[Fic] Trine (for ketchupblood)
Title: Trine
Author: impressioniste
Recipient: ketchupblood
Pairing/Characters: Sanada/Yukimura/Yanagi, though it's primarily 'deep friendship'.
Rating: PG-13, tops, for swearing.
Summary: Sanada falls victim to sudden debilitating illness and Yukimura blames himself. Yanagi struggles to hold the team together. All three realize just how important their relationship triangle is, both for the team and their own personal needs. They must reconcile the change and disruption that life brings to find harmony again.
Notes: The story is not 100% chronologically linear. Events do go back and forth between 'scenes' and perspectives. Please keep this in mind while reading.
TRINE
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Yukimura paced rapidly back and forth across the floor of the modestly-sized waiting room, completely unable to sit still. His gait was uneven, almost frantic. His yellow tennis jersey was dirty, soaked in sweat, and open at the collar; the matching jacket was lying strewn across the back of a chair. Yanagi stood a few feet away, leaning up against a wall with his arms crossed stoically. His expression barely changed as he pursed his lips and sighed softly.
"Seiichi, you should try to calm down."
Yukimura did not turn to look at Yanagi, but instead uttered a sound that was half derisive laugh and half dismissive grunt. He brushed Yanagi's suggestion off with a sharp wave of his hand. It was probably better for Yanagi to simply leave him alone, but Yanagi had reservations about just sitting by while his friend was in the middle of a meltdown.
Inside Yukimura's head, panic was building to dangerous, explosive levels. Yanagi could sense it, to an extent, and needed to think of something to defuse the situation. Usually, he just let Yukimura explode and recover on his own, as it tended to happen quickly, but the environment they were in was really not an appropriate place for that course of action.
Yanagi looked around the room. It was a standard hospital waiting room, as far as he could tell. There were chairs for visitors and a station with nurses working in hushed tones. Everything smelled of disinfectant.
"Maybe we should go outside for a bit," Yanagi suggested. Getting Yukimura out of the enclosed room and outside where there was fresh air and more room for him to pace might help.
Yukimura knew Yanagi was just trying to help, but it was hard not to just tell Yanagi to shut up and leave him alone. If going outside would keep peace and give him more time to think, then he would take Yanagi up on the suggestion.
"Fine, let's go," he agreed quickly, grabbing his jacket and taking off like a rocket down the hallway. Yukimura's adrenaline levels were at maximum, and Yanagi had to move quickly to keep up. They reached a set of double-doors leading outside to a patient and visitor garden with benches in the sunlight to sit on.
"This is as good a place as any, I guess," Yukimura muttered under his breath as he stopped in the middle of the little garden area. Yanagi took a seat on one of the benches, not sure what more he could do. A light breeze ruffled the greenery around them, blowing Yukimura's hair into his eye. He ripped off his headband and clenched it in his fist for a moment, brushing his hair back from his face roughly. He paced a bit more before stopping in front of a tree that towered over the other shrubbery in the garden.
With a sharp, sudden growl and a swing of his arm, Yukimura punched his fist into the trunk of the tree. The rough bark dug into his knuckles, but he hardly noticed. His jaw clenched tightly against the choking sensation in the back of his throat. His eyes stung and burned with tears he fought to keep in check.
Yanagi sat in awkward silence, looking for an opening to say or do something. Yukimura's head dipped forward against the tree and his body slumped slightly in some form of emotional defeat.
"Seiichi, you can't blame yourself for--" Yanagi began, but was cut off by semi-hysterical laughter from Yukimura.
"You seriously did NOT just say that," Yukimura said after laughing bitterly for a moment. Turning around and letting himself slide to the ground in a sitting position with his knees drawn up, Yukimura put his head in his hands. "Don't fucking patronize me, Renji."
It had not been a patronizing comment at all, only the simple truth. However, Yanagi knew Yukimura was stressed, angry, scared, anxious and not thinking clearly. The martyr attitude was not going to help anyone, though, Yanagi knew. He needed to nip it in the bud.
"Fine. So what if it is your fault?" Yanagi prodded. "Sitting here committing mental seppuku isn't going to help any of us, so perhaps it would be best to drop the attitude and sit and wait like the rest of us who are just as worried." Yukimura was a natural leader most of the time, but sometimes Yanagi really had to reign him in. Sometimes the best thing to do was to be blunt with him. He could be incredibly immature in certain situations, and this was apparently one of them.
Then again, none of them ever dreamed they would be dealing with a situation like this in the first place.
Yukimura said nothing in reply, but Yanagi could see tears trickling down his cheeks, no matter how much Yukimura tried to hide them. Yanagi got up from the bench, walking over to Yukimura and sitting down beside him cross-legged in the grass at the base of the tree. He put an arm around Yukimura's shoulders, fairly certain that this gesture would no longer get him punched as it might have a few minutes earlier.
Yukimura wiped roughly at his tears, in a last desperate attempt to save face. When he spoke, it was hardly more than a whisper.
"I've never felt this helpless before."
Yanagi nodded, sighing softly again and staring at Yukimura for a minute thoughtfully before looking back at the hospital building.
"Me either."
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Sanada felt unbelievably groggy as his eyes slowly opened. He could feel sharp bits of sleep-sand at the corners as his eyelids fluttered and finally opened completely. He did not remember going to sleep, and his memory was fuzzy in general. He was confused, and that was not at all like him. He tried to sit up in bed and rub his temples, but as he shifted, he felt something tugging at his body in various places. Looking down and feeling around along his arms and torso, he found wires and sticky things attached to him all over. Wires and needles were strung back and forth across him like a bizarre mechanical spider web. Needles were poked into various places on his arms and hands, secured with adhesive tape. He followed the tubes and saw bags of fluid dripping from poles around his bed. The clothes he wore were not his, and the hospital gown was open in front so that the little sticky bits with snap-on electrodes attached to his chest and sides were visible.
The shades were drawn at the windows, making the room dark, and he could not find a light within reach. The room he was in was empty and sterile.
He began to panic.
That was when he heard a soft but insistently steady beeping noise. As he panicked, the machine started beeping faster and more loudly.
Get a grip, Gen'ichiroh... he thought to himself, trying to take deep breaths and remember what he could about that day. What the hell had happened?
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Everyone had been at tennis practice after school earlier that day. It was a gorgeous late spring afternoon. The weather was perfect. Sanada had run his warm-up laps and was supervising some of the others in various practice exercises while Yukimura and Yanagi chatted about something off to the side, too far away for Sanada to hear the details. Yukimura had waved Sanada over.
"Could you keep an eye on Akaya today? He's driving me crazy and I have some ideas for new exercises that I wanted to run by Yanagi before trying them out on the team." Yukimura's request was hardly unreasonable or unorthodox. Akaya frequently had too much energy and not enough discipline, and sometimes really needed Sanada's gruff supervision before he would chill out. Heaven help them all if Marui had given him any candy before practice.
"Yeah, sure." Sanada shrugged and walked off in Kirihara's direction.
"I told him he'd better be able to keep up with you in laps today or he's getting his ass benched for goofing off!" Yukimura called after Sanada, who raised a hand in acknowledgement. After that, Yukimura had gone back to discussing exercises with Yanagi, and the two of them had presumably tuned the rest of the team members out.
"Akaya! Laps!" Sanada barked at Kirihara, who was standing around pestering Marui and Jackal, who were trying to work on swing practice. He nearly jumped out of his own skin when he heard Sanada's voice, and took off running. Sanada followed along beside him. "Yukimura said you'd better keep up today, or else."
Kirihara grimaced and nodded, picking up the pace as Sanada passed him by an arm's length or so. He was tinier so it was harder to keep up with Sanada's longer stride. He sure as anything did not want to get benched or bitched out by Yukimura, though, so he ran as fast as he could to keep up. He figured that his hard work and determination was paying off when he passed Sanada by, and kept running without looking back. He could gloat from the finish line when he was done.
Reaching the end of a lap without Sanada passing him again, Kirihara looked up. At first, he did not see Sanada at all. Puzzled, he slowed his running down a bit. Finally, he noticed Sanada, only a short distance from where Kirihara had passed him while running, kneeling on the ground. Kirihara was puzzled. Had he tripped? No, Sanada would just get up and keep running if he had tripped. He should not have been that far behind. As he jogged toward his vice-captain, Kirihara saw Sanada suddenly fall prostrate on the ground. It looked like his limbs had just crumpled up underneath him and given way.
Kirihara froze.
He tried to make his feet move. Something was seriously, terribly wrong. He could not seem to make his legs move again, though, so he did the only thing he could think of.
"Yukimura-buchou!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. It did not catch Yukimura's attention at first, as Yukimura was used to tuning him out at times. After the second or third cry from Kirihara, however, Yukimura's concentration was broken, and he turned to see exactly the same thing everyone else on the court was seeing at that moment.
Sanada, facedown in a heap of unmoving, muscular physique and disheveled yellow uniform. His hat was missing, having been knocked a few feet away.
"Sanada!" Yukimura felt his heart both leap into his throat and fall into the pit of his stomach simultaneously, somehow. As fast as his legs could move him, he raced toward Sanada's unmoving form. "Sanada! Gen'ichiroh!" Yukimura repeated Sanada's name and shook his body, but there was no response. Somewhere out of the corner of his eye, he saw Yanagi talking into a cellphone, and people had started to gather around.
"Akaya, what the hell happened?" Yukimura shouted, almost accusatorily.
Kirihara, who was already frightened and frozen in place, turned white as a sheet. "I don't know! I didn't do anything! I turned around and he was like that!"
Nioh, Marui, and Jackal kept their distance from Sanada and Yukimura, opting to try and calm Kirihara down instead. Yanagi was still on the phone, walking toward Yukimura, and Yagyuu was behind Yukimura, looking on in disbelief. Yukimura tried to roll Sanada's body over onto his back, but he was completely dead weight.
"Yagyuu, help me..."
Yagyuu wordlessly did as he was told before moving away again. Yukimura tried to feel for breath, for a pulse, anything at all to reassure himself that Sanada had not just somehow dropped dead in front of them all. Loosening the neck of Sanada's jersey, Yukimura felt a faint hint of a pulse under his fingertips when he held them there, but could not see any movement in Sanada's chest. There was no rise and fall. He held his face down close to Sanada's and felt no breath on his cheek.
He could make out Yanagi's conversation on the phone now. He had called an emergency number. Not knowing what else to do, seeing Sanada's color start to fade and turn ashen, Yukimura relied on basic first-aid training that he had received but never thought he would actually have to administer. His hands shook as he tried to jump-start Sanada's weak heartbeat with chest compressions and he had to concentrate hard on keeping his own breathing regular enough to share it with Sanada by forcing oxygen into his unresponsive lungs via mouth breaths.
Yukimura was not sure how long he continued this for. He lost track of time and space. He felt like he was in another dimension, far-removed from everyone and everything but trying to keep Sanada from dying. He was short of breath and dizzy and so hyperfocused on what he was doing that he had to nearly be pulled off Sanada's body when emergency workers arrived with an ambulance. Yanagi had to shake him once or twice to snap him out of it.
Looking around at everyone else on the tennis court and standing back while Sanada's body was loaded onto a stretcher and an oxygen mask was placed over his face, Yukimura swallowed and gathered up his voice.
"Practice is over, everyone go home." He did not stop and wait to see where everyone else went. He asked one of the emergency staff what hospital they were taking Sanada to, and immediately ran off to catch the next bus there. Yanagi followed, not knowing exactly where Yukimura was off to, but he had a good guess. He found Yukimura panting at the bus stop, leaning against a signpost with his eyes closed. He was biting down hard on his lip, and sweat was pouring down his face.
"Seiichi, are you all right?" Yukimura laughed harshly and shook his head in a wordless 'no'. Yanagi pursed his lips. It was a stupid question, really. He could have figured as much. "We'll meet him at the hospital," Yanagi said, trying to be reassuring.
They waited for the bus in silence. They rode the bus in silence. Once they arrived at the hospital, Yanagi asked for directions at a reception desk, and led Yukimura to a room where they were instructed to wait. Yanagi took out his cellphone and contacted Yagyuu, asking him to tell the others where they were and that he would call with more information when he had it. He also asked Yagyuu to call Sanada's parents, just in case the hospital had not contacted them yet.
It seemed as though they waited for days, but it was really just an hour or so before a doctor came to talk to them.
"You're classmates of Sanada-san's from his tennis club, is that correct?" the doctor asked. Because they were not family, he could not reveal too many details, he told them. But he could tell them some basic things.
"Your friend is not going to die," he reassured them. Yukimura breathed perhaps the largest sigh of relief that he had ever felt. He felt tears pricking at his eyes. Sanada would be all right. They would fix whatever was wrong with him, right? If it was not going to kill him, they could fix it.
"That's the good news," the doctor continued. He had given them his name, but everything was so jumbled in Yukimura's brain that he could not remember what it was. It was not important anyway. Sanada would be fine. Then, it hit him. The doctor was pausing. That was just the good news? That implied there was also bad news. Yukimura's sudden relief turned to dread.
"Then... the bad news?" Yukimura did not want to ask, but he had to.
"I'm afraid that for Sanada-san... playing tennis again will not be possible."
Everything that happened after that seemed like a blur to Yukimura. The doctor explained some things, but it sounded like nothing but background noise in Yukimura's head. All he could hear was the doctor saying the same thing over and over. "Playing tennis again will not be possible." What were they all going to do? What was Sanada going to do? How could this possibly be happening? Sanada was one of the healthiest, strongest, most physically fit people he knew. How could he be fine one moment and crippled the next?
By the time the doctor left, Yukimura had worked himself up into a frenzy. Yanagi was talking to him then, telling him that they would be able to see Sanada when he woke up, as he was still unconscious. The doctors were running some more tests, but they had a good idea as to what was wrong with him. Yanagi recited a bunch of medical jargon that Yukimura had no interest in and barely heard.
Not knowing what else to do, he paced. All they could do was wait.
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After laboriously racking his brain, Sanada vaguely remembered participating in tennis practice that day. He remembered agreeing to 'motivate' Kirihara. After that, things got terribly fuzzy. He remembered a sudden, immense, crushing pain in his chest. It had knocked him to his knees. He thought it was some kind of odd cramp, but it intensified as he tried to breathe. Then, he could not breathe. After that, it was all a complete blank. The next thing he recalled was waking up with all the wires sticking into and out of him. That was only minutes ago.
Sitting in silence and darkness, Sanada tried to make sense of what happened. Maybe it was not really that big of a deal. Maybe he had low blood pressure and had just fainted. It could be just a precaution that he was being tended to. Maybe they would let him go home soon.
A soft knock came at the door and a doctor entered. Sanada turned his head to see.
"Sanada-san? Are you awake?" Sanada grunted a soft sound of acknowledgement. He felt so fatigued that speaking was too much effort unless it was necessary.
The doctor introduced himself as a cardiologist. Sanada was puzzled. The doctor asked him several questions about how he had felt before collapsing, and explained in general the tests that had been performed while Sanada had been unconscious. It sounded far more serious than Sanada was willing to accept. Medical terminology and information was swirling around in Sanada's head by the time the doctor was done talking to him. The doctor said they did not have a perfect diagnosis yet, but would be able to confirm it after a few more tests, if the tests came back the way he thought they would. Then, he told Sanada the term for what he believed had happened to him.
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
There was an explanation that went along with it. In the simplest terms, the doctor explained that it meant a part of his heart was too 'thick', and had to work extra hard to pump blood properly. He said that Sanada had likely had no physical symptoms, or had very light ones that were barely noticeable because of his otherwise good health, and that it affected a surprising number of young, healthy, athletic people. Since Sanada had surivived this episode, he would likely be just fine, as long as he got treatment. It was not a death sentence.
When the doctor revealed the details of the recommended treatment, however, Sanada's breath caught in his throat.
Medication. Careful monitoring of his heart. Cessation of physically exerting activities. Absolutely no sports.
Absolutely no tennis.
The doctor was right, Sanada thought. It was not a death sentence.
It was a million times worse.
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The several hours following the doctor's terrible revelation were a frantic jumble for everyone involved. Sanada's parents came and were informed about their son's condition, and left to go take care of emergency preparation and bring some of his personal things to the hospital. Yukimura and Yanagi had gone outside and stayed there until it got dark, and then came back inside to the waiting room again. Team members were called again and informed of new details. Eventually, Yukimura and Yanagi were told by a nurse that they would be allowed to see Sanada. They were told to be very careful, that he was okay but not to upset him or rile him up and put unnecessary stress on his heart.
Sanada was sitting up straight, stoic and silent in his hospital bed. The top part of his hospital gown was pushed back and down around his waist, because several nurses had needed access to attach or remove little electrodes to him to monitor his heart. Upon entering the room and approaching Sanada's bedside, Yanagi tugged the gown back up over Sanada's shoulders and closed the front a bit. Sanada's skin was chilly, but it was an improvement over the dull, ashen way he had looked a few hours ago while unconscious.
Sanada could see that Yukimura's eyes looked red, and Yanagi was almost eerily calm.
"You two can knock it off, already. I'm not dying."
Yukimura stayed silent, but Yanagi spoke. "Don't be cruel, Gen'ichiroh. We're worried about you."
"Well, don't. I already told you. I'm not dying."
"You have to be dying for us to worry?"
"Yes."
Yanagi scoffed and turned away, looking around the hospital room. Yukimura tried to look at Sanada, but his eyes seemed glued to the floor. "I'm sorry..." he whispered in a nearly inaudible voice.
"What?" Sanada looked in Yukimura's direction, not having heard Yukimura clearly.
"I'm sorry..." Yukimura trailed off at the end, as though he had more to say.
"You're... sorry?" Sanada seemed puzzled.
"I'm sorry, but fuck that!" Yukimura exploded suddenly, looking right at Sanada now. "I'll worry about you if I damn well please!" Sanada and Yanagi did not dare speak, but just looked quietly back at Yukimura.
Spying a chair nearby, Yukimura tossed himself into it, sighing. "Don't you dare pull this self-serving martyr crap, Sanada." He took a deep breath. "Not when it's my fault you'll never play tennis again. If I hadn't asked you to run ahead of Akaya..."
"Seiichi, stop," Yanagi interrupted. Sanada waved his hand at Yanagi, however, not wanting him to intervene. There was nothing Yanagi could probably say to help, anyway. Not when Yukimura was being like this.
"What was that about *me* pulling 'self-serving martyr crap', now?" Sanada said, raising an eyebrow. Yukimura shot him a nasty look, but said nothing.
Yanagi shrugged to himself and sighed. "I'm going to leave the two of you alone to deal with this, since there's nothing I can do anyway." He left without another word. It was probably best to give the two of them some time alone anyway. They were both far too prone to taking blame and stress upon themselves unnecessarily, usually in an effort for one to protect the other. They were going to have to figure this one out on their own if things were going to go anywhere at all, constructively.
Yukimura dragged his chair over to Sanada's bedside, sitting silently next to his friend and teammate.
"This has nothing to do with you, Yukimura."
Yukimura snorted. "Great, first Yanagi patronizes me and now you're doing it, too. Am I really that pathetic?"
Sanada's expression steeled. "I'm not patronizing you."
"Then what else do you call it?"
"The truth?"
Yukimura did not have a response for that. They sat in uncomfortable silence for another minute or two before anone spoke again.
"I won't say it again, Yukimura. It's not your fault. I've probably had this for years and didn't know it. If this didn't happen today, it could have happened tomorrow. Or next week. Or next month. Why do you insist on blaming yourself for shit you're not responsible for?"
"It's not like I do it all the time," Yukimura protested.
"The hell you don't. You do it constantly."
"Liar."
"When have I ever lied to you?"
Yukimura was stuck without a response again. "Why do you have to be so fucking *right* all the time? Why can't you just let me deal with it?"
"Because you're too stubborn to know when to quit."
"Oh, God. Who's the hypocrite now?"
"Shut up."
Sanada telling him to shut up usually meant that Yukimura had won whatever argument they were having, so he let it end there. He was quiet again, fidgeting in his chair a bit. He looked over at Sanada.
"So, you want to know why I do ~this~ 'constantly', then?"
Sanada shuffled a bit and tried to get a bit more comfortable. "Yeah."
Yukimura leaned forward in his chair. "If it's up to me to choose who suffers," he began, placing a hand on the hospital bed next to Sanada, twiddling his fingers absent-mindedly. "I'd rather it was me."
Sanada frowned and opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by Yanagi re-entering the room. He had been listening from just outside the door, having left it slightly ajar without Sanada or Yukimura noticing. Yes, perhaps it was not polite to eavesdrop, but there were situations when it was quite possibly called for. This was one of them, in his opinion.
"Not this time, Seiichi," he said, standing next to both Sanada and Yukimura at the bedside. "This isn't a one-person problem. And there isn't a one-person solution. It's going to take all three of us this time. Whether you like it or not."
Yukimura moved his hand over to one of Sanada's, threading his fingers through Sanada's much larger ones. Following his lead, Yanagi grabbed Yukimura's remaining free hand. Yukimura squeezed it.
"I guess it's too bad, then. We're all stuck with each other."
"I guess so," Yanagi nodded, looking back and forth between Sanada and Yukimura.
"Yup," Sanada followed up.
"And all three of us are absolutely clueless and terrified."
"Right," Yanagi agreed.
"Yup," Sanada follwed up, again.
"Okay. Just checking," Yukimura nodded.
"We'll figure something out," Yanagi said.
"I don't even want to think about not playing tennis again," Sanada began. "But if I don't have a choice... the two of you had better keep going without me. Or I'll make your lives miserable."
Yukimura leaned against the side of Sanada's bed and laid his head near Sanada's lap. "You promise?"
"I'll need to find something to do with my time," Sanada answered dryly.
Yanagi shook his head quietly. Some things would never change.
But that was a good thing.
Author: impressioniste
Recipient: ketchupblood
Pairing/Characters: Sanada/Yukimura/Yanagi, though it's primarily 'deep friendship'.
Rating: PG-13, tops, for swearing.
Summary: Sanada falls victim to sudden debilitating illness and Yukimura blames himself. Yanagi struggles to hold the team together. All three realize just how important their relationship triangle is, both for the team and their own personal needs. They must reconcile the change and disruption that life brings to find harmony again.
Notes: The story is not 100% chronologically linear. Events do go back and forth between 'scenes' and perspectives. Please keep this in mind while reading.
TRINE
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Yukimura paced rapidly back and forth across the floor of the modestly-sized waiting room, completely unable to sit still. His gait was uneven, almost frantic. His yellow tennis jersey was dirty, soaked in sweat, and open at the collar; the matching jacket was lying strewn across the back of a chair. Yanagi stood a few feet away, leaning up against a wall with his arms crossed stoically. His expression barely changed as he pursed his lips and sighed softly.
"Seiichi, you should try to calm down."
Yukimura did not turn to look at Yanagi, but instead uttered a sound that was half derisive laugh and half dismissive grunt. He brushed Yanagi's suggestion off with a sharp wave of his hand. It was probably better for Yanagi to simply leave him alone, but Yanagi had reservations about just sitting by while his friend was in the middle of a meltdown.
Inside Yukimura's head, panic was building to dangerous, explosive levels. Yanagi could sense it, to an extent, and needed to think of something to defuse the situation. Usually, he just let Yukimura explode and recover on his own, as it tended to happen quickly, but the environment they were in was really not an appropriate place for that course of action.
Yanagi looked around the room. It was a standard hospital waiting room, as far as he could tell. There were chairs for visitors and a station with nurses working in hushed tones. Everything smelled of disinfectant.
"Maybe we should go outside for a bit," Yanagi suggested. Getting Yukimura out of the enclosed room and outside where there was fresh air and more room for him to pace might help.
Yukimura knew Yanagi was just trying to help, but it was hard not to just tell Yanagi to shut up and leave him alone. If going outside would keep peace and give him more time to think, then he would take Yanagi up on the suggestion.
"Fine, let's go," he agreed quickly, grabbing his jacket and taking off like a rocket down the hallway. Yukimura's adrenaline levels were at maximum, and Yanagi had to move quickly to keep up. They reached a set of double-doors leading outside to a patient and visitor garden with benches in the sunlight to sit on.
"This is as good a place as any, I guess," Yukimura muttered under his breath as he stopped in the middle of the little garden area. Yanagi took a seat on one of the benches, not sure what more he could do. A light breeze ruffled the greenery around them, blowing Yukimura's hair into his eye. He ripped off his headband and clenched it in his fist for a moment, brushing his hair back from his face roughly. He paced a bit more before stopping in front of a tree that towered over the other shrubbery in the garden.
With a sharp, sudden growl and a swing of his arm, Yukimura punched his fist into the trunk of the tree. The rough bark dug into his knuckles, but he hardly noticed. His jaw clenched tightly against the choking sensation in the back of his throat. His eyes stung and burned with tears he fought to keep in check.
Yanagi sat in awkward silence, looking for an opening to say or do something. Yukimura's head dipped forward against the tree and his body slumped slightly in some form of emotional defeat.
"Seiichi, you can't blame yourself for--" Yanagi began, but was cut off by semi-hysterical laughter from Yukimura.
"You seriously did NOT just say that," Yukimura said after laughing bitterly for a moment. Turning around and letting himself slide to the ground in a sitting position with his knees drawn up, Yukimura put his head in his hands. "Don't fucking patronize me, Renji."
It had not been a patronizing comment at all, only the simple truth. However, Yanagi knew Yukimura was stressed, angry, scared, anxious and not thinking clearly. The martyr attitude was not going to help anyone, though, Yanagi knew. He needed to nip it in the bud.
"Fine. So what if it is your fault?" Yanagi prodded. "Sitting here committing mental seppuku isn't going to help any of us, so perhaps it would be best to drop the attitude and sit and wait like the rest of us who are just as worried." Yukimura was a natural leader most of the time, but sometimes Yanagi really had to reign him in. Sometimes the best thing to do was to be blunt with him. He could be incredibly immature in certain situations, and this was apparently one of them.
Then again, none of them ever dreamed they would be dealing with a situation like this in the first place.
Yukimura said nothing in reply, but Yanagi could see tears trickling down his cheeks, no matter how much Yukimura tried to hide them. Yanagi got up from the bench, walking over to Yukimura and sitting down beside him cross-legged in the grass at the base of the tree. He put an arm around Yukimura's shoulders, fairly certain that this gesture would no longer get him punched as it might have a few minutes earlier.
Yukimura wiped roughly at his tears, in a last desperate attempt to save face. When he spoke, it was hardly more than a whisper.
"I've never felt this helpless before."
Yanagi nodded, sighing softly again and staring at Yukimura for a minute thoughtfully before looking back at the hospital building.
"Me either."
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Sanada felt unbelievably groggy as his eyes slowly opened. He could feel sharp bits of sleep-sand at the corners as his eyelids fluttered and finally opened completely. He did not remember going to sleep, and his memory was fuzzy in general. He was confused, and that was not at all like him. He tried to sit up in bed and rub his temples, but as he shifted, he felt something tugging at his body in various places. Looking down and feeling around along his arms and torso, he found wires and sticky things attached to him all over. Wires and needles were strung back and forth across him like a bizarre mechanical spider web. Needles were poked into various places on his arms and hands, secured with adhesive tape. He followed the tubes and saw bags of fluid dripping from poles around his bed. The clothes he wore were not his, and the hospital gown was open in front so that the little sticky bits with snap-on electrodes attached to his chest and sides were visible.
The shades were drawn at the windows, making the room dark, and he could not find a light within reach. The room he was in was empty and sterile.
He began to panic.
That was when he heard a soft but insistently steady beeping noise. As he panicked, the machine started beeping faster and more loudly.
Get a grip, Gen'ichiroh... he thought to himself, trying to take deep breaths and remember what he could about that day. What the hell had happened?
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Everyone had been at tennis practice after school earlier that day. It was a gorgeous late spring afternoon. The weather was perfect. Sanada had run his warm-up laps and was supervising some of the others in various practice exercises while Yukimura and Yanagi chatted about something off to the side, too far away for Sanada to hear the details. Yukimura had waved Sanada over.
"Could you keep an eye on Akaya today? He's driving me crazy and I have some ideas for new exercises that I wanted to run by Yanagi before trying them out on the team." Yukimura's request was hardly unreasonable or unorthodox. Akaya frequently had too much energy and not enough discipline, and sometimes really needed Sanada's gruff supervision before he would chill out. Heaven help them all if Marui had given him any candy before practice.
"Yeah, sure." Sanada shrugged and walked off in Kirihara's direction.
"I told him he'd better be able to keep up with you in laps today or he's getting his ass benched for goofing off!" Yukimura called after Sanada, who raised a hand in acknowledgement. After that, Yukimura had gone back to discussing exercises with Yanagi, and the two of them had presumably tuned the rest of the team members out.
"Akaya! Laps!" Sanada barked at Kirihara, who was standing around pestering Marui and Jackal, who were trying to work on swing practice. He nearly jumped out of his own skin when he heard Sanada's voice, and took off running. Sanada followed along beside him. "Yukimura said you'd better keep up today, or else."
Kirihara grimaced and nodded, picking up the pace as Sanada passed him by an arm's length or so. He was tinier so it was harder to keep up with Sanada's longer stride. He sure as anything did not want to get benched or bitched out by Yukimura, though, so he ran as fast as he could to keep up. He figured that his hard work and determination was paying off when he passed Sanada by, and kept running without looking back. He could gloat from the finish line when he was done.
Reaching the end of a lap without Sanada passing him again, Kirihara looked up. At first, he did not see Sanada at all. Puzzled, he slowed his running down a bit. Finally, he noticed Sanada, only a short distance from where Kirihara had passed him while running, kneeling on the ground. Kirihara was puzzled. Had he tripped? No, Sanada would just get up and keep running if he had tripped. He should not have been that far behind. As he jogged toward his vice-captain, Kirihara saw Sanada suddenly fall prostrate on the ground. It looked like his limbs had just crumpled up underneath him and given way.
Kirihara froze.
He tried to make his feet move. Something was seriously, terribly wrong. He could not seem to make his legs move again, though, so he did the only thing he could think of.
"Yukimura-buchou!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. It did not catch Yukimura's attention at first, as Yukimura was used to tuning him out at times. After the second or third cry from Kirihara, however, Yukimura's concentration was broken, and he turned to see exactly the same thing everyone else on the court was seeing at that moment.
Sanada, facedown in a heap of unmoving, muscular physique and disheveled yellow uniform. His hat was missing, having been knocked a few feet away.
"Sanada!" Yukimura felt his heart both leap into his throat and fall into the pit of his stomach simultaneously, somehow. As fast as his legs could move him, he raced toward Sanada's unmoving form. "Sanada! Gen'ichiroh!" Yukimura repeated Sanada's name and shook his body, but there was no response. Somewhere out of the corner of his eye, he saw Yanagi talking into a cellphone, and people had started to gather around.
"Akaya, what the hell happened?" Yukimura shouted, almost accusatorily.
Kirihara, who was already frightened and frozen in place, turned white as a sheet. "I don't know! I didn't do anything! I turned around and he was like that!"
Nioh, Marui, and Jackal kept their distance from Sanada and Yukimura, opting to try and calm Kirihara down instead. Yanagi was still on the phone, walking toward Yukimura, and Yagyuu was behind Yukimura, looking on in disbelief. Yukimura tried to roll Sanada's body over onto his back, but he was completely dead weight.
"Yagyuu, help me..."
Yagyuu wordlessly did as he was told before moving away again. Yukimura tried to feel for breath, for a pulse, anything at all to reassure himself that Sanada had not just somehow dropped dead in front of them all. Loosening the neck of Sanada's jersey, Yukimura felt a faint hint of a pulse under his fingertips when he held them there, but could not see any movement in Sanada's chest. There was no rise and fall. He held his face down close to Sanada's and felt no breath on his cheek.
He could make out Yanagi's conversation on the phone now. He had called an emergency number. Not knowing what else to do, seeing Sanada's color start to fade and turn ashen, Yukimura relied on basic first-aid training that he had received but never thought he would actually have to administer. His hands shook as he tried to jump-start Sanada's weak heartbeat with chest compressions and he had to concentrate hard on keeping his own breathing regular enough to share it with Sanada by forcing oxygen into his unresponsive lungs via mouth breaths.
Yukimura was not sure how long he continued this for. He lost track of time and space. He felt like he was in another dimension, far-removed from everyone and everything but trying to keep Sanada from dying. He was short of breath and dizzy and so hyperfocused on what he was doing that he had to nearly be pulled off Sanada's body when emergency workers arrived with an ambulance. Yanagi had to shake him once or twice to snap him out of it.
Looking around at everyone else on the tennis court and standing back while Sanada's body was loaded onto a stretcher and an oxygen mask was placed over his face, Yukimura swallowed and gathered up his voice.
"Practice is over, everyone go home." He did not stop and wait to see where everyone else went. He asked one of the emergency staff what hospital they were taking Sanada to, and immediately ran off to catch the next bus there. Yanagi followed, not knowing exactly where Yukimura was off to, but he had a good guess. He found Yukimura panting at the bus stop, leaning against a signpost with his eyes closed. He was biting down hard on his lip, and sweat was pouring down his face.
"Seiichi, are you all right?" Yukimura laughed harshly and shook his head in a wordless 'no'. Yanagi pursed his lips. It was a stupid question, really. He could have figured as much. "We'll meet him at the hospital," Yanagi said, trying to be reassuring.
They waited for the bus in silence. They rode the bus in silence. Once they arrived at the hospital, Yanagi asked for directions at a reception desk, and led Yukimura to a room where they were instructed to wait. Yanagi took out his cellphone and contacted Yagyuu, asking him to tell the others where they were and that he would call with more information when he had it. He also asked Yagyuu to call Sanada's parents, just in case the hospital had not contacted them yet.
It seemed as though they waited for days, but it was really just an hour or so before a doctor came to talk to them.
"You're classmates of Sanada-san's from his tennis club, is that correct?" the doctor asked. Because they were not family, he could not reveal too many details, he told them. But he could tell them some basic things.
"Your friend is not going to die," he reassured them. Yukimura breathed perhaps the largest sigh of relief that he had ever felt. He felt tears pricking at his eyes. Sanada would be all right. They would fix whatever was wrong with him, right? If it was not going to kill him, they could fix it.
"That's the good news," the doctor continued. He had given them his name, but everything was so jumbled in Yukimura's brain that he could not remember what it was. It was not important anyway. Sanada would be fine. Then, it hit him. The doctor was pausing. That was just the good news? That implied there was also bad news. Yukimura's sudden relief turned to dread.
"Then... the bad news?" Yukimura did not want to ask, but he had to.
"I'm afraid that for Sanada-san... playing tennis again will not be possible."
Everything that happened after that seemed like a blur to Yukimura. The doctor explained some things, but it sounded like nothing but background noise in Yukimura's head. All he could hear was the doctor saying the same thing over and over. "Playing tennis again will not be possible." What were they all going to do? What was Sanada going to do? How could this possibly be happening? Sanada was one of the healthiest, strongest, most physically fit people he knew. How could he be fine one moment and crippled the next?
By the time the doctor left, Yukimura had worked himself up into a frenzy. Yanagi was talking to him then, telling him that they would be able to see Sanada when he woke up, as he was still unconscious. The doctors were running some more tests, but they had a good idea as to what was wrong with him. Yanagi recited a bunch of medical jargon that Yukimura had no interest in and barely heard.
Not knowing what else to do, he paced. All they could do was wait.
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After laboriously racking his brain, Sanada vaguely remembered participating in tennis practice that day. He remembered agreeing to 'motivate' Kirihara. After that, things got terribly fuzzy. He remembered a sudden, immense, crushing pain in his chest. It had knocked him to his knees. He thought it was some kind of odd cramp, but it intensified as he tried to breathe. Then, he could not breathe. After that, it was all a complete blank. The next thing he recalled was waking up with all the wires sticking into and out of him. That was only minutes ago.
Sitting in silence and darkness, Sanada tried to make sense of what happened. Maybe it was not really that big of a deal. Maybe he had low blood pressure and had just fainted. It could be just a precaution that he was being tended to. Maybe they would let him go home soon.
A soft knock came at the door and a doctor entered. Sanada turned his head to see.
"Sanada-san? Are you awake?" Sanada grunted a soft sound of acknowledgement. He felt so fatigued that speaking was too much effort unless it was necessary.
The doctor introduced himself as a cardiologist. Sanada was puzzled. The doctor asked him several questions about how he had felt before collapsing, and explained in general the tests that had been performed while Sanada had been unconscious. It sounded far more serious than Sanada was willing to accept. Medical terminology and information was swirling around in Sanada's head by the time the doctor was done talking to him. The doctor said they did not have a perfect diagnosis yet, but would be able to confirm it after a few more tests, if the tests came back the way he thought they would. Then, he told Sanada the term for what he believed had happened to him.
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
There was an explanation that went along with it. In the simplest terms, the doctor explained that it meant a part of his heart was too 'thick', and had to work extra hard to pump blood properly. He said that Sanada had likely had no physical symptoms, or had very light ones that were barely noticeable because of his otherwise good health, and that it affected a surprising number of young, healthy, athletic people. Since Sanada had surivived this episode, he would likely be just fine, as long as he got treatment. It was not a death sentence.
When the doctor revealed the details of the recommended treatment, however, Sanada's breath caught in his throat.
Medication. Careful monitoring of his heart. Cessation of physically exerting activities. Absolutely no sports.
Absolutely no tennis.
The doctor was right, Sanada thought. It was not a death sentence.
It was a million times worse.
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The several hours following the doctor's terrible revelation were a frantic jumble for everyone involved. Sanada's parents came and were informed about their son's condition, and left to go take care of emergency preparation and bring some of his personal things to the hospital. Yukimura and Yanagi had gone outside and stayed there until it got dark, and then came back inside to the waiting room again. Team members were called again and informed of new details. Eventually, Yukimura and Yanagi were told by a nurse that they would be allowed to see Sanada. They were told to be very careful, that he was okay but not to upset him or rile him up and put unnecessary stress on his heart.
Sanada was sitting up straight, stoic and silent in his hospital bed. The top part of his hospital gown was pushed back and down around his waist, because several nurses had needed access to attach or remove little electrodes to him to monitor his heart. Upon entering the room and approaching Sanada's bedside, Yanagi tugged the gown back up over Sanada's shoulders and closed the front a bit. Sanada's skin was chilly, but it was an improvement over the dull, ashen way he had looked a few hours ago while unconscious.
Sanada could see that Yukimura's eyes looked red, and Yanagi was almost eerily calm.
"You two can knock it off, already. I'm not dying."
Yukimura stayed silent, but Yanagi spoke. "Don't be cruel, Gen'ichiroh. We're worried about you."
"Well, don't. I already told you. I'm not dying."
"You have to be dying for us to worry?"
"Yes."
Yanagi scoffed and turned away, looking around the hospital room. Yukimura tried to look at Sanada, but his eyes seemed glued to the floor. "I'm sorry..." he whispered in a nearly inaudible voice.
"What?" Sanada looked in Yukimura's direction, not having heard Yukimura clearly.
"I'm sorry..." Yukimura trailed off at the end, as though he had more to say.
"You're... sorry?" Sanada seemed puzzled.
"I'm sorry, but fuck that!" Yukimura exploded suddenly, looking right at Sanada now. "I'll worry about you if I damn well please!" Sanada and Yanagi did not dare speak, but just looked quietly back at Yukimura.
Spying a chair nearby, Yukimura tossed himself into it, sighing. "Don't you dare pull this self-serving martyr crap, Sanada." He took a deep breath. "Not when it's my fault you'll never play tennis again. If I hadn't asked you to run ahead of Akaya..."
"Seiichi, stop," Yanagi interrupted. Sanada waved his hand at Yanagi, however, not wanting him to intervene. There was nothing Yanagi could probably say to help, anyway. Not when Yukimura was being like this.
"What was that about *me* pulling 'self-serving martyr crap', now?" Sanada said, raising an eyebrow. Yukimura shot him a nasty look, but said nothing.
Yanagi shrugged to himself and sighed. "I'm going to leave the two of you alone to deal with this, since there's nothing I can do anyway." He left without another word. It was probably best to give the two of them some time alone anyway. They were both far too prone to taking blame and stress upon themselves unnecessarily, usually in an effort for one to protect the other. They were going to have to figure this one out on their own if things were going to go anywhere at all, constructively.
Yukimura dragged his chair over to Sanada's bedside, sitting silently next to his friend and teammate.
"This has nothing to do with you, Yukimura."
Yukimura snorted. "Great, first Yanagi patronizes me and now you're doing it, too. Am I really that pathetic?"
Sanada's expression steeled. "I'm not patronizing you."
"Then what else do you call it?"
"The truth?"
Yukimura did not have a response for that. They sat in uncomfortable silence for another minute or two before anone spoke again.
"I won't say it again, Yukimura. It's not your fault. I've probably had this for years and didn't know it. If this didn't happen today, it could have happened tomorrow. Or next week. Or next month. Why do you insist on blaming yourself for shit you're not responsible for?"
"It's not like I do it all the time," Yukimura protested.
"The hell you don't. You do it constantly."
"Liar."
"When have I ever lied to you?"
Yukimura was stuck without a response again. "Why do you have to be so fucking *right* all the time? Why can't you just let me deal with it?"
"Because you're too stubborn to know when to quit."
"Oh, God. Who's the hypocrite now?"
"Shut up."
Sanada telling him to shut up usually meant that Yukimura had won whatever argument they were having, so he let it end there. He was quiet again, fidgeting in his chair a bit. He looked over at Sanada.
"So, you want to know why I do ~this~ 'constantly', then?"
Sanada shuffled a bit and tried to get a bit more comfortable. "Yeah."
Yukimura leaned forward in his chair. "If it's up to me to choose who suffers," he began, placing a hand on the hospital bed next to Sanada, twiddling his fingers absent-mindedly. "I'd rather it was me."
Sanada frowned and opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by Yanagi re-entering the room. He had been listening from just outside the door, having left it slightly ajar without Sanada or Yukimura noticing. Yes, perhaps it was not polite to eavesdrop, but there were situations when it was quite possibly called for. This was one of them, in his opinion.
"Not this time, Seiichi," he said, standing next to both Sanada and Yukimura at the bedside. "This isn't a one-person problem. And there isn't a one-person solution. It's going to take all three of us this time. Whether you like it or not."
Yukimura moved his hand over to one of Sanada's, threading his fingers through Sanada's much larger ones. Following his lead, Yanagi grabbed Yukimura's remaining free hand. Yukimura squeezed it.
"I guess it's too bad, then. We're all stuck with each other."
"I guess so," Yanagi nodded, looking back and forth between Sanada and Yukimura.
"Yup," Sanada followed up.
"And all three of us are absolutely clueless and terrified."
"Right," Yanagi agreed.
"Yup," Sanada follwed up, again.
"Okay. Just checking," Yukimura nodded.
"We'll figure something out," Yanagi said.
"I don't even want to think about not playing tennis again," Sanada began. "But if I don't have a choice... the two of you had better keep going without me. Or I'll make your lives miserable."
Yukimura leaned against the side of Sanada's bed and laid his head near Sanada's lap. "You promise?"
"I'll need to find something to do with my time," Sanada answered dryly.
Yanagi shook his head quietly. Some things would never change.
But that was a good thing.