and things started unusually when Yamato entered his brother’s room and saw his mother sponging Takeru’s face clean. Yamato and Nancy looked at each other for a few minutes, the air in the room grew tense. Nancy broke the tension, “One of Takeru’s doctors called me. He told me he had something to discuss with your father and me.”

Yamato reluctantly spoke, “What about?”

Nancy shook her head, “I don’t know.” The room then returned to its quiet and tense state.

Not long after Hiroaki entered the room with the doctor in tow. The doctor looked at Yamato and asked, “Excuse me young man, would you mind leaving while I discuss this patient with Mr. Ishida and Ms. Takashi.”

Yamato glared at the doctor, his lack of sleep made his already quick temper spring out quicker. “He’s not just some patient, his name is Takeru! He’s my brother, and I’ve been here more than anybody else. Even you and all the rest of his good for nothing doctors. So I’d rather stay thank you very much.”

The doctor was taken aback my Yamato’s ferocity. He look at Hiroaki, for confirmation that it was ok for Yamato to remain. Once Hiroaki nodded the doctor adjusted his jacket. “Well if you would all grab a seat, I would like to discuss…Takeru’s state.”

Once everyone was seated the doctor continued. “Comas are a very tricky thing. A patient can be in one for a few hours, or life, or anywhere in between. And while we wish that all of our patients would quickly awaken from their comas, sadly not all wishes can come true. Most coma patients will wake up within four weeks of entering into the coma. Sadly this is not the case here. Takeur has been in a coma for approximately four and a half weeks. Now while it is still possible for Takeru to awaken at any time. The chances that he will awaken have greatly decreased. I’m sorry, I know that is rather depressing news to hear so early in the morning but…..”

Yamato stopped listening, he knew how the doctors worked. The doctor was now just going to spend the rest of his time in the room trying to comfort them, and cover his own ass. Yamato already heard the important information. That Takeru’s chances of awakening now were greatly decreased. That he had doomed his brother to an eternal sleep, to some, a fate worse than death.

Once the doctor and Nancy left Yamato and Hiroaki with Takeru, Yamato walked over to his brother and looked down at him. Yamato watched as a few of his tears landed on his unconscious lover. Yamato then kissed Takeru’s cheek. Yamato whispered in his brother’s ear “Goodbye Takeru.” Yamato then turned and walked to the door.

Hiroaki looked at his eldest son, “Where are you going Yamato?”

“Home.” Was all Yamato said before leaving the room.

Hiroaki was surprised at his eldest son’s reaction. He was glad that his son was finally leaving the hospital. Perhaps this was the beginning of Yamato’s recovery. If that was true, then why did he have a sense of dread that overshadowed his gladness?

Taichi stepped out of the elevator and down the hall to his apartment’s door. It had been a long day of boring lectures, and Taichi just wanted to crash. So he put his key in the lock and turned it. There was no resistance, not even a click of it unlocking. Taichi’s body tensed up, as the thought of a break in ran through his mind. He slowly cracked open the door and looked in. Taichi saw a clean hall way that lead deeper into the apartment, evidence that someone had indeed been in his apartment, because it was dirty when he had left that morning. Taichi opened the door further and slipped in, closing the door softly behind him. He then grabbed his umbrella from its nearby stand and held it tight like a baseball bat. He then slowly stalked down the hallway, he looked into the kitchen and saw the dishes were done, the table cleaned of crumbs and moldy pizza boxes. Taichi’s mind started running. He heard of people breaking in and stealing things, hell even making food in the apartment they broke into, but never cleaning it. Taichi poked his head into the living room, he saw the culprit sprawled out on the couch. A blue bandana covered the top of his head, a surgical mask covered most of his face, a large apron covered most of the man’s body, a feather duster was clutched in one hand with a can of cleaning spray in the other. Taichi stepped closer to the man on the couch, his grip on the umbrella tightened. Just before he was about to swing at the sleeping intruder, Taichi noticed a detail he had missed earlier, strands of blonde hair poked out from underneath the blue bandana.

“Yamato?” Taichi whispered.

The intruder didn’t move.

Taichi asked louder, “Yamato?”

Still no response.

Taichi then yelled, “YAMATO!”

The person asleep on the couch jumped up off the couch and looked around. “What? What’s going on?” Yamato asked in confusion.

“You’re home.” Taichi said simply.

“To a pigsty. How did your mother ever put up with you Taichi?” Yamato asked.

Taichi just smiled, “It’s good to have you home Yamato.”

“You’re just saying that because now you have maid service again.” Yamato said.

“Damn straight.” Taichi began to laugh. Then the reality of the situation hit Taichi, he stopped laughing. “Not that it’s a bad thing Yamato. In fact I’m really glad about it, but why are you here? You haven’t been a block away from the hospital in over four weeks. Did something happen? How’s Takeru?”

Yamato just blankly looked at Taichi. Or that is what Taichi thought, he was found to be wrong when Yamato said, “How did you get soda all over the wall?”

Taichi began to laugh nervously, “he he he. That’s a funny story you see…” He then realized what Yamato was trying to do. Taichi became very serious, “Don’t change the subject Yamato. How’s Takeru.”

Yamato looked around the room, “And look at all the candy wrappers all over the place.”

Taichi glared at Yamato, “I’m serious Yamato, How’s Takeru?”

“Oh my, and all the dust and webs on the curtains….” Yamato began to ramble on about the mess of the living room.

Taichi gave up, Yamato wasn’t saying anything. Well anything about Takeru anyways and it didn’t seem like he would anytime soon. Taichi then reached into his pocket and called someone that would know the answers to his questions, Mr. Ishida.

It had been an hour since Taichi had called Hiroaki, and found out the new information about Takeru. Since then he had been tossing that information around in his head, along with Yamato’s cleaning spree. It had been an hour of constant vacuuming caused by the blonde that Taichi was worried about, with all the noise it was hard to for Taichi to think. But all the noise did was slow down Taichi’s conclusion. Yamato had come home and thrown himself into cleaning. Taichi was certain that it wasn’t good for Yamato, he was only running away from his problems. So Taichi walked over to the outlet and unplugged the vacuum.
Yamato glared death threats at Taichi. Taichi just stood there unfazed, he had seen it too many times.

“Plug the vacuum back in.” Yamato said through his teeth.

“No.”

Plug the vacuum back in now.” Yamato said, clenching his teeth tighter.

“Not going to happen.”

Yamato began to grate his teeth, “Plug the vacuum back in now PLEASE!”

“Not until you tell me why you’re doing this. Admit that you’re just running away from your issues.”

Yamato’s glared tighted, but his voice relaxed, “I don’t know what you’re talking
about.”

Taichi quickly closed the gap between him and Yamato. “You know damn well what I’m talking about! Don’t try and deny it Yamato. If you keep running from your issues you will never face them and deal with them. It will eat you alive, more than it already has. Just admit that you’re running away.”

“What would I be running away from?”

Taichi took a deep breath and closed his eyes, his voice became calm and reassuring, “The fact that you received news this morning that Takeru now has a greater chance of never waking up.” Taichi opened his eyes, he saw a shocked and hurt expression on Yamato’s face. “Your still beating yourself up over the accident, you have for a while. But this news just made things worse. It made you meltdown and go into complete denial about the whole thing. Denying it happened won’t make those feelings go away, it will just help them eat away at you until there is nothing left. Don’t you see that Yamato?”

Yamato’s body began to tremble, as it came out of its fantasy land. It remembered it was greatly sleep deprived and undernourished; that it was sore everywhere, and the pain in his heart was unbearable. Taichi had awaken it back to Hell. But Yamato knew that he was at least back to reality. Tears began to flow from Yamato’s eyes.

Taichi was shocked, he wasn’t prepared for Yamato to completely breakdown before his eyes.

Yamato started to cry out, “I’m sorry Taichi! I’m sorry Takeru! I’m sorry Dad! I’m so sorry…..”Yamato words quickly became incomprehensible as Yamato’s sobs took over.

Taichi stepped closer and hugged Yamato. “It’s ok Yamato. All of this isn’t your fault.”

“You don’t understand Taichi. He’s just a kid I’m the big brother, I’m supposed to look after him, protect him, and do what is best for him. Instead I fucked everything up. I fall in love with him when I know I shouldn’t. Then I break his heart trying to protect him when he doesn’t want it. We fight and I break his heart even more. But was that enough? No! I have to fuck things up even more. I wind up leading him almost to his death. Now he may never wake up. I didn’t protect him Taichi, I didn’t look after him, I caused him more pain than I protected him from, and I did it all looking out for me. Not him, not what he needed or not what he wanted. BUT ME! I’m a terrible brother. I’m just a major fuck up of the worst kind.” Yamato then pushed Taichi away and ran out of the living room and into his bedroom slamming the door behind him.

Taichi quickly followed his hysterical friend. He stood outside of the door, listening to loud sorrowful wails coming from the other side.

A week and a half past. Making it six weeks since Takeru’s accident. Yamato had locked himself in his room after breaking down in front of Taichi. He only came out of his room when he knew Taichi was away. And even then he would only use the bathroom and grab a small bite to eat before returning to the seclusion of his bedroom. He wouldn’t talk to anyone when they would stop by and try talking to him through the door. Hiroaki would stop by as often as he could, usually splitting up what little free time he had between his two sons.Hiroaki’s heart was constantly breaking, for now he had two sons that couldn’t/wouldn’t talk to him. He now just sat close to them, holding one way conversations until he was forced to return to work. Where as Taichi would lay in bed at night, and could do nothing but listen to his best friend cry himself to sleep every night.

One afternoon Taichi came home late from classes. As he walked through the front door he quickly saw his friend bolt from the kitchen and down the hall, “Yamato wait!” Taichi shouted and quickly pursued Yamato. Taichi arrived in front of Yamato’s door just as it was being slammed and locked. “Damn it Yamato! Come out here. We need to talk.”

Taichi stood there, and as he expected he didn’t hear any acknowledgement from the other side.

“Come on Yamato, You can’t keep doing this. You have everyone worried sick, more so than before. At least then we were able to check on you, but now…..now you’ve just gone into hiding.”

There was no response from the Yamato’s room.

“I went and saw Takeru again today. His hair has really grown, he’s really looking good, like before the accident. But he needs his brother Yamato. He needs your love more than anyone else’s. He needs the love that only his big brother can give him.”

Still no response came from Yamato.

Taichi decided that maybe some tough love would work, “Damn it YAMATO!” Taichi pounded on the door. “You need to visit your brother. You don’t have to spend the whole day, but visit him. We don’t blame you for anything, none of us do. So get over yourself, it wasn’t your fault. But Damn It Yamato, your little brother is still in the hospital. I know if Hikari was in the hospital like that, I would make sure that I visited her every day. I wouldn’t let some fucking emotional guilt get in the way of that. I wouldn’t just abandon her there, like you have with Takeru. So get your ass over there, he needs his big brother.” Taichi backed away from the door and watched and listened for any response. And just like always, he received none. In defeat Taichi walked to his bedroom.

Yamato laid on his bed, face pushed hard into his pillows. He had heard Taichi, and agreed with him. He had abandoned Takeru. The ever growing heartache he felt was evidence to that, but seeing the results of his negligence would only make it worse. There was a reason why he was running away from all the pain. In his bedroom the only pain he felt was his own. If he visited his brother he would feel Takeru’s pain was well as his own.

The next day Taichi was leaving his first class of the day making his way to his next class. His phone vibrated and reminded him that he had a missed call. Taichi pulled the cell phone out of his pocket and glanced at the screen. ‘1 Missed Call: Yamato, 1 Voice Message’ Taichi smiled. Yamato was talking again, he had gotten through to him after all.

Taichi held the phone up to his ear. Yamato’s voice was very serious, but there was a strong sad undertone to it as well, “Hello Taichi. I’m sorry to have called you during your class….”

“You better be.” Taichi said under his breath, remembering how his phone went off in class.

“…but this couldn’t wait. I wanted to tell you that you were right last night. I have abandoned Takeru. And he needs a big brother. So take care of him Taichi. You’ve always been a better big brother to him than I have….”

Taichi stopped in his tracks, he didn’t like where this message was going.

“…So take care of him Taichi, protect him, make sure nothing bad happens to him again. I know this is a lot that I’m asking of you, but please, do it for me…”

Taichi dropped his backpack and turned around and started running towards his apartment, his phone still pressed up against his ear, “…Promise me you’ll do this Taichi. I’m Sorry. Goodbye.”

Taichi sprinted through the crowds of people, pushing people aside, screaming for people to move. Hoping that by some off chance that he had misheard or misunderstood Yamato’s message, and that when he arrived home, Yamato would be fine. As Taichi ran he tried to call Yamato. First attempt, no answer. Second attempt, no answer. Third attempt, no answer. Taichi put his phone back in his pocket and tried to force his feet to carry him faster.

As Taichi reached his apartment door, his lungs screamed for air, his legs demanded to be cut off. Taichi ignored it all as he jerked his keys out of his pocket and as quickly as he could unlocked the door. Before he was even halfway through the door, Taichi started calling out, “YAMATO?” No response, Taichi quickly looked into the living room and kitchen, no one was in either one. But Taichi noticed that a knife was missing from the knife block. Taichi ran to Yamato’s door and tried to turn the handle. It was locked. Taichi cursed out the door, and began to kick it. After a few kicks the door buckled and opened.

Taichi quickly scanned the room and saw his best friend curled up on the bed. Taichi ran over to him, but Yamato didn’t move. Taichi looked Yamato over, He looked at Yamato’s hands, in one hand a bloody knife, in the other a token for the reason, Takeru’s hat was held up to Yamato’s pale blue lips. Taichi looked more and saw several long deep gashes ran up Yamato wrists and arms. Taichi pulled his cell phone from his hand and began to dial.

It wasn’t until Taichi heard sirens that he allowed himself to listen to his screaming body. And it wasn’t until the medics arrived in the room and had explained the situation that he allowed his body to collapse with exhaustion.

Mean while in a small hospital room a young blonde was awakening. His throat was sore, his mouth was dry, his eye lids felt too heavy to open. He tried to open his eyes, but they only fluttered. He heard a female voice say something but he couldn’t understand what was being said, as if his ears were plugged. He tried to open his eyes again, this time he was able to partly open his eyes. His vision was blurry of the scene around him, too blurry to see where he was or who was talking. He tried to ask what was going on, but it came out as a weak groan. He then closed his eyes. A strong feeling of exhaustion made itself known, as well as pain throughout various part of his body. And although he had spent six weeks unnaturally sleeping, Takeru quickly drifted off to a much more natural sleep.

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Author's Note:
And that was Chapter 17! I hope you enjoyed it. It was hard writing this chapter, really emotional. Don't know if I conveyed it properly or not, but the ideas in my head had me near tears.

Now that you have read this chapter, REVIEW!!!! please? or rate me..... any little bit helps. Or tell people about this story....so I can watch the hits counter raise. That's fun...but I already told you that.

Special Edition:
To: Kiba ~~~~ Look, you get your own little section of this note, cause I'm just cool that way. I already had this chapter planned as such, so we share a common mind somewhere. Some of the ideas you shared I liked, and have already added to the upcoming story, thus further extending this story. Which if fine by me as long as people, like you, enjoy this story.