[Fic] Not Long Until You Wake Up (Oneshot)
Title: Not Long Until You Wake Up
Characters: Watanabe Shota, Meguro Ren, Iwamoto Hikaru, Kyomoto Taiga, Mukai Koji, Fujii Ryusei
Warning: Character death
A/N: I blame Torn. Happy New Year.
Not Long Until You Wake Up
Lights, sirens, people. Plenty of them. Reporters, police cars, ambulances. The sun hasn’t set yet, the sky painted in orange and violet as the smoke from the vehicles slowly goes up. The bus, it’s upside down, and the car it collided with has brought a pole down, a few meters away.
“He’s still alive! Pull him out!”
“Careful, they’re stuck!”
“I need a little help from this side, too!”
“I’m losing pulse here!”
Taiga stands next to the car, stares down at the blood on the road, sparkling. It’s a lot, some of it actually streaming down from the bus. The young man inside the car seems to be unconscious, or maybe he’s barely conscious. There’s some faint breathing, Taiga can see it when he leans closer. The phone, it’s on the seat next to him, vibrating non-stop. But the young man can’t reach to pick it up, can’t move.
“Do you think it’s his time?”
Hikaru’s voice is soft next to him, and Taiga straightens his back again as the rescuers pull the door open and struggle to carefully bring him out of the car. He shrugs, can’t stop staring at the face, can’t stop staring at the blood.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you see?” Hikaru asks now, and Taiga looks up at him, at the concern, the gentle questions in his eyes, the patience. “You?”
Maybe? Maybe he does, the scene a little too familiar, the memories a little too vivid. He doesn’t give an answer, but Hikaru doesn’t ask for one again, anyway. Instead, he pulls him a little by the hand he was holding, both of them stepping to the side as the young man is finally put down on the ground to be checked.
“Shota.” Taiga murmurs, pointing with his head towards the bus, and Hikaru nods, humming skeptically. “Maybe it’s time for some of them. The bus was half-full.”
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Two children were on the bus, both of them safe, both of them crying in the adults’ embraces. It’s good like this, Shota thinks, walking carefully beside the bus, counting bodies. He doesn’t like it when it’s children, doesn’t want to have to take the children. He sees faces, closed eyes, hard to say how many are actually dead, how many are just unconscious.
Taiga and Hikaru have walked up to the car, but Shota is not interested in the car. Unnoticed, as always, he prefers this. Death in its true form, death in big numbers, that’s when it feels real.
He makes it to the back of the bus when he sees the guy lying on the ground, half of his body having passed through the now broken window, the other half still inside. There’s blood, a lot of it, stuck on his hair and clothes and for a moment, he looks unreal. For a moment, in Shota’s eyes, he’s not real.
He crouches down, touches his hand, the fingers stained red. His own hand stays clean, never really getting affected by that. He opens his eyes, a little, a wheezy breath echoing in Shota’s ears. And their gazes meet, no doubt about that.
“Ah.” Shota lets out, carefully holding the hand now. “It will be your time soon, I guess…”
Unnoticed, usually, until this moment. The guy is staring up at him in pain and confusion, doesn’t seem to understand. A sting of pity pierces Shota, and he tilts his head, his thumb brushing over his wrist.
“What’s your name?” he asks, catching himself off guard, because they’re not supposed to ask, they’re not supposed to care. They’re only here because it’s time, and conversations are not needed. But still, something inside him wants to know. Something inside him is craving for that answer.
“…Ren…”
“There’s another one here!”
People, suddenly, rushing to his side, and Shota lets go of his hand, rising back on his feet slowly. He really asked, didn’t he? Taiga and Hikaru are walking towards him now, and he just stands there, watches how everyone makes an effort to take all the hurt ones to the ambulances, drive them to the hospital. Ren, too.
“Is it his time?”
Taiga is right next to him now, and Shota makes a grimace, takes another step back. He can feel the blood on his fingers somehow, even though his hand is clean. He can hear the sound of Ren’s voice in his ears, even though he’s not responding to anyone right now.
“Maybe later.” He replies. “Ren. His name is Ren.”
“…you asked his name?” Hikaru raises an eyebrow, reaching up to caress Taiga’s hair. “I thought you didn’t ask names.”
No. No, he usually doesn’t.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………
“What’s your name?”
“Hikaru!”
The tone, so strict, typical Shota, but Hikaru doesn’t care, only keeps holding the hand of the boy in the back seat of the car. Pale, blond, beautiful. Got his attention as soon as they reached the vehicle, something inside him reacting too strongly to the view. The man in the driver’s seat, he’s disappeared, run away to call for help, but it will be hard to do so since the crash happened right outside the forest, at the outskirts of town.
“Hey. Look at me. Do you remember your name?”
The blood running down the boy’s head paints his hair, too, but now the hand Hikaru was holding is squeezing him back, weakly.
“Taiga.” He whispers, winces at the pain right afterwards. “Taiga, I’m Taiga. You…are you here to help?”
“Hikaru.” Shota says warningly again. “We’re not here for that. What are you doing?”
He doesn’t know.
He reaches inside the car, wraps his arms around Taiga, gently pulls him out in his embrace. It’s his time, they can both tell that for sure. But the pain and the fear in his eyes…it’s the first time Hikaru wants to do something about it. The first time he wants to ease it, make it go away.
“I’m Hikaru. Taiga, I want you to listen to me, ok? It’s going…you are going to be fine. Sleep. Trust me, fall asleep, it will all go away once you do so. I’m keeping an eye on you.”
“You’re going to get in trouble…” Shota murmurs, but he’s given up already, can’t go against Hikaru when he’s being so stubborn. And Hikaru just doesn’t care, for some reason, doesn’t want to bother with the consequences.
“You’re here to help?” Taiga stammers again, and Hikaru nods, even smiles at him. “So if I…if I sleep…”
“I’ll be here when you wake up. And you will feel much better.”
Words, too many of them. Out of line, he is, shouldn’t get so close, should only do his job. Shota looks around, then up in the sky, sighing in defeat.
“You’re feeling things. At least it really is his time and we won’t take him by force…”
Trembling. Taiga’s body, it’s trembling in Hikaru’s arms, and it spreads affection in him. As if he’s known him for years already, as if he will never be able to deny him anything. As if his new mission is to protect him from anything that scares him.
“I will make the pain stop, Taiga, I give you my word.” He tells him, and finally, a glimpse of hope is shining in Taiga’s eyes, takes a little bit of the fear away. “All you have to do is surrender to sleep. I know you want to sleep. Don’t fight it, it’s going to be ok.”
So fragile and delicate…
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
He’s leaning against the door, watching in silence. Ren, lying on the hospital bed, unresponsive. On the bed next to his lies the young man from the car. But that one is not alone. That one has someone by his side, someone that’s holding his hand, pressing his forehead against it.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, this is all my fault. It was just a stupid fight, I shouldn’t have told you to leave, Koji, come on…”
“You can come back when his time has truly come.” Hikaru tells Shota from where he’s sitting by the window. “Why are you staying here?”
Why, indeed? Ren is going to die, that’s for sure, but that probably won’t be for another couple of hours. So why is Shota staying in the room, why is he deliberately going through the trouble of having to hear unrelated humans cry over their loved ones? That’s one of the things that piss him off the most.
But Ren…
“You’re feeling things.” Hikaru adds, the very same words Shota lectured him with in the past. Maybe he is. What is he supposed to do about them? How is he supposed to avoid getting in trouble?
“It’s a beautiful name.” he replies, feeling very silly all of a sudden; what is he saying? “Ren.”
A phone goes off before Hikaru can reply. Koji’s phone, the guy next to Ren. The young man sitting next to his bed picks it up with shaky hands, taking a deep breath. Hikaru and Shota both fall silent, but Shota finally moves from the door, sits down on Ren’s bed.
“…hello? No…no it’s not Koji, it’s Ryusei, Koji…he got in an accident…”
“You humans get into those fights all the time, don’t you?” Shota asks Ren, fingers reaching out to stroke his forehead. “You are always so torn…so many different reasons behind your deaths…”
But isn’t he feeling torn now as well?
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………
It almost feels like a dream, or maybe it is. The empty hospital corridors, they feel like a maze. He keeps running, back and forth, opens doors to empty rooms with windows that won’t open.
“Hey! Stop, wait!”
Finally, a voice…Ren halts, turns to look over his shoulder as an unfamiliar person jumps down the stairs, panting. He looks as lost as Ren feels, definitely not a doctor or anything.
“Who are you?” he asks, and the one in question shakes his head, running his fingers through his hair.
“I’m Koji, you? Do you know how to get out of here?”
“Ren. No, I have no clue.”
And suddenly, they are walking together, trying to find a door they didn’t open, a staircase they didn’t go up. The door to the rooftop never opens, neither do the emergency exits. And yet it doesn’t feel tiring. It doesn’t feel exhausting.
But if feels frustrating.
“Ren, it’s your time.”
Another voice. Both Ren and Koji turn, and Ren’s eyes go wide open. A face he vaguely saw, can’t remember how long it has been. He remembers him, asking for his name.
It’s his time?
Right…the bus, the crash, the blood, the voices…
“I’m Shota.” The person says, standing at the end of the corridor, a window behind him. There’s a lot of light coming in from it, but does it matter? They won’t be able to open it, anyway.
But if it’s his time, does it matter?
He stands there, frozen, Koji waiting next to him. “You’re here to kill me?” he asks Shota, but Shota shakes his head, looking a little too peaceful. Too calm. A little melancholic, perhaps.
“No. I’m just here to help you. It is your time. You have a beautiful name, you know?”
It’s not making much sense. But something, something makes Ren take one step towards him, right before Koji takes a hold of his wrist, shaking his head in panic.
“No, don’t listen to him! If you go, you die!”
“It’s not your time, Koji.” Shota says gently, a faint smile blooming on his face. “You can go back. Just turn around and run, and I promise you, you will be ok. You have someone waiting for you. So don’t be torn anymore, ok?”
Ren glances at Koji for a moment, how his eyes go wide open, hope, fear, anticipation. Longing. Ah, there is someone like that in his life already, how lucky…
“I’ll be ok.” He says, even if he can’t explain why he feels that way all of a sudden. Koji still hesitates, and Ren understands, it’s not easy to just give in and follow the light. But it is his time, and it’s not Koji’s. “Go. Go, don’t make them wait.”
Nobody was waiting for him, anyway. He was getting ready to leave town for good.
Koji finally nods after a few more moments, his hand letting go of Ren’s wrist. And then he takes a step back, and another one, and then he’s turning his back on them. Disappearing from the corridor.
Calm. Why is he so calm? Is it Shota’s doing?
“Will it be nice?” he asks, and Shota seems to be confused for a second. “Where you take me, will it be nice? Will you also be there?”
Something very innocent about Shota’s expression, very new, very beautiful…
“If you want me to.” He replies, stretching his hand out. And Ren moves, allows his feet to take him closer, until he can touch that hand, take a warm hold of it.
“I think I do.”
The window, it opens, blinding light pouring in.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Hands, fingers, entwined with his own. Warm, tight, determined. A forehead pressed against his own, a familiar breath against his cheek. The colors, the sounds, the tastes, everything is slowly coming back to Koji as he opens his eyes. As his fingers clench Ryusei’s hand back, until he hears a teary chuckle, feels lips on his cheekbone.
“You came back to me, thank you…”
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Characters: Watanabe Shota, Meguro Ren, Iwamoto Hikaru, Kyomoto Taiga, Mukai Koji, Fujii Ryusei
Warning: Character death
A/N: I blame Torn. Happy New Year.
Not Long Until You Wake Up
Lights, sirens, people. Plenty of them. Reporters, police cars, ambulances. The sun hasn’t set yet, the sky painted in orange and violet as the smoke from the vehicles slowly goes up. The bus, it’s upside down, and the car it collided with has brought a pole down, a few meters away.
“He’s still alive! Pull him out!”
“Careful, they’re stuck!”
“I need a little help from this side, too!”
“I’m losing pulse here!”
Taiga stands next to the car, stares down at the blood on the road, sparkling. It’s a lot, some of it actually streaming down from the bus. The young man inside the car seems to be unconscious, or maybe he’s barely conscious. There’s some faint breathing, Taiga can see it when he leans closer. The phone, it’s on the seat next to him, vibrating non-stop. But the young man can’t reach to pick it up, can’t move.
“Do you think it’s his time?”
Hikaru’s voice is soft next to him, and Taiga straightens his back again as the rescuers pull the door open and struggle to carefully bring him out of the car. He shrugs, can’t stop staring at the face, can’t stop staring at the blood.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you see?” Hikaru asks now, and Taiga looks up at him, at the concern, the gentle questions in his eyes, the patience. “You?”
Maybe? Maybe he does, the scene a little too familiar, the memories a little too vivid. He doesn’t give an answer, but Hikaru doesn’t ask for one again, anyway. Instead, he pulls him a little by the hand he was holding, both of them stepping to the side as the young man is finally put down on the ground to be checked.
“Shota.” Taiga murmurs, pointing with his head towards the bus, and Hikaru nods, humming skeptically. “Maybe it’s time for some of them. The bus was half-full.”
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Two children were on the bus, both of them safe, both of them crying in the adults’ embraces. It’s good like this, Shota thinks, walking carefully beside the bus, counting bodies. He doesn’t like it when it’s children, doesn’t want to have to take the children. He sees faces, closed eyes, hard to say how many are actually dead, how many are just unconscious.
Taiga and Hikaru have walked up to the car, but Shota is not interested in the car. Unnoticed, as always, he prefers this. Death in its true form, death in big numbers, that’s when it feels real.
He makes it to the back of the bus when he sees the guy lying on the ground, half of his body having passed through the now broken window, the other half still inside. There’s blood, a lot of it, stuck on his hair and clothes and for a moment, he looks unreal. For a moment, in Shota’s eyes, he’s not real.
He crouches down, touches his hand, the fingers stained red. His own hand stays clean, never really getting affected by that. He opens his eyes, a little, a wheezy breath echoing in Shota’s ears. And their gazes meet, no doubt about that.
“Ah.” Shota lets out, carefully holding the hand now. “It will be your time soon, I guess…”
Unnoticed, usually, until this moment. The guy is staring up at him in pain and confusion, doesn’t seem to understand. A sting of pity pierces Shota, and he tilts his head, his thumb brushing over his wrist.
“What’s your name?” he asks, catching himself off guard, because they’re not supposed to ask, they’re not supposed to care. They’re only here because it’s time, and conversations are not needed. But still, something inside him wants to know. Something inside him is craving for that answer.
“…Ren…”
“There’s another one here!”
People, suddenly, rushing to his side, and Shota lets go of his hand, rising back on his feet slowly. He really asked, didn’t he? Taiga and Hikaru are walking towards him now, and he just stands there, watches how everyone makes an effort to take all the hurt ones to the ambulances, drive them to the hospital. Ren, too.
“Is it his time?”
Taiga is right next to him now, and Shota makes a grimace, takes another step back. He can feel the blood on his fingers somehow, even though his hand is clean. He can hear the sound of Ren’s voice in his ears, even though he’s not responding to anyone right now.
“Maybe later.” He replies. “Ren. His name is Ren.”
“…you asked his name?” Hikaru raises an eyebrow, reaching up to caress Taiga’s hair. “I thought you didn’t ask names.”
No. No, he usually doesn’t.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………
“What’s your name?”
“Hikaru!”
The tone, so strict, typical Shota, but Hikaru doesn’t care, only keeps holding the hand of the boy in the back seat of the car. Pale, blond, beautiful. Got his attention as soon as they reached the vehicle, something inside him reacting too strongly to the view. The man in the driver’s seat, he’s disappeared, run away to call for help, but it will be hard to do so since the crash happened right outside the forest, at the outskirts of town.
“Hey. Look at me. Do you remember your name?”
The blood running down the boy’s head paints his hair, too, but now the hand Hikaru was holding is squeezing him back, weakly.
“Taiga.” He whispers, winces at the pain right afterwards. “Taiga, I’m Taiga. You…are you here to help?”
“Hikaru.” Shota says warningly again. “We’re not here for that. What are you doing?”
He doesn’t know.
He reaches inside the car, wraps his arms around Taiga, gently pulls him out in his embrace. It’s his time, they can both tell that for sure. But the pain and the fear in his eyes…it’s the first time Hikaru wants to do something about it. The first time he wants to ease it, make it go away.
“I’m Hikaru. Taiga, I want you to listen to me, ok? It’s going…you are going to be fine. Sleep. Trust me, fall asleep, it will all go away once you do so. I’m keeping an eye on you.”
“You’re going to get in trouble…” Shota murmurs, but he’s given up already, can’t go against Hikaru when he’s being so stubborn. And Hikaru just doesn’t care, for some reason, doesn’t want to bother with the consequences.
“You’re here to help?” Taiga stammers again, and Hikaru nods, even smiles at him. “So if I…if I sleep…”
“I’ll be here when you wake up. And you will feel much better.”
Words, too many of them. Out of line, he is, shouldn’t get so close, should only do his job. Shota looks around, then up in the sky, sighing in defeat.
“You’re feeling things. At least it really is his time and we won’t take him by force…”
Trembling. Taiga’s body, it’s trembling in Hikaru’s arms, and it spreads affection in him. As if he’s known him for years already, as if he will never be able to deny him anything. As if his new mission is to protect him from anything that scares him.
“I will make the pain stop, Taiga, I give you my word.” He tells him, and finally, a glimpse of hope is shining in Taiga’s eyes, takes a little bit of the fear away. “All you have to do is surrender to sleep. I know you want to sleep. Don’t fight it, it’s going to be ok.”
So fragile and delicate…
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
He’s leaning against the door, watching in silence. Ren, lying on the hospital bed, unresponsive. On the bed next to his lies the young man from the car. But that one is not alone. That one has someone by his side, someone that’s holding his hand, pressing his forehead against it.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, this is all my fault. It was just a stupid fight, I shouldn’t have told you to leave, Koji, come on…”
“You can come back when his time has truly come.” Hikaru tells Shota from where he’s sitting by the window. “Why are you staying here?”
Why, indeed? Ren is going to die, that’s for sure, but that probably won’t be for another couple of hours. So why is Shota staying in the room, why is he deliberately going through the trouble of having to hear unrelated humans cry over their loved ones? That’s one of the things that piss him off the most.
But Ren…
“You’re feeling things.” Hikaru adds, the very same words Shota lectured him with in the past. Maybe he is. What is he supposed to do about them? How is he supposed to avoid getting in trouble?
“It’s a beautiful name.” he replies, feeling very silly all of a sudden; what is he saying? “Ren.”
A phone goes off before Hikaru can reply. Koji’s phone, the guy next to Ren. The young man sitting next to his bed picks it up with shaky hands, taking a deep breath. Hikaru and Shota both fall silent, but Shota finally moves from the door, sits down on Ren’s bed.
“…hello? No…no it’s not Koji, it’s Ryusei, Koji…he got in an accident…”
“You humans get into those fights all the time, don’t you?” Shota asks Ren, fingers reaching out to stroke his forehead. “You are always so torn…so many different reasons behind your deaths…”
But isn’t he feeling torn now as well?
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………
It almost feels like a dream, or maybe it is. The empty hospital corridors, they feel like a maze. He keeps running, back and forth, opens doors to empty rooms with windows that won’t open.
“Hey! Stop, wait!”
Finally, a voice…Ren halts, turns to look over his shoulder as an unfamiliar person jumps down the stairs, panting. He looks as lost as Ren feels, definitely not a doctor or anything.
“Who are you?” he asks, and the one in question shakes his head, running his fingers through his hair.
“I’m Koji, you? Do you know how to get out of here?”
“Ren. No, I have no clue.”
And suddenly, they are walking together, trying to find a door they didn’t open, a staircase they didn’t go up. The door to the rooftop never opens, neither do the emergency exits. And yet it doesn’t feel tiring. It doesn’t feel exhausting.
But if feels frustrating.
“Ren, it’s your time.”
Another voice. Both Ren and Koji turn, and Ren’s eyes go wide open. A face he vaguely saw, can’t remember how long it has been. He remembers him, asking for his name.
It’s his time?
Right…the bus, the crash, the blood, the voices…
“I’m Shota.” The person says, standing at the end of the corridor, a window behind him. There’s a lot of light coming in from it, but does it matter? They won’t be able to open it, anyway.
But if it’s his time, does it matter?
He stands there, frozen, Koji waiting next to him. “You’re here to kill me?” he asks Shota, but Shota shakes his head, looking a little too peaceful. Too calm. A little melancholic, perhaps.
“No. I’m just here to help you. It is your time. You have a beautiful name, you know?”
It’s not making much sense. But something, something makes Ren take one step towards him, right before Koji takes a hold of his wrist, shaking his head in panic.
“No, don’t listen to him! If you go, you die!”
“It’s not your time, Koji.” Shota says gently, a faint smile blooming on his face. “You can go back. Just turn around and run, and I promise you, you will be ok. You have someone waiting for you. So don’t be torn anymore, ok?”
Ren glances at Koji for a moment, how his eyes go wide open, hope, fear, anticipation. Longing. Ah, there is someone like that in his life already, how lucky…
“I’ll be ok.” He says, even if he can’t explain why he feels that way all of a sudden. Koji still hesitates, and Ren understands, it’s not easy to just give in and follow the light. But it is his time, and it’s not Koji’s. “Go. Go, don’t make them wait.”
Nobody was waiting for him, anyway. He was getting ready to leave town for good.
Koji finally nods after a few more moments, his hand letting go of Ren’s wrist. And then he takes a step back, and another one, and then he’s turning his back on them. Disappearing from the corridor.
Calm. Why is he so calm? Is it Shota’s doing?
“Will it be nice?” he asks, and Shota seems to be confused for a second. “Where you take me, will it be nice? Will you also be there?”
Something very innocent about Shota’s expression, very new, very beautiful…
“If you want me to.” He replies, stretching his hand out. And Ren moves, allows his feet to take him closer, until he can touch that hand, take a warm hold of it.
“I think I do.”
The window, it opens, blinding light pouring in.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Hands, fingers, entwined with his own. Warm, tight, determined. A forehead pressed against his own, a familiar breath against his cheek. The colors, the sounds, the tastes, everything is slowly coming back to Koji as he opens his eyes. As his fingers clench Ryusei’s hand back, until he hears a teary chuckle, feels lips on his cheekbone.
“You came back to me, thank you…”
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..