Waiting (rewrite), Book 2, Chapter 18
After living through hell for months, Yamato is finally free from Ken and ready to move on with his life. But are things ever really that simple? Sequel to Untold Secrets. References to rape/sexual abuse and suicide. Some violence/swearing.
[Digimon] M, drama/hurt/comfort, 2552 (125179) words, published 08-10-16
UPDATE This chapter is the final version
previous chapter
Waiting
by: butterflie
chapter eighteen, undone
Book Two
but if you close your eyes
does it almost feel like
nothing changed at all?
and if you close your eyes
does it almost feel like
you've been here before?
- Bastille, pompeii.
I came to slowly, feeling disoriented and dizzy. I blinked my eyes rapidly, trying to adjust to the lights that felt too bright.
“Yamato?” An anxious voice said softly, and I groaned, trying to turn my heads towards the voice. Eventually I was able to focus enough to see that it was my dad, standing beside whatever bed I was in. To my surprise he wasn’t alone. Takeru was to his right, and behind the both of them a little ways was Natsuko.
My immediate reaction was to be unhappy about her presence, but it did give me pause, wondering why she was here. I could tell from my surroundings that I was in a hospital bed, but she’d never stuck around any of the other times I’d been in the hospital... For that matter, why was I here this time? My memory felt fuzzy at the moment.
I shifted slightly, and felt a flare of pain in my right side. I moaned.
“Yamato?” Dad’s voice came again. “Are you okay?”
I opened my mouth, wanting to tell him it hurt, but I couldn’t get the words out. My lips felt dry and cracked. Luckily Dad seemed to realise the problem after a moment, and the end of straw was soon placed in my mouth. I sipped slowly, relishing the taste of the cool water. Eventually I had enough and pulled my head away.
I opened my mouth once more and tried again. “Side hurts,” I said hoarsely. It reminded of waking up in the hospital after Ken had stabbed me, and I didn't like it. What had happened? There was something, hovering at the edges of my memory, but I couldn't pull it forward.
Beside Dad, Takeru made a distressed sound at my words. “S’not too bad,” I tried to reassure him. I didn't want him to be upset.
“I’ll get a nurse,” Natsuko said softly, and slipped out of the room when Dad nodded at her.
Takeru stepped up closer to me, and I could see now the worry and exhaustion and fear in his face. “I’m glad you’re awake,” he said quietly.
“How long has it been?” I asked. I searched my memory, trying to recall what had happened. I could vaguely remember hearing Taichi... screaming? And someone laughing.
“About two and a half days.”
My eyes widened a bit in disbelief. “Really?”
Takeru nodded.
Before I could say anything else, Natsuko came back in with a nurse, who then spent the next several minutes looking me over and asking a few questions, testing my memory as well. Thankfully my memory seemed to be fine on everything except what had happened to me, which she said was normal. Finally she said something about adjusting my morphine and sending the doctor in to see me later, and then left.
“Morphine?” I asked, and Takeru grinned.
“You woke up once before,” he told me. “You were a bit high on it. It was sort of funny.”
“It’s to keep you from being in too much pain,” Dad said. “You were hurt pretty badly.”
“How did I get hurt?” A brief flash of being thrown into a wall fluttered through my memory, but that didn’t explain the pain in my side. And if both of my parents were here, it must have been really bad. Possibly 'thought I was dying' bad.
Dad looked uncomfortable, though I couldn’t figure out why. “You were stabbed,” he said reluctantly.
I blinked, not even sure how to process that. I definitely didn’t remember getting stabbed, though I could make a pretty good guess at who might have done it. I shuddered slightly, recalling the time Sento had ran his knife down my cheek.
“What happened?” I asked, wanting the full story, but Dad shook his head.
“It’s better for you to let the memories come back on their own. Don’t worry about it now, just give yourself a few days to recover first.”
I was angry at that, not liking the gap in my memory, but knew better than to argue about it with Dad right now. It wasn’t like I really had the strength anyway. “Fine,” I bit out, at least letting him know I wasn’t happy about it.
Dad looked relieved that I wasn’t going to fight him on it. Sensing the rapidly building tension, Takeru spoke up, starting to chatter on about school and how he’d been doing lately. I focused on him gratefully, and spent the next hour listening to my brother with a smile on my face.
* * *
Tuesday afternoon Taichi finally showed up, and I seized my chance. I still didn’t know what had really happened to me, though I’d had a few other random flashes and could gather that I’d likely been attacked by Kento and Sento. But I didn’t know just how bad it might have been, or what exactly to happened to me and them, and if Taichi was there too... I remembered hearing him screaming, so I was pretty sure he was, but I didn’t know if he’d been hurt too.
Dad, knowing that Taichi was coming to visit me, had taken the chance and gone home to shower and take care of a few things at the apartment for a bit. And once Taichi got here, it wasn’t hard to convince Natsuko to head down to the cafeteria with Takeru for a bite to eat and give me a chance to visit with him for awhile.
“You don’t look as bad as I was expecting,” Taichi greeted me when we were finally alone.
I snorted. “Thanks,” I said dryly, and he grinned at me.
“So your mom’s here, that must be a bit weird.”
I shrugged. “She doesn’t really talk to me, I think she’s mostly just here because of Takeru.”
He looked like he wanted to disagree with me on that, but wisely didn’t say anything. Privately though, I did wonder. It was unlike her to stick around, and she had attempted conversations with me a few times. Dad had always insisted she cared about me, and that he kept her updated on my life as much as possible. And she definitely didn’t seem clueless when she was trying to talk to me...
I shrugged my shoulders mentally, deciding to think about it later. Right now I had a short amount of time to get information out of my boyfriend, and I was going to take advantage.
“Taichi,” I said, cutting off his rambling about how he’d wanted to visit me yesterday but Hikari had convinced him not to.
“Huh?”
“Tell me everything that happened,” I said, looking him directly in the eyes. I knew that Dad and the doctors wanted the memories to come back on their own, but I was doubtful they all would, and I didn't want to be kept in the dark anymore. I needed to know what had happened to me, to us.
Like Dad yesterday, he immediately looked uncomfortable. It put an anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach. I got the sense there was something big, something that perhaps no one wanted to tell me.
“Please, Taichi,” I implored him, trying to convey how important this was to me.
He sighed, and came over to the bed, shoving me aside to sit next to me. “What do you remember?”
I frowned. “Not much. Dad said I was stabbed, and I can easily guess who did it, but I don't remember how they got to us, or where. I kind of remember you screaming, and hearing someone laughing...? And I remember being thrown into a wall a couple of times...”
“Well,” Taichi said, swallowing heavily. “As you can probably guess, we were ambushed by Kento and Sento’s gang on the way home from school Friday afternoon. They tricked us by one of them making a noise behind us, and then when we turned back around they were all there...”
Taichi went on, explaining the fight in the alleyway, and how we’d been separated and he didn’t know everything that happened to me. He told me what had happened to him, how Tetsuya had kissed him and told him they’d just been ordered to distract him, which sickened me.
“I heard you scream, and I looked up, and you were on top of Kento, touching your side and there was so much blood coming out of you... Sento was off to the side, holding his knife, and he was the one laughing. I tried to run to you, to check on you or help you somehow, I didn’t even know, but Ayashi grabbed me and I could only watch as Kento and Sento continued to beat you...”
He wasn’t crying, but I could hear the tears in his voice, and knew reliving it for me wasn’t an easy thing for him to do. It made me love him all that much more, for finding the strength to tell me anyway, and I was very glad that we both survived our encounter.
Taichi kept talking, telling me what happened next. I was dumbfounded when he started explaining how Kenji and Ken had shown up and jumped into the fray. “He was laying on top of me, and I kept begging him to move because Sento was coming over to us...” He paused, and shuddered. I grabbed his hand and squeezed it, trying to offer what comfort I could.
“Yamato...” Taichi paused and looked at me, and I was shocked to see he was crying now, endless trails of tears rolling down his cheeks and dripping down onto the hospital bed. “Kenji didn’t make it.”
I stared at him, my brain refusing to connect the dots. “What do you mean? He didn’t get off of you? Surely he must have at some point because you’re here now...” I said weakly, but Taichi was shaking his head.
“I’m so sorry, Yamato. Sento-Sento killed him. He pulled him off of me and slammed his head into the ground over and over and then he stabbed him...” Taichi was crying hard now, his whole body shaking as he recited the gruesome tale to me. “I tried to save him, I tried to stop the bleeding and Ken and I gave him CPR but he didn’t make it. Kenji is gone, Yamato, I’m so sorry.”
“No,” I said. “No, you’re lying.” I felt very disconnected from everything suddenly. I didn’t want to believe what Taichi said. I didn’t want it to be true.
“Yamato...”
“No!” I shoved at him, suddenly angry. How could he tell me something so awful like that? There was no way it could be true. “You’re lying! He’s not gone!”
Taichi sobbed, and tried to grab my hand, but I yanked it away, not wanting to be touched. “Yamato, please... I’m not lying. I’m so sorry. I really tried to save him, I wanted to...”
“No!” I screamed it at him, shoving at him more insistently, suddenly wanting nothing more than for him to go away and leave me alone. “Stop lying! Kenji isn’t dead!” I began to sob. “He’s not gone!”
“Yamato, please stop!” he begged me, but I pushed again, and he fell partially off the bed, stumbling as he tried to catch himself with his feet.
“Get away from me!” I yelled loudly, tears streaming down my own face. “Get out and leave me alone!”
A few nurses rushed in then, with Natsuko and Takeru trailing not far behind, both of them looking alarmed. “What’s going on in here?” one of the nurses demanded.
“He’s lying!” I screamed at them. I picked up the empty glass from the nightstand next to me that had held my water, and threw it at Taichi. He didn’t even try to duck, just let it hit the side of his head as he sobbed.
The nurses swarmed over to me, one of them grabbing my wrists to keep me from throwing anything else. I lashed out immediately, kicking and screaming at her. “Let me go! Don’t you fucking touch me! Let me go!”
“We’re gonna have to sedate him,” another nurse said, and I screamed at her again.
“Don’t you fucking dare! You let me the fuck go!” I kicked out at them again, feeling enraged, and she grabbed my legs, putting all her body weight into keeping them restrained. I gave a wordless yell and tried to fight her off. Amidst the chaos, I caught a glimpse of Natsuko and Takeru. Natsuko had a hand over her mouth, and she was crying. It surprised me. Takeru was also looking very upset, and his face was pale. It made me feel a bit ashamed, and I calmed down a bit, just in time for one of the nurses to slip a needle into me.
My eyes widened, suddenly angry again, and I began to struggle and scream again, but my eyes quickly began to grow heavy, and it was getting harder to keep up the strength to fight. I looked over to where Taichi had last been, and saw him huddled into a ball on the floor, arms wrapped around himself as he cried and shook.
I closed my eyes, and let the world fade away for awhile.
* * *
When I came to again, still feeling groggy from the sedative, it was dark out. Natsuko and Takeru were gone, but Dad was sprawled out in a chair nearby, fast asleep. For a moment I was confused, unable to remember what had happened, but then I remembered Taichi’s voice telling me Kenji is gone.
I’d accused him of lying. I wanted him to be lying. I couldn’t believe that Kenji could really be...
“Dad!” I said suddenly, as loud as I dared. I didn’t want to draw the attention of the nurses again.
He stirred, but didn’t wake. “Dad!” I said again, slightly louder and more insistent.
He started, and straightened up. “Huh? Yamato?” he mumbled, still half-asleep.
“Is it true?” I demanded, not giving him a chance to wake up more.
He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and looked at me, confusion written across his face. “Is what true?”
“Is... is Kenji really gone, like Taichi said?”
Dad sighed then, a deep, heavy sigh full of sorrow, and I knew without him even having to say it. Kenji really was gone. “Yes, Yamato. I’m so sorry...”
I began to sob then, feeling drowned by sudden grief, my heart a heavy ache in my chest. Even though I knew in my heart it was true, that Taichi would never have lied to me, I still couldn’t believe it, couldn't believe that Kenji was dead. Dad gave another sad-sounding sigh, and then got out of the chair and came over to me, hugging me. He didn’t say anything, knowing words wouldn’t help right now. He simply held me tight as I clutched desperately onto him and cried. I cried not only for Kenji, but for myself, and for everything that had been lost these past few months.
No matter what came next, I knew I would never be the same again. I could never go back to the 'before' that I so constantly longed for. I was forever changed, and Kenji was forever gone.
end chapter eighteen. (10 August 2016 0131PM)
soundtrack for chapter eighteen:
pierrot - agitator, pierrot - barairo no sekai (album mix), pierrot - believer, pierrot - dramatic neo anniversary, pierrot - haruka, pierrot - neogrotesque
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