Gift fic for shatteredtenshi
To: shatteredtenshi
From: hilaryscribbles
SEASON'S GREETINGS!
Title: Motor Control (1/2)
Pairing/Group: Ryo/Kame (NEWS/KAT-TUN)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: AU. Some non-graphic medical description and terminology. Ryo wangst and foul language prerequisite, of course.
Notes: My BETA and co-author was incredible throughout the entire process. Elements of the story were dreamed up and written by her. I couldn’t have finished without her help.
Summary: One night, famous baseball player Kamenashi Kazuya falls asleep at the wheel.
Kamenashi Kazuya comes out of the coma ten months after the car accident. When the doctors inform him he may never walk again, that he will definitely never play baseball again, it is as though a light in his mind switches off. He cries for fifteen minutes, head cradled in his mother's arms like a little boy, and then reality hits him: he's made it through. He'd been in a coma. He'll never play baseball again, but he's breathing. He can still see his family. His friends are still around; his team will still go on. He's come out of this thing, and he can still talk and laugh and cry and smile. He is lucky, the doctors tell him. He’s got a system that really knows how to fight back. It’s rare enough that he can feel anything in his legs, after all. He thinks about the “may never” instead of the “never.”
His publicist has press for him: stacks of newspaper clippings, of gossip rags, of internet print-outs. The headlines are all about him, all about the car crash, all about the other car--a tiny little white thing--he'd completely wrecked in the process, his own Prius flipped on its side spread across every front page. Kame's publicist apparently freaked out; when he'd been informed Kame was in the hospital, he promptly called every major publication in Japan, demanding they keep any further information on Kame's crash out of their papers until after Kame's first formal press conference. Of course, ten months later, it's apparent nobody respected his wishes.
Now that Kame’s come to, of course, there will be backlash; Kame knows it. Stars don't get away with episodes like this. A lot of people will forget that he's been paralyzed as a result, but a lot of people won't. His manager and his agent argue over whether or not to bring in their lawyers; what kind of publicity he requires for the whole thing to settle.
Nevertheless, Kame's alive, and the other driver is alive. In the end, that's what matters.
++
He'd been in casts at some point; he knows, the doctors told him, but he can't remember any of it. He just feels weak and rubbery, like his brain isn't connected to his feet. He can feel his legs, and he can sense it when people touch him, when something is hot or cold or painful or itchy (the itchiness is the worst). He can feel his wasted muscles cramping and the way his ankles and knees ache all the time. He can't move anything, though: it's like his body forms an incomplete circle, his brain sending commands to nowhere. What’s worse are his hands, a separate injury from the spinal compression that has ruined his legs; when he’d made impact with the other car, he’d hit his head hard enough to mess up communication between his brain and his arms. His doctor gives him a complicated explanation of his symptoms, something involving nerve fibers and neurons and points of impact and neurological mapping. Kame doesn’t really understand the intricacies of his condition, but he knows this: he will overcome as much as he can, as fast as he can, and that is that.
It’s a pretty discouraging process, though, trying to overcome something so serious. Some weeks after coming to, Kame is in physical therapy, attempting to squeeze a ball between the fingers of his left hand. Sweat is pouring down his face, his teeth buried firmly in his bottom lip. He is in the worst pain of his life, muscles he didn't know he possessed aching horribly. His mother left him to his therapist's devices hours ago, and he feels oddly alone.
After fifteen excruciating minutes he lets the foam ball drop. When it rolls off the table, he shuts his eyes and leans forward, wishing he was asleep. He wonders when the trainer will return; if he'll let Kame have a break or not.
"Oi," comes a harsh, short voice. "OI."
Kame doesn't realize the voice is directed at him until a firm hand grips his shoulder and tugs.
"OI," says a short man, all cheekbones and sharp Kansai-ben. He's holding Kame's ball, glowering at him. "Hey. Don't be careless."
"Ah," Kame takes the ball back, nodding his thanks.
The man watches him for a while, studying Kame's movements; his struggle to properly grip the ball. Kame feels shy, like the stranger is intruding on something intensely private, and he curls away from him as best he can without sending his entire body into a wave of cramps.
"Car accident?" he asks, and Kame nods twice. He figures the guy is joking with him; everybody and their grandparents know Kamenashi Kazuya has been in a car accident.
"Is that so," the stranger replies. "Me too." He taps his head twice with his fingers. "Now I can’t hear anything," he says with a wry, angry smile. "You?"
"They say maybe I won't walk again. Can't even hold a ball," Kame replies listlessly, but he doubts the stranger will understand him. He wonders, a little awkwardly, if maybe he should enunciate a little more or something, if this guy can hear anything at all. He might be a fan or something. (But probably not...not an Osakan.)
Sure enough, the stranger laughs and demands, "What? Can't hear you," like it's really funny. Kame watches him struggle through an angry smile.
"My name's Ryo," the stranger says. He offers a hand for Kame to shake.
Kame takes it and grips Ryo's fingers in the strange, twitchy way he holds everything now. Ryo gets a little buggy-eyed when he feels Kame's fingers tremble as they circle his palm, but he tries not to show that he's startled. Kame wonders if-miraculously-Ryo doesn't recognize him; if Ryo even knows the Giant's star pitcher can't even hold a baseball, much less strike anyone out with it. He seems like maybe he doesn't.
"I was a musician," Ryo says, troubled but sympathetic at the same time.
"I'm Kame," Kame says, chest constricting. Ryo understands. "I'm so sorry."
Hello, Ryo signs. “And don’t be sorry, I don’t need your sympathy.”
“Oh, you sign?” Kame asks, flushing, and tries to recall anything he’s picked up from the few times the team visited elementary schools.
“No,” Ryo rolls his eyes. “They still want me to start learning, but I don't really want to.”
“Ah,” Kame nods. The guy's probably holding out for getting his hearing back; Kame's had a few moments like that himself, but he's too practical for that kind of stubbornness. “Lipreading?”
Ryo shrugs. “I’m okay.”
“Okay,” Kame nods stiffly, and he sighs.
“You look pretty beat up,” Ryo grins wryly. “You broke your nose?”
“No,” Kame scowls, but Ryo just laughs at him.
“Ah,” Ryo replies. “Hey, if you’re ready to stop pouting, you wanna get lunch? We can bitch about how we’ve lost our passions in life and have no idea what to do with ourselves anymore.”
Kame stares at him blankly, not sure how to handle how blasé this guy is. “Oh, that sounds like fun,” he settles on. “I don’t think Takizawa’s done with me yet, though.”
Ryo nods. “Okay. Well, I’m not going anywhere.” Then he just walks away, like they’d never spoken in the first place.
++
The next time Kame sees Ryo, it's because Ryo's found his room. Kame spends five seconds wondering if Ryo is a creepy stalker before deciding he doesn't really mind even if he is. It's pretty boring, being stuck semi-immobile in a hospital (there are only so many crosswords his mother can bring him in the morning).
"Hi," Ryo says, and plops himself into the chair beside Kame's bed. "I'm visiting you."
"I see that," Kame says.
"All I hear is this stupid ringing all the time," Ryo tells Kame. "It gets really boring."
Kame shrugs. "Yeah, I understand."
"So really, what're you gonna do with yourself now that you can't play baseball?"
So he does know. Kame looks up and Ryo's wearing a funny expression, maybe something like displeasure, maybe something like wistfulness. It's weird to see on someone he's only just met.
"Well," Kame replies slowly, "I'm not sure. I haven't gotten that far."
"Go save the world, maybe," Ryo says. "Do something good with yourself. Don't waste yourself on something stupid."
Kame blinks at him, amazed. A lot of people have said these sorts of things to him-fans, his mother, his coach; it's hard not to receive support for something so traumatic when you're a national baseball star. This, though...this is somehow different, coming from Ryo.
"Okay," Kame says blankly, really thinking about it. "Okay."
"Right," Ryo nods, and then pulls himself to his feet. "Bye."
"Wait!" Kame calls, but it's sort of pointless, because Ryo can't hear him.
You should do the same, Kame wants to tell him.
++
Kame receives a letter from some mother somewhere chiding him for being a horrible role model for her children. How dare someone so important drive so recklessly. How dare he let her family down like this. Kame had been their hero.
Kame barely pulls himself out of bed that morning, and physical therapy is a nightmare. Kame's legs won't cooperate even though he can feel all of the pain each movement induces in them, his muscles are wound so tightly his forearms tremble when he tries to drum his fingers on the table, and his chest throbs when he tries to rotate his arms in circles. He's so grateful he's retained his sensory control and organ function and all those other little bodily processes everyone takes for granted, but right now, it just really hurts to be Kamenashi Kazuya.
It's made worse because Ryo keeps staring at him from the other side of the room. He's running on a treadmill and some ludicrously jealous part of Kame wants to reach out and hit him; knock him off the thing.
Sometime later, they're sitting together at a table, Kame half-slumped in his wheelchair, Ryo wiping sweat off his forehead with the edge of his T-shirt. Ryo tells Kame his family is in Osaka, and Ryo can't decide whether he wants them to visit or not.
"They don't know you were in an accident?" Kame asks, shocked. He can't imagine hiding something like this from his parents.
"My mom will cry," Ryo says, greatly annoyed, dark, sharp eyes rolling skyward in his head. He’s attempting to sign, but not really, since Kame can’t understand anything and Ryo has no command of the vocabulary yet anyway.
"Moms crying are the worst," Kame nods, trying not to think of his own mother; of the letter, of all the fans he's disappointed. Ryo's already pretty good at reading lips, so he's always watching Kame's mouth, always carefully calculating things out. Kame tries to slow his words down, but when he does, Ryo gets mad and tells Kame to stop babying him. Right now, he really wishes Ryo would stop watching.
"You got a family, Kamenashi?" Ryo asks.
"Yeah," Kame says. "Mom, dad. Siblings."
"That it?"
"Yeah," Kame's tries to roll his shoulders but his back tenses up instead, and he scowls in frustration.
"Here," says Ryo, and comes around the back of Kame's wheelchair to dig fingers into Kame's stiff neck muscles. Kame winces and nods his gratitude, teeth gritted. Ryo is careful not to touch Kame's spine.
"Damn," Ryo hisses, "what's wrong with you today?"
"Fanmail," Kame mutters, turning so Ryo can see his face.
"Fanmail?" Ryo laughs derisively. "Fanmail should make you happy, all that ass kissing."
"It wasn't happy fanmail," says Kame. "I'm not happy." Then he turns around again.
"For the Giants' star pitcher, you sure are a pussy," Ryo says, gently squeezing a particularly sensitive spot. “What happened?”
Kame turns back around, put-out. “Some mother told me I’m awful. Her son was a fan, but now he’s not, because I’m a bad driver.”
Ryo’s grins. “Well, you are.” Kame turns his face back around, but Ryo grabs it. “She's stupid, though; everybody gets in car wrecks, don't they? You’re not awful. Write back and apologize or some shit, you know, whatever you stars do. Give them an autograph. Tell them you’re like, glad he was a fan. Write them personally. Tell the kid you’ll visit him or something, in your wheelchair. That oughtta shut them up.”
Kame laughs a little half-heartedly.
“Hey,” Ryo says, and he’s a little bit gentler, hands stilling on Kame’s shoulders. “You get all these stupid drippy letters from people. Why’re you letting one pissy one spoil your day? Ignore it. Go back to the ones begging for your hand in marriage, you pussy.”
Ryo’s a pretty cool guy.
++
Kame, Ryo, and a bunch of other patients with partial paralysis and neurological injuries are sitting in required group therapy. It’s sort of embarrassing, to be honest, but as Kame looks around at the other participants, he’s filled with a strange sense of community…not to mention thankfulness. He can do a lot of things the other patients can’t. He can still brush his hair. He can still form complete sentences. He still has his original face. He can remember his childhood. Everybody in their group is a twenty-something guy, and Kame thinks that’s pretty fair of the counselors. They don’t have to worry about being strong in front of anybody else when they’re all in the same boat.
Ryo’s being a bitch, though.
“I’m Kamenashi,” Kame shrugs. “You guys know my story.” He smiles; shrugs.
“Hey, you have some sick strike average, man!” says an Okinawan. He’s blind in his left eye and can’t taste anything. “I was at the Grand Slam last year, and you guys killed that American team. Can I have an autograph?”
Kame grins and tosses him his stress ball.
“Sweet,” the kid replies.
“I love horses,” says the guy who lost mobility on his left side. He talks like he had a stroke, but he’s still bright and easygoing like the country boy he is. Hokkaido, Kame thinks, maybe. Kame likes him instantly. “I still love them.”
BOO HOO Ryo writes in the notepad he’s holding. he can still hug his stupid horses
Ryo gets like this, Kame’s found, when he has to deal with emotional stuff. Kame thinks it’s because he’s secretly this weepy thirteen year old girl.
shut up ryo Kame mouths back. stop feeling sorry for yourself
Ryo starts pouting, but Kame touches his wrist before he can really commit to it. beethoven went deaf right he continues, face hidden from the group behind his hand. didn’t stop him
Ryo's eyes narrow, but when it’s his time to address the group, he says, “I’m Ryo. I was a guitarist. It was the damn steering wheel and I’m deaf now. Just like fuckin’ Beethoven.” When everybody starts laughing, he smirks, eyes sliding sideways to meet Kame’s.
++
A few days later, Kame's legal representative shows up during lunch carrying a thick file full of papers. He's a tall, thin man with a bright face and commanding voice. Kame pushes himself up on his elbows (he's been able to do this since Thursday and it's sort of awesome), scooting toward the other side of the bed.
Kato-san sits with his legs folded, glasses perched on his nose. "You know, you're really lucky they didn't sue, Kamekun."
"Yeah," Kame nods his relief. "Were they going to?"
"They were thinking about it," Kato-san replies carefully. "They had a change of heart."
Kame sighs, the edge of a headache cutting across his eyebrows. "You didn't pay them off, did you?"
Kato-san shakes his head. He smiles enigmatically, as he is wont to do. "We didn't have to."
"What happened, then?" Kame asks.
"It's not important," Kato-san replies. "They actually wished you the best of health."
Kame's jaw drops to the floor. "Are you serious? I read the newspaper article; the other driver was supposed to be in serious condition--"
"He's getting better," Kato-san smiles.
Kame shakes his head in wonder. “Man. Who is this guy?”
Kato-san pulls out a few forms for Kame to look over, still grinning. “He‘s a writer; really big with foreign audiences. His name is Nico. Ever heard of him?”
“Wow, and it‘s legally, just…Nico,” Kame says, tilting his head from side to side as he reads through the reports. “I can’t believe there hasn’t been any press on him.”
“You have enough money, you can do that,” Kato-san shrugs. “You’re both high-profile people. You didn’t have much say in any of this--you were unconscious. He wasn’t.”
“Seriously,” Kame shakes his head. “I wish they’d just left me alone.” Kame shifts stiffly, clutching at his thighs. “You don’t think I could get in contact with him, do you?”
“He’s sort of private,” Kato-san replies, shifting uncomfortably. “He’s not the type to be bothered.”
“How will I thank him, then?” Kame asks.
“I don’t think he wants to be thanked,” Kato-san replies a little distantly.
++
Ryo is really hot. Kame notices one day when Takizawa points him out, carefully writing in a journal. They're all at lunch, and Ryo's sitting by himself. Kame wonders why he doesn’t just go home and eat regular food that doesn’t taste like hospital-issue cardboard.
"Watch," Takizawa sighs. (He's been a gossipy thirteen year old girl ever since discovering Kame likes men. He'd been a gossipy girl before that too, really; he does appreciate that Kame's famous after all, but now he's worse.) "Look, Kame. He's biting his lip now."
"Mmmm," Kame nods appreciatively. "He's got the most perfect cheekbones."
"It's a good thing he isn't my patient," Takizawa says, grinning. "You two are friends, right?"
Kame grins silkily. "We talk, yeah."
Ryo looks up at them, and Kame gives a slightly uncoordinated wave. Ryo rolls his eyes but waves back, and Takizawa starts laughing because he's blushing.
++
Ryo and Kame see each other at least twice a week. They attend physical therapy and the coping sessions together, they sometimes eat lunch together; most of the time, Ryo complains and Kame makes fun of him (or vice-versa). It’s an easy companionship, partly because Kame’s more easygoing about things when somebody else is freaking out instead-and Ryo pouts and freaks out and complains more than anyone Kame’s ever known.
Even before the accident, even while on the team with his friends and colleagues, Kame can’t remember feeling so connected to someone.
++
“You ever heard of Nico?” Kame asks. Ryo’s stayed for lunch again after an uncharacteristically difficult counseling session.
“Who?”
“Nico. I guess he’s a writer.” Kame sighs. “He’s the guy I hit.”
“Oh,” Ryo says. “Why?” He’s in a bad mood.
“I just want to see how he’s doing. Maybe say thank you for keeping all of this under-wraps.”
“What’re you gonna do, send him consolatory chocolates?”
“Maybe something like that,” Kame shrugs. They're sitting on the grass in the courtyard reserved especially for long-term patients, a picnic basket from Kame's sister spread out between them. Kame still has trouble using chopsticks properly, but he’s pretty good at stabbing things one at a time. “Hey, Ryo, did you ever watch me play?”
It’s just Kame’s luck, really, that he’s doing well on a day Ryo is having trouble. He picks apart Kamenashi-san's onigiri like a child. "Don't support your team," Ryo says bluntly, eyes hidden behind sunglasses. He's still sensitive to light.
“Right. Well, I was thinking, maybe I could hold a benefit,” Kame muses, handing sauce to Ryo. “You know, like for kids. Who’re hurt?” It’s Ryo who can’t grip the bottle today, though.
“Damnit,” Ryo hisses, spilling Kikkoman all over his food.
”Hey, no worries,” Kame shrugs. “There’s more.”
Ryo doesn’t say anything; he hasn’t noticed Kame talking. Kame reaches out and taps Ryo's foot.
"Hey. What's wrong? What can I do for you?" Kame asks, worried now, setting his plate down on the blanket.
"I’m a grumpy bastard. And nothing’s wrong," Ryo snaps. Then he climbs to his feet and wanders off toward the hospital again, palm pressed against the side of his head.
Later that day, Kame bugs Ryo's nurse to tell him what's happened. The nurse tells him to stop meddling with her patients, like Kame’s done something wrong.
++
Kame agrees to hold a press conference. His coach seems troubled.
"If you do that, Kamenashi," he says slowly, "the entire world will associate you with this injury. They'll associate the team with this injury. Do you want that?"
“They already do,” Kame replies.
“Well, these things can change.”
"I'm not going to wake up and walk tomorrow, Coach," Kame says, frowning. "Nobody knows whether or not this is permanent. I mean, I hope it‘s not. But you know, you have to prepare for these things." He thinks of that angry mother and sighs. “I think it’ll be good for the kids who’ve gone through the same things I have, you know? Everybody needs another positive role model.”
"You don't know that," the coach says. "Nobody knows for sure."
“What, that the kids will still like me? Yeah, true. I might seem patronizing.”
“You know what I mean. The walking.”
Kame goes to shrug, but his elbows twitch instead. "It's a pretty sure thing, though-about tomorrow, anyway. And it’s okay, I’m okay now. I can do good things now."
"There are no sure things in life, Kamenashi," his coach says quietly, like it's a secret.
++
Kame tries to get in contact with Nico’s representatives, maybe find out a little information on who he is, but it’s difficult to. He’s written a few award-winning books, a rock opera, and some comic book collaboration about an alien who falls in love with a chicken. There are no photographs of him anywhere, and he’s never held an interview. He’s quite a mystery.
His agent is the worst.
“He left my agency a few months ago,” she says. “I doubt he’d be willing to talk with you even if he was still working with us.”
“Do you know anything else about him?” Kame asks. “I just want to thank him for being so-”
“Even if I did, I wouldn’t discuss it with you,” she replies coldly.
++
Kame doesn't see Ryo for a few weeks, not until after the press conference, but when he does, Ryo is furious.
"Ryo," Kame wheels himself over, grinning. "Check this out, I can do it on manual now.” He points to his left knuckles, white where he clutches the wheelchair tire. He turns the wheels three rotations before returning to his joystick. “Hey, where the hell've you been? Are you bothering with sign language yet? Look, I can do toilet." He carefully makes his left hand into a fist, and then drops it when his wrist starts twitching.
"Look at this," Ryo snarls. "Look at this crap." He's stiffer than usual, and there is a new bald patch on the left side of his head.
"Did you see this crap they wrote about you?" Ryo laughs in that cold, barking, way of his. "They make your life into a soap opera. You're like a fucking figurehead now. They don‘t even mention that you‘re getting better! All they talk about are your damned legs! They haven‘t been cut off, have they?!!"
"That's what they do to us when these things happen," Kame shrugs. “Might as well do something good with myself, right?” He takes the paper and skims through it, chuckling a bit at the part mentioning his suspected alcoholism; the drug use...the golden boy fallen prey to the pressures of fame. "Pressures of fame, huh?" Kame grins. "Guess they don't consider being too tired to stay awake at the wheel one of the side effects, though. And why is it always cocaine? Cocaine is so last century."
"You oughtta sue, the way they make you out to be some...some...junky...martyr...prince," Ryo snaps, and he isn't even pretending to read Kame's lips. He's just raging. "I hate these bastards."
Kame grins. "I guess you're still my fan, then."
"Your fan! Fuck off, I hate the Giants," Ryo snaps back, and marches off in all the indignity his jerky limbs will allow.
++
Takizawa’s got Kame folded in a pretzel, every nerve in his legs firing, and Kame asks through gritted teeth, “What’s happened to him?”
“Dunno,” Takizawa replies, grinning around clenched teeth. Kame’s giving him a run for his money today. “He was complaining about you yesterday, when he was having trouble with the pencil.”
“Having trouble with a pencil?” Kame asks, and suddenly his leg spasms, knee jerking toward Takizawa’s face.
“Not all the time; only when the pressure fluctuates. Post-injury repercussions or something, I don't know; nobody‘s talking. Did you see that! Ha-ha!” he pumps the air with his fist. “Kame, you almost kicked me right now!”
“That was my subconscious. You are so unprofessional,” Kame replies, falling back on the mat with a moan. “That hurt.” He pauses to catch his breath for a moment, and then he curls up to stare into Takizawa’s face. “So he’s having trouble with his hands again? And what do you mean, ‘pressure?’”
Takizawa shrugs, wiping his hands off on the towel that hangs around his neck. “You didn’t hear it from me, okay?”
“What’s wrong with him?” Kame blinks sweat out of his eyes.
Takizawa considers Kame for a few moments before making up his mind. “You’re famous. You can keep a secret.”
“Of course,” Kame says, impatient.
“So…Tsuba told me last night Ryo’s got pressure in his head,” Takizawa says very, very softly. “He was readmitted just a couple of days ago.”
“Probably because it’s so full of hot air,” Kame mutters, but this is really, really bad news. He worries his lip. “Is he. Are they going to perform surgery or something?”
Takizawa pats Kame’s head. “Probably,” he says. “Wanna go see him?”
“I’ve been trying to,” Kame sighs. “I don‘t know if he‘ll see me, though. I tried calling him on his cell and he won‘t pick up.”
“He won’t ignore me,” Takizawa grins. “He’s trying to set me up with that cute guy in 51B.”
“Ryo has?”
“Well, after a little encouragement on my part.”
“Takizawa,” Kame groans. “That kid is like, eighteen. And does he even like men?”
“Hey, who’d’ve thought the King of the Giants was a homo, okay?”
Kame deadpans first, and then he shudders. “Not to mention he’s your patient.”
”How else are you supposed to meet people working in a hospital?” Takizawa rolls his eyes. “Come on, you miss him. Let’s go.”
“Ryo sounds like he’s not the only one setting people up,” Kame replies, suspicious, and Takizawa just leers in response.
++
Ryo is in his room, and he does answer the door when Takizawa buzzes. (Ryo’s got a cool device rigged up that makes his bed vibrate when someone rings for him.) Luckily, Kame is too far below the range of the door’s peep hole for Ryo to see, and Takizawa's face is right in his line of vision.
“Look, you ass,” Ryo snarls, throwing open the door, “I am not setting you up with some baby jock!” (Taisuke-the patient in room 51B-is a soccer player with a minor concussion.) “Just take your perve-“ He pauses, and looks down. “Oi. Kame.”
Then he turns purple.
“The hell do you want?” he mutters, pretty obviously guilty.
“You have been avoiding me,” Kame replies. “Now let me in. And you can’t blame your brain injury-induced…PMS for being so rude, okay? ‘cuz we all go through it, and I’m still nice to you.”
“Not only are you a cradle robber,” Ryo hisses at Takizawa, “you’re a saboteur. I oughtta have you fired. Get out of my sight.”
Takizawa grins brightly, gives Ryo the thumbs up and pats Kame’s shoulder as he leaves. Ryo and Kame share a bit of a visual stand-off before Ryo relents and holds the door open.
“Well?” Ryo says. “Get in here.”
Kame wheels himself in, parking at Ryo’s bed. Ryo won’t look at him as he closes his door, sitting down on the bed with his arms crossed over his chest. It’s weird to see him holed up in his room in a hospital gown, unnatural in a way most of the other patients aren‘t. Perhaps it’s because Ryo looks fine, if not tired, like he shouldn’t be there.
Kame taps Ryo’s knee a few times until he’ll look up at him. Ryo refuses for a good two minutes before he finally turns to Kame, wearing the bleakest expression Kame’s ever seen.
"You look like you're doing better," Ryo grunts.
"I am," Kame nods. "How are you?"
“I haven’t been learning sign language,” Ryo says, “because I don't like the way my hands move.”
Kame nods again, biting his lip. Poor Ryo; no wonder he's been hiding himself away.
“So I guess my brain is swollen or something,” Ryo says, blunt and loud again, and he scowls. “They don't really know why, but I guess this sorta happens to people with head trauma. They're gonna butcher me, though. Look what they did to my hair.”
Kame gasps, eyes going wide. Not because of Ryo‘s hair, of course, even though it is pretty bad. “Your doctors don't know why?”
“What did I just say?” Ryo snaps. “No, I was just kidding. Ha-ha!”
“Shut up, Ryo,” Kame replies, pulling himself closer. “And they’re not butchering you; don’t say stuff like that.”
“Yes it is!” Kame recognizes the way Ryo’s hands start to flap a little, because his do the same thing. Head injuries suck. “And don’t freak out, okay, because that's the last thing I need, sympathy from you of all people.”
It’s pretty apparent how frightened Ryo is; not only is he being a bigger bitch than usual, he‘s lost weight and he‘s got dark circles under his eyes. Kame presses his bad hand to Ryo’s knee, making sure Ryo feels the shake as he closes his fingers over Ryo’s kneecap.
“Who’s being the pussy now?” Kame asks, slow and steady just the way Ryo hates it, and Ryo literally snarls at him, lip curled and everything. “You’ll be okay, Ryo. That's all you have to tell yourself.”
Ryo smacks his hand against Kame’s wrist, fingers icy on Kame’s skin. "I wish you'd just leave me alone," Ryo mutters.
"Oh well," Kame says. "You're stuck with me."
Ryo goes soft, even though the haunted expression in his eyes remains. He traces the bump of Kame's wrist bone; drops his hand to the bed. He smoothes his fingers over the scratchy hospital sheets, poking the little flowers that decorate them.
"Hey, if they ever have to reset any of your bones,” Ryo says, cool again, “make sure they reset your nose too. What the hell is wrong with it? Are you sure that wasn't caused by the accident?”
“Don't disappear on me again," Kame says fondly. "Next time you try it, I'll probably be able to beat you up."
++
It’s been a few months of searching and Kame’s sort of given up on getting in touch with Nico or any of his representatives. Everyone has been elusive; even the publishers aren’t talking.
“I think he’s gone overseas?” says a sweet-voiced intern who is both starstruck and doe-eyed in the face of Kame’s acquired superstar charm. (He’s still damn good at it. No mere car crash could take that from him.)
“Oh, really?” Kame thinks back to the accident reports he’d read; the way the other car crumpled against Kame’s Prius. “How is he doing?”
“Well, fine, I guess, if he’s overseas,” she says. “Is there anything else I can help you with, Kamenashi-san?”
Kame knows it’s a long shot, but he asks, “I don’t know. What else do you know about him?”
“Nothing,” she says, and it’s honest, completely honest. “He’s so mysterious!”
Kame hangs up, disappointed. Nobody knows anything about Nico. It’s almost as though he doesn’t actually exist.
++
Ryo’s fallen asleep on the chair next to Kame’s bed when Kame’s friends show up. There are only a few of them-guys from the team, mostly, and one of the waterboys. There’s Yoshinobu, who has bandages wrapped all over his wrist, and Nomaguchi, who is afraid of hospitals. Takayuki is cute like a little boy, and Marc Kroon is a skinny American guy with a kind smile. They are all really loud, and there’s a camera with them.
Kame is a little uncomfortable…in fact, he’s a little horrified, but he hasn’t seen any of the guys since the press conference, so it’s a pretty welcome sort of horror.
Ryo, however, is not amused. If he wasn’t so out of it, he’d have hidden under the bed or something by now.
The guys are obnoxious and boisterous and Kame gets obnoxious and boisterous with them, and they wheel him all over the room and make his chair pop wheelies like little children. Kame insists on introducing Ryo to them, Ryo who is his new friend who can’t hear but is really brave, and Ryo just glares at everyone, blank and sullen. Kame’s friends sort of stare at him in confusion for a few seconds before the cameraman suggests taking a tour of the hospital. Kame nods, and calls a few of the “regular crew-“ his doctor, his anesthesiologist, the young intern in psychiatrics he and Ryo like messing with and, of course, Takizawa-to see if they’d be willing to be interviewed. Everyone agrees, of course.
"Come with us," Kame says, slapping Ryo's leg.
"No," Ryo says flatly.
"Why not?" Kame rolls his eyes. "Have some fun. It won't kill you."
Ryo refuses to look at him until Kame just gives up and leaves.
When Kame finally comes back, Ryo is still sitting in his chair, unamused.
“You’ve been here the whole time?” Kame frowns.
“They better not televise that with my hair looking the way it does,” Ryo snaps, pointing to the bald spot, as Kame’s nurse helps him into bed.
Kame laughs, loud and barking, even though he’s exhausted. “Aw, poor Ryo. You didn’t sign any release forms anyway; I don’t think they’ll broadcast you.”
“Any what?” Ryo asks.
“Release forms,” Kame repeats. He thanks the nurse and bids her goodnight. Ryo waves absentmindedly. “Anyway, go to bed. What’re you still doing here?”
Ryo crosses his arms over his chest. “Waiting for you to stop being an attention whore.”
Kame rolls his eyes. “If you wanted to have a sleepover, you could’ve just said something. We’ll call Takeuchi-sensei and let him know you’re here.”
“Shut up, I’m not staying here.”
Kame grins. “But you’re lonely.”
“I am not,” snaps Ryo. "I don't need to be surrounded by people all the time like you do."
Kame almost cuts Ryo a new one for that remark, but stops when he sees the way Ryo's sort of curled into himself, face turned toward the window. He's lying, Kame realizes. He's worse than Kame is. He and Kame haven't gone a single day without seeing each other since Takizawa tricked Ryo into talking to Kame again.
Kame taps Ryo's cheek until Ryo will look at him again.
“Seriously,” Kame says, “why haven’t you told anyone yet? Aren’t your friends worried about you?”
Ryo blinks slowly. “I told them not to come,” he says after a moment.
Kame sits up, brow furrowed. “Ryo, don't be that way. They're your friends, you don't have to be-”
“What?” Ryo grumbles. “We couldn’t do anything together anyway.”
“What do you mean?” Kame asks, annoyed. “They’re your friends, you don’t just. Just. DO things together.”
Ryo just deadpans at Kame like he’s the biggest idiot in the world. When Kame doesn’t say anything, he harrumphs loudly. “Are you stupid? They’re all in the band! We jam together, okay? They can’t see me like this.”
There’s an awkward silence, and then Kame says, a little disgusted, “Your friends won't visit you in the hospital because they can’t jam with you? What assholes.”
"I can't understand you!" Ryo shouts, jumping out of the chair.
"YOUR FRIENDS ARE ASSHOLES," Kame shouts back.
“No,” Ryo says angrily. “Don’t say shit like that! They’re not like that!”
“Then you’re just being a coward and making excuses,” Kame replies, and grabs the edge of the bed to help roll over. “I can’t believe you’re embarrassed just because you hit your head and you can’t hear anymore. You're going to waste your entire life, being like this.”
“What?” Ryo snaps. “What did you just say?”
Kame ignores him.
“Fuck you!” Ryo cries, knees shaking.
“Yeah, whatever, you’re still too good for them anyway,” Kame replies, blanket pulled over his face.
++
The next morning, Ryo’s in his room again. Kame wakes up to find him on the floor, though, not the chair.
“Ryo?” Kame asks sleepily, peering over the bed’s guard rail. “Oi. Ryo.”
Ryo doesn’t respond.
Kame hisses a few curses before paging the doctor, half-panicked. Ryo is still in Kame’s room because he’d never actually left.
++
Ryo wakes up to find Kame freaking out all over him.
"Oh my god," Kame says, and puts his hands all over Ryo's face, sliding twitching thumbs over his cheekbones and behind his ears. "You are an idiot. You're a big stupid idiot."
"What's going on?" Ryo asks groggily, and Kame wonders if he knows who he's talking to; if he's seen Kame’s mouth moving or not.
When his eyes flutter closed again, Kame decides he probably hasn't. When he does wake up again, they get in another fight, this time about Ryo taking better care of himself. Ryo just gets stupidly defensive, forgets what he was talking about, and asks for ramen.
++
Kame’s concern for Nico wavers in and out: some days all he can think about is the accident; on other days-the good days-Kame almost forgets anyone else was involved in the crash.
There are photographs on the internet he has access to; transcribed details of the event kept by the police department. Nico’s license plate numbers, address, and former phone number are easy enough to find, but every bit of paperwork leads him to a dead end. Nico’s number has been disconnected, his former apartment rented out to foreign models, his car totaled. Kame is granted permission to speak with the officers who were at the scene, to the paramedics as well, but nobody seems to remember what Nico looked like. Even if they do, it’s a ridiculously generic description; they can’t even tell Kame an accurate height. There is only so much Kame can do to track down Nico’s current whereabouts; he keeps running into laws about privacy he didn’t know existed, and people who know Nico but refuse to say one thing or another about him. The guy has no family, no former aliases floating around, no crackpot conspiracies about who he actually is circulating the internet. There is one website in English dedicated to the biblical messages inherent in Nico's work, but that does Kame no good whatsoever. Perhaps strangest of all is the lack of press on Nico’s involvement in the crash. Kame figures there must be people paid off all over the place to keep his identity so secret. It’s like Kame is chasing the ghost of a man who never existed at all.
++
Kame's mom is late making her thrice-weekly morning visit, and Kame decides he wants her to meet Ryo. They ride the elevator to the neurological ward, happily chatting about Kame's brother and his goofy new girlfriend, and they stop by the nurse's station to say hello to Takizawa and Kame's nurse, Tanakasan.
Ryo is reading a comic book when they arrive, and he stares at Kame in shock for a few moments.
"Kaasan," he says, smiling at Ryo, "this is Ryo. Ryo, this is my mom." He turns to his mother and says, "Ryo's parents are in Osaka."
"Oh, my," his mother gasps. "That's so far."
Ryo is totally furious with Kame for a good five minutes before he turns into a complete softy. From then on out, Kame's mom spoils Ryo worse than she does her own children. Ryo really misses his parents. Kame thinks he's a big idiot.
++
On the morning Kame' moves his little toe an entire centimeter to the right, Ryo is transferred to the hospital’s live-in quarters across the courtyard. It’s more work for Kame to visit him, but Takizawa insists the exercise is good for Kame anyway. Ryo’s new nurse, a gentle, witty thing named Koyama (who everyone refers to as Keichan), is much nicer to Kame than Ryo’s last caretaker. Ryo likes him better, too.
“How’re you holding up?” Kame asks on a cold Monday morning.
“I go in for surgery in three weeks,” Ryo says. He’s sitting cross-legged on his bed, shadow-eyed, and he’s slurring pretty badly. The slurring is normal, his doctors tell him.
Kame nods, resting his chair beside Ryo’s bed. “That’s good. You’ll feel better.” He pauses. “What is it for?”
“Well, the pressure, you know,” Ryo shrugs. “Normal stuff. Takeuchi-sensei says there’s a chance that I’ll recover hearing, if the tinnitus was you know. Exacerbated by swelling, or something.”
“That’s good!” Kame says, delighted.
“Uh, yeah, sure, if they don’t hit anything that’ll make me go blind, too,” Ryo grumbles. He’s got a clamp in his left hand, and he’s squeezing it open, closed, open, closed in a half-hearted, steady rhythm.
“They won’t,” Kame says, but it’s a pretty empty promise; he knows that. “Think positive, you brat.”
“I can’t believe I'm the one getting worse. You're the one that like, almost died,” Ryo mutters. “You’re the one who’s basically a quadriplegic.”
Kame ignores that, not least of all because he isn’t in any way, shape or form. “Ryo, it’s going to be okay, okay? And if it’s not, well. Well.” Kame takes a deep breath. “There are ways to get around it. Life goes on.”
“For you,” Ryo mutters. “You have children to save or something. You‘re going to fucking walk again.”
“Hey,” Kame grabs for him and yanks him forward. It's the strongest grip he's managed since before the accident. “Look. You were the one that snapped me out of my bullshit. Now it‘s my turn."
"I did not," Ryo cuts in, pouting spectacularly. "You snapped yourself out of it. You were born snapped out of it. You're just this miracle bundle of competence and determination that can do anything you want to and save the children of the world and still look good in...girl's pants when you can't even fuck someone properly."
Kame rolls his eyes. "That didn't even make sense, Ryo. What do girl's pants have to do with anything? And who says I can't fuck someone properly?"
Ryo pauses. "Well, I don't know. Can you?"
Kame deadpans. "Stop changing the subject. You aren’t working with me here.”
“Maybe I don’t want to be worked with,” Ryo says, twisting himself away, nearly catching Kame with the clamp he's holding. His foot spasms and he loses his balance, and Kame has to push him backwards to keep him from falling off the bed. Kame really wishes he could just stand up and...sit on him or something.
“Maybe you just want to be difficult,” Kame says, hands struggling to keep their hold on Ryo's shirt, elbows locking up warningly as Ryo struggles. Ryo just closes his eyes like a little kid, effectively blocking Kame out.
“Don’t do this today,” Ryo barks. Kame's fingers go weak, hands tingling, as Ryo jerks backward. Ryo sways just slightly and Kame tries to steady him, but Kame can’t do it; his elbows won’t respond. Ryo falls forward a little, just enough that Kame’s shoulders block him from falling off the bed, and he‘s cold and a little clammy. "I'm really fucking scared, okay?" he tells Kame’s temple.
Kame breathes into Ryo’s hair for a few moments. It smells clean and antiseptic, like baby shampoo, but Ryo‘s skin is all musky, like sweat, like the outdoors. "It'll make you feel better," Kame says against his ear, and drops his momentarily useless left hand onto Ryo's thigh. It’s nice to be so close to someone. Kame hasn’t been this close to someone in a year and a half.
"I can‘t hear you," Ryo says dully.
“God,” Kame sighs, laughing a little helplessly as he pulls away. “We are such a pair. We really are.”
“Fuck,” Ryo mutters, giving up on the clamp. He scoots closer again, straddling Kame's shoulders with his knees. He stares hard into Kame's face, all grim determination. “Fuck, Kame. I really hate you sometimes.”
“You know, you don't scare me when you pull stuff like this,” Kame grins, still chuckling a little. Ryo is shaking, but not in the way his hands shake. Kame’s first girlfriend shook like this. It’s cute.
“I should,” Ryo says. Kame imagines him whispering; imagines the tender lilt his voice would take on when talking to a lover. “I’m emotionally unstable.”
“I’m famous,” Kame coos. “I’m used to emotionally unstable people.”
Ryo kisses him full on the mouth.
Part 2
From: hilaryscribbles
SEASON'S GREETINGS!
Title: Motor Control (1/2)
Pairing/Group: Ryo/Kame (NEWS/KAT-TUN)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: AU. Some non-graphic medical description and terminology. Ryo wangst and foul language prerequisite, of course.
Notes: My BETA and co-author was incredible throughout the entire process. Elements of the story were dreamed up and written by her. I couldn’t have finished without her help.
Summary: One night, famous baseball player Kamenashi Kazuya falls asleep at the wheel.
Kamenashi Kazuya comes out of the coma ten months after the car accident. When the doctors inform him he may never walk again, that he will definitely never play baseball again, it is as though a light in his mind switches off. He cries for fifteen minutes, head cradled in his mother's arms like a little boy, and then reality hits him: he's made it through. He'd been in a coma. He'll never play baseball again, but he's breathing. He can still see his family. His friends are still around; his team will still go on. He's come out of this thing, and he can still talk and laugh and cry and smile. He is lucky, the doctors tell him. He’s got a system that really knows how to fight back. It’s rare enough that he can feel anything in his legs, after all. He thinks about the “may never” instead of the “never.”
His publicist has press for him: stacks of newspaper clippings, of gossip rags, of internet print-outs. The headlines are all about him, all about the car crash, all about the other car--a tiny little white thing--he'd completely wrecked in the process, his own Prius flipped on its side spread across every front page. Kame's publicist apparently freaked out; when he'd been informed Kame was in the hospital, he promptly called every major publication in Japan, demanding they keep any further information on Kame's crash out of their papers until after Kame's first formal press conference. Of course, ten months later, it's apparent nobody respected his wishes.
Now that Kame’s come to, of course, there will be backlash; Kame knows it. Stars don't get away with episodes like this. A lot of people will forget that he's been paralyzed as a result, but a lot of people won't. His manager and his agent argue over whether or not to bring in their lawyers; what kind of publicity he requires for the whole thing to settle.
Nevertheless, Kame's alive, and the other driver is alive. In the end, that's what matters.
++
He'd been in casts at some point; he knows, the doctors told him, but he can't remember any of it. He just feels weak and rubbery, like his brain isn't connected to his feet. He can feel his legs, and he can sense it when people touch him, when something is hot or cold or painful or itchy (the itchiness is the worst). He can feel his wasted muscles cramping and the way his ankles and knees ache all the time. He can't move anything, though: it's like his body forms an incomplete circle, his brain sending commands to nowhere. What’s worse are his hands, a separate injury from the spinal compression that has ruined his legs; when he’d made impact with the other car, he’d hit his head hard enough to mess up communication between his brain and his arms. His doctor gives him a complicated explanation of his symptoms, something involving nerve fibers and neurons and points of impact and neurological mapping. Kame doesn’t really understand the intricacies of his condition, but he knows this: he will overcome as much as he can, as fast as he can, and that is that.
It’s a pretty discouraging process, though, trying to overcome something so serious. Some weeks after coming to, Kame is in physical therapy, attempting to squeeze a ball between the fingers of his left hand. Sweat is pouring down his face, his teeth buried firmly in his bottom lip. He is in the worst pain of his life, muscles he didn't know he possessed aching horribly. His mother left him to his therapist's devices hours ago, and he feels oddly alone.
After fifteen excruciating minutes he lets the foam ball drop. When it rolls off the table, he shuts his eyes and leans forward, wishing he was asleep. He wonders when the trainer will return; if he'll let Kame have a break or not.
"Oi," comes a harsh, short voice. "OI."
Kame doesn't realize the voice is directed at him until a firm hand grips his shoulder and tugs.
"OI," says a short man, all cheekbones and sharp Kansai-ben. He's holding Kame's ball, glowering at him. "Hey. Don't be careless."
"Ah," Kame takes the ball back, nodding his thanks.
The man watches him for a while, studying Kame's movements; his struggle to properly grip the ball. Kame feels shy, like the stranger is intruding on something intensely private, and he curls away from him as best he can without sending his entire body into a wave of cramps.
"Car accident?" he asks, and Kame nods twice. He figures the guy is joking with him; everybody and their grandparents know Kamenashi Kazuya has been in a car accident.
"Is that so," the stranger replies. "Me too." He taps his head twice with his fingers. "Now I can’t hear anything," he says with a wry, angry smile. "You?"
"They say maybe I won't walk again. Can't even hold a ball," Kame replies listlessly, but he doubts the stranger will understand him. He wonders, a little awkwardly, if maybe he should enunciate a little more or something, if this guy can hear anything at all. He might be a fan or something. (But probably not...not an Osakan.)
Sure enough, the stranger laughs and demands, "What? Can't hear you," like it's really funny. Kame watches him struggle through an angry smile.
"My name's Ryo," the stranger says. He offers a hand for Kame to shake.
Kame takes it and grips Ryo's fingers in the strange, twitchy way he holds everything now. Ryo gets a little buggy-eyed when he feels Kame's fingers tremble as they circle his palm, but he tries not to show that he's startled. Kame wonders if-miraculously-Ryo doesn't recognize him; if Ryo even knows the Giant's star pitcher can't even hold a baseball, much less strike anyone out with it. He seems like maybe he doesn't.
"I was a musician," Ryo says, troubled but sympathetic at the same time.
"I'm Kame," Kame says, chest constricting. Ryo understands. "I'm so sorry."
Hello, Ryo signs. “And don’t be sorry, I don’t need your sympathy.”
“Oh, you sign?” Kame asks, flushing, and tries to recall anything he’s picked up from the few times the team visited elementary schools.
“No,” Ryo rolls his eyes. “They still want me to start learning, but I don't really want to.”
“Ah,” Kame nods. The guy's probably holding out for getting his hearing back; Kame's had a few moments like that himself, but he's too practical for that kind of stubbornness. “Lipreading?”
Ryo shrugs. “I’m okay.”
“Okay,” Kame nods stiffly, and he sighs.
“You look pretty beat up,” Ryo grins wryly. “You broke your nose?”
“No,” Kame scowls, but Ryo just laughs at him.
“Ah,” Ryo replies. “Hey, if you’re ready to stop pouting, you wanna get lunch? We can bitch about how we’ve lost our passions in life and have no idea what to do with ourselves anymore.”
Kame stares at him blankly, not sure how to handle how blasé this guy is. “Oh, that sounds like fun,” he settles on. “I don’t think Takizawa’s done with me yet, though.”
Ryo nods. “Okay. Well, I’m not going anywhere.” Then he just walks away, like they’d never spoken in the first place.
++
The next time Kame sees Ryo, it's because Ryo's found his room. Kame spends five seconds wondering if Ryo is a creepy stalker before deciding he doesn't really mind even if he is. It's pretty boring, being stuck semi-immobile in a hospital (there are only so many crosswords his mother can bring him in the morning).
"Hi," Ryo says, and plops himself into the chair beside Kame's bed. "I'm visiting you."
"I see that," Kame says.
"All I hear is this stupid ringing all the time," Ryo tells Kame. "It gets really boring."
Kame shrugs. "Yeah, I understand."
"So really, what're you gonna do with yourself now that you can't play baseball?"
So he does know. Kame looks up and Ryo's wearing a funny expression, maybe something like displeasure, maybe something like wistfulness. It's weird to see on someone he's only just met.
"Well," Kame replies slowly, "I'm not sure. I haven't gotten that far."
"Go save the world, maybe," Ryo says. "Do something good with yourself. Don't waste yourself on something stupid."
Kame blinks at him, amazed. A lot of people have said these sorts of things to him-fans, his mother, his coach; it's hard not to receive support for something so traumatic when you're a national baseball star. This, though...this is somehow different, coming from Ryo.
"Okay," Kame says blankly, really thinking about it. "Okay."
"Right," Ryo nods, and then pulls himself to his feet. "Bye."
"Wait!" Kame calls, but it's sort of pointless, because Ryo can't hear him.
You should do the same, Kame wants to tell him.
++
Kame receives a letter from some mother somewhere chiding him for being a horrible role model for her children. How dare someone so important drive so recklessly. How dare he let her family down like this. Kame had been their hero.
Kame barely pulls himself out of bed that morning, and physical therapy is a nightmare. Kame's legs won't cooperate even though he can feel all of the pain each movement induces in them, his muscles are wound so tightly his forearms tremble when he tries to drum his fingers on the table, and his chest throbs when he tries to rotate his arms in circles. He's so grateful he's retained his sensory control and organ function and all those other little bodily processes everyone takes for granted, but right now, it just really hurts to be Kamenashi Kazuya.
It's made worse because Ryo keeps staring at him from the other side of the room. He's running on a treadmill and some ludicrously jealous part of Kame wants to reach out and hit him; knock him off the thing.
Sometime later, they're sitting together at a table, Kame half-slumped in his wheelchair, Ryo wiping sweat off his forehead with the edge of his T-shirt. Ryo tells Kame his family is in Osaka, and Ryo can't decide whether he wants them to visit or not.
"They don't know you were in an accident?" Kame asks, shocked. He can't imagine hiding something like this from his parents.
"My mom will cry," Ryo says, greatly annoyed, dark, sharp eyes rolling skyward in his head. He’s attempting to sign, but not really, since Kame can’t understand anything and Ryo has no command of the vocabulary yet anyway.
"Moms crying are the worst," Kame nods, trying not to think of his own mother; of the letter, of all the fans he's disappointed. Ryo's already pretty good at reading lips, so he's always watching Kame's mouth, always carefully calculating things out. Kame tries to slow his words down, but when he does, Ryo gets mad and tells Kame to stop babying him. Right now, he really wishes Ryo would stop watching.
"You got a family, Kamenashi?" Ryo asks.
"Yeah," Kame says. "Mom, dad. Siblings."
"That it?"
"Yeah," Kame's tries to roll his shoulders but his back tenses up instead, and he scowls in frustration.
"Here," says Ryo, and comes around the back of Kame's wheelchair to dig fingers into Kame's stiff neck muscles. Kame winces and nods his gratitude, teeth gritted. Ryo is careful not to touch Kame's spine.
"Damn," Ryo hisses, "what's wrong with you today?"
"Fanmail," Kame mutters, turning so Ryo can see his face.
"Fanmail?" Ryo laughs derisively. "Fanmail should make you happy, all that ass kissing."
"It wasn't happy fanmail," says Kame. "I'm not happy." Then he turns around again.
"For the Giants' star pitcher, you sure are a pussy," Ryo says, gently squeezing a particularly sensitive spot. “What happened?”
Kame turns back around, put-out. “Some mother told me I’m awful. Her son was a fan, but now he’s not, because I’m a bad driver.”
Ryo’s grins. “Well, you are.” Kame turns his face back around, but Ryo grabs it. “She's stupid, though; everybody gets in car wrecks, don't they? You’re not awful. Write back and apologize or some shit, you know, whatever you stars do. Give them an autograph. Tell them you’re like, glad he was a fan. Write them personally. Tell the kid you’ll visit him or something, in your wheelchair. That oughtta shut them up.”
Kame laughs a little half-heartedly.
“Hey,” Ryo says, and he’s a little bit gentler, hands stilling on Kame’s shoulders. “You get all these stupid drippy letters from people. Why’re you letting one pissy one spoil your day? Ignore it. Go back to the ones begging for your hand in marriage, you pussy.”
Ryo’s a pretty cool guy.
++
Kame, Ryo, and a bunch of other patients with partial paralysis and neurological injuries are sitting in required group therapy. It’s sort of embarrassing, to be honest, but as Kame looks around at the other participants, he’s filled with a strange sense of community…not to mention thankfulness. He can do a lot of things the other patients can’t. He can still brush his hair. He can still form complete sentences. He still has his original face. He can remember his childhood. Everybody in their group is a twenty-something guy, and Kame thinks that’s pretty fair of the counselors. They don’t have to worry about being strong in front of anybody else when they’re all in the same boat.
Ryo’s being a bitch, though.
“I’m Kamenashi,” Kame shrugs. “You guys know my story.” He smiles; shrugs.
“Hey, you have some sick strike average, man!” says an Okinawan. He’s blind in his left eye and can’t taste anything. “I was at the Grand Slam last year, and you guys killed that American team. Can I have an autograph?”
Kame grins and tosses him his stress ball.
“Sweet,” the kid replies.
“I love horses,” says the guy who lost mobility on his left side. He talks like he had a stroke, but he’s still bright and easygoing like the country boy he is. Hokkaido, Kame thinks, maybe. Kame likes him instantly. “I still love them.”
BOO HOO Ryo writes in the notepad he’s holding. he can still hug his stupid horses
Ryo gets like this, Kame’s found, when he has to deal with emotional stuff. Kame thinks it’s because he’s secretly this weepy thirteen year old girl.
shut up ryo Kame mouths back. stop feeling sorry for yourself
Ryo starts pouting, but Kame touches his wrist before he can really commit to it. beethoven went deaf right he continues, face hidden from the group behind his hand. didn’t stop him
Ryo's eyes narrow, but when it’s his time to address the group, he says, “I’m Ryo. I was a guitarist. It was the damn steering wheel and I’m deaf now. Just like fuckin’ Beethoven.” When everybody starts laughing, he smirks, eyes sliding sideways to meet Kame’s.
++
A few days later, Kame's legal representative shows up during lunch carrying a thick file full of papers. He's a tall, thin man with a bright face and commanding voice. Kame pushes himself up on his elbows (he's been able to do this since Thursday and it's sort of awesome), scooting toward the other side of the bed.
Kato-san sits with his legs folded, glasses perched on his nose. "You know, you're really lucky they didn't sue, Kamekun."
"Yeah," Kame nods his relief. "Were they going to?"
"They were thinking about it," Kato-san replies carefully. "They had a change of heart."
Kame sighs, the edge of a headache cutting across his eyebrows. "You didn't pay them off, did you?"
Kato-san shakes his head. He smiles enigmatically, as he is wont to do. "We didn't have to."
"What happened, then?" Kame asks.
"It's not important," Kato-san replies. "They actually wished you the best of health."
Kame's jaw drops to the floor. "Are you serious? I read the newspaper article; the other driver was supposed to be in serious condition--"
"He's getting better," Kato-san smiles.
Kame shakes his head in wonder. “Man. Who is this guy?”
Kato-san pulls out a few forms for Kame to look over, still grinning. “He‘s a writer; really big with foreign audiences. His name is Nico. Ever heard of him?”
“Wow, and it‘s legally, just…Nico,” Kame says, tilting his head from side to side as he reads through the reports. “I can’t believe there hasn’t been any press on him.”
“You have enough money, you can do that,” Kato-san shrugs. “You’re both high-profile people. You didn’t have much say in any of this--you were unconscious. He wasn’t.”
“Seriously,” Kame shakes his head. “I wish they’d just left me alone.” Kame shifts stiffly, clutching at his thighs. “You don’t think I could get in contact with him, do you?”
“He’s sort of private,” Kato-san replies, shifting uncomfortably. “He’s not the type to be bothered.”
“How will I thank him, then?” Kame asks.
“I don’t think he wants to be thanked,” Kato-san replies a little distantly.
++
Ryo is really hot. Kame notices one day when Takizawa points him out, carefully writing in a journal. They're all at lunch, and Ryo's sitting by himself. Kame wonders why he doesn’t just go home and eat regular food that doesn’t taste like hospital-issue cardboard.
"Watch," Takizawa sighs. (He's been a gossipy thirteen year old girl ever since discovering Kame likes men. He'd been a gossipy girl before that too, really; he does appreciate that Kame's famous after all, but now he's worse.) "Look, Kame. He's biting his lip now."
"Mmmm," Kame nods appreciatively. "He's got the most perfect cheekbones."
"It's a good thing he isn't my patient," Takizawa says, grinning. "You two are friends, right?"
Kame grins silkily. "We talk, yeah."
Ryo looks up at them, and Kame gives a slightly uncoordinated wave. Ryo rolls his eyes but waves back, and Takizawa starts laughing because he's blushing.
++
Ryo and Kame see each other at least twice a week. They attend physical therapy and the coping sessions together, they sometimes eat lunch together; most of the time, Ryo complains and Kame makes fun of him (or vice-versa). It’s an easy companionship, partly because Kame’s more easygoing about things when somebody else is freaking out instead-and Ryo pouts and freaks out and complains more than anyone Kame’s ever known.
Even before the accident, even while on the team with his friends and colleagues, Kame can’t remember feeling so connected to someone.
++
“You ever heard of Nico?” Kame asks. Ryo’s stayed for lunch again after an uncharacteristically difficult counseling session.
“Who?”
“Nico. I guess he’s a writer.” Kame sighs. “He’s the guy I hit.”
“Oh,” Ryo says. “Why?” He’s in a bad mood.
“I just want to see how he’s doing. Maybe say thank you for keeping all of this under-wraps.”
“What’re you gonna do, send him consolatory chocolates?”
“Maybe something like that,” Kame shrugs. They're sitting on the grass in the courtyard reserved especially for long-term patients, a picnic basket from Kame's sister spread out between them. Kame still has trouble using chopsticks properly, but he’s pretty good at stabbing things one at a time. “Hey, Ryo, did you ever watch me play?”
It’s just Kame’s luck, really, that he’s doing well on a day Ryo is having trouble. He picks apart Kamenashi-san's onigiri like a child. "Don't support your team," Ryo says bluntly, eyes hidden behind sunglasses. He's still sensitive to light.
“Right. Well, I was thinking, maybe I could hold a benefit,” Kame muses, handing sauce to Ryo. “You know, like for kids. Who’re hurt?” It’s Ryo who can’t grip the bottle today, though.
“Damnit,” Ryo hisses, spilling Kikkoman all over his food.
”Hey, no worries,” Kame shrugs. “There’s more.”
Ryo doesn’t say anything; he hasn’t noticed Kame talking. Kame reaches out and taps Ryo's foot.
"Hey. What's wrong? What can I do for you?" Kame asks, worried now, setting his plate down on the blanket.
"I’m a grumpy bastard. And nothing’s wrong," Ryo snaps. Then he climbs to his feet and wanders off toward the hospital again, palm pressed against the side of his head.
Later that day, Kame bugs Ryo's nurse to tell him what's happened. The nurse tells him to stop meddling with her patients, like Kame’s done something wrong.
++
Kame agrees to hold a press conference. His coach seems troubled.
"If you do that, Kamenashi," he says slowly, "the entire world will associate you with this injury. They'll associate the team with this injury. Do you want that?"
“They already do,” Kame replies.
“Well, these things can change.”
"I'm not going to wake up and walk tomorrow, Coach," Kame says, frowning. "Nobody knows whether or not this is permanent. I mean, I hope it‘s not. But you know, you have to prepare for these things." He thinks of that angry mother and sighs. “I think it’ll be good for the kids who’ve gone through the same things I have, you know? Everybody needs another positive role model.”
"You don't know that," the coach says. "Nobody knows for sure."
“What, that the kids will still like me? Yeah, true. I might seem patronizing.”
“You know what I mean. The walking.”
Kame goes to shrug, but his elbows twitch instead. "It's a pretty sure thing, though-about tomorrow, anyway. And it’s okay, I’m okay now. I can do good things now."
"There are no sure things in life, Kamenashi," his coach says quietly, like it's a secret.
++
Kame tries to get in contact with Nico’s representatives, maybe find out a little information on who he is, but it’s difficult to. He’s written a few award-winning books, a rock opera, and some comic book collaboration about an alien who falls in love with a chicken. There are no photographs of him anywhere, and he’s never held an interview. He’s quite a mystery.
His agent is the worst.
“He left my agency a few months ago,” she says. “I doubt he’d be willing to talk with you even if he was still working with us.”
“Do you know anything else about him?” Kame asks. “I just want to thank him for being so-”
“Even if I did, I wouldn’t discuss it with you,” she replies coldly.
++
Kame doesn't see Ryo for a few weeks, not until after the press conference, but when he does, Ryo is furious.
"Ryo," Kame wheels himself over, grinning. "Check this out, I can do it on manual now.” He points to his left knuckles, white where he clutches the wheelchair tire. He turns the wheels three rotations before returning to his joystick. “Hey, where the hell've you been? Are you bothering with sign language yet? Look, I can do toilet." He carefully makes his left hand into a fist, and then drops it when his wrist starts twitching.
"Look at this," Ryo snarls. "Look at this crap." He's stiffer than usual, and there is a new bald patch on the left side of his head.
"Did you see this crap they wrote about you?" Ryo laughs in that cold, barking, way of his. "They make your life into a soap opera. You're like a fucking figurehead now. They don‘t even mention that you‘re getting better! All they talk about are your damned legs! They haven‘t been cut off, have they?!!"
"That's what they do to us when these things happen," Kame shrugs. “Might as well do something good with myself, right?” He takes the paper and skims through it, chuckling a bit at the part mentioning his suspected alcoholism; the drug use...the golden boy fallen prey to the pressures of fame. "Pressures of fame, huh?" Kame grins. "Guess they don't consider being too tired to stay awake at the wheel one of the side effects, though. And why is it always cocaine? Cocaine is so last century."
"You oughtta sue, the way they make you out to be some...some...junky...martyr...prince," Ryo snaps, and he isn't even pretending to read Kame's lips. He's just raging. "I hate these bastards."
Kame grins. "I guess you're still my fan, then."
"Your fan! Fuck off, I hate the Giants," Ryo snaps back, and marches off in all the indignity his jerky limbs will allow.
++
Takizawa’s got Kame folded in a pretzel, every nerve in his legs firing, and Kame asks through gritted teeth, “What’s happened to him?”
“Dunno,” Takizawa replies, grinning around clenched teeth. Kame’s giving him a run for his money today. “He was complaining about you yesterday, when he was having trouble with the pencil.”
“Having trouble with a pencil?” Kame asks, and suddenly his leg spasms, knee jerking toward Takizawa’s face.
“Not all the time; only when the pressure fluctuates. Post-injury repercussions or something, I don't know; nobody‘s talking. Did you see that! Ha-ha!” he pumps the air with his fist. “Kame, you almost kicked me right now!”
“That was my subconscious. You are so unprofessional,” Kame replies, falling back on the mat with a moan. “That hurt.” He pauses to catch his breath for a moment, and then he curls up to stare into Takizawa’s face. “So he’s having trouble with his hands again? And what do you mean, ‘pressure?’”
Takizawa shrugs, wiping his hands off on the towel that hangs around his neck. “You didn’t hear it from me, okay?”
“What’s wrong with him?” Kame blinks sweat out of his eyes.
Takizawa considers Kame for a few moments before making up his mind. “You’re famous. You can keep a secret.”
“Of course,” Kame says, impatient.
“So…Tsuba told me last night Ryo’s got pressure in his head,” Takizawa says very, very softly. “He was readmitted just a couple of days ago.”
“Probably because it’s so full of hot air,” Kame mutters, but this is really, really bad news. He worries his lip. “Is he. Are they going to perform surgery or something?”
Takizawa pats Kame’s head. “Probably,” he says. “Wanna go see him?”
“I’ve been trying to,” Kame sighs. “I don‘t know if he‘ll see me, though. I tried calling him on his cell and he won‘t pick up.”
“He won’t ignore me,” Takizawa grins. “He’s trying to set me up with that cute guy in 51B.”
“Ryo has?”
“Well, after a little encouragement on my part.”
“Takizawa,” Kame groans. “That kid is like, eighteen. And does he even like men?”
“Hey, who’d’ve thought the King of the Giants was a homo, okay?”
Kame deadpans first, and then he shudders. “Not to mention he’s your patient.”
”How else are you supposed to meet people working in a hospital?” Takizawa rolls his eyes. “Come on, you miss him. Let’s go.”
“Ryo sounds like he’s not the only one setting people up,” Kame replies, suspicious, and Takizawa just leers in response.
++
Ryo is in his room, and he does answer the door when Takizawa buzzes. (Ryo’s got a cool device rigged up that makes his bed vibrate when someone rings for him.) Luckily, Kame is too far below the range of the door’s peep hole for Ryo to see, and Takizawa's face is right in his line of vision.
“Look, you ass,” Ryo snarls, throwing open the door, “I am not setting you up with some baby jock!” (Taisuke-the patient in room 51B-is a soccer player with a minor concussion.) “Just take your perve-“ He pauses, and looks down. “Oi. Kame.”
Then he turns purple.
“The hell do you want?” he mutters, pretty obviously guilty.
“You have been avoiding me,” Kame replies. “Now let me in. And you can’t blame your brain injury-induced…PMS for being so rude, okay? ‘cuz we all go through it, and I’m still nice to you.”
“Not only are you a cradle robber,” Ryo hisses at Takizawa, “you’re a saboteur. I oughtta have you fired. Get out of my sight.”
Takizawa grins brightly, gives Ryo the thumbs up and pats Kame’s shoulder as he leaves. Ryo and Kame share a bit of a visual stand-off before Ryo relents and holds the door open.
“Well?” Ryo says. “Get in here.”
Kame wheels himself in, parking at Ryo’s bed. Ryo won’t look at him as he closes his door, sitting down on the bed with his arms crossed over his chest. It’s weird to see him holed up in his room in a hospital gown, unnatural in a way most of the other patients aren‘t. Perhaps it’s because Ryo looks fine, if not tired, like he shouldn’t be there.
Kame taps Ryo’s knee a few times until he’ll look up at him. Ryo refuses for a good two minutes before he finally turns to Kame, wearing the bleakest expression Kame’s ever seen.
"You look like you're doing better," Ryo grunts.
"I am," Kame nods. "How are you?"
“I haven’t been learning sign language,” Ryo says, “because I don't like the way my hands move.”
Kame nods again, biting his lip. Poor Ryo; no wonder he's been hiding himself away.
“So I guess my brain is swollen or something,” Ryo says, blunt and loud again, and he scowls. “They don't really know why, but I guess this sorta happens to people with head trauma. They're gonna butcher me, though. Look what they did to my hair.”
Kame gasps, eyes going wide. Not because of Ryo‘s hair, of course, even though it is pretty bad. “Your doctors don't know why?”
“What did I just say?” Ryo snaps. “No, I was just kidding. Ha-ha!”
“Shut up, Ryo,” Kame replies, pulling himself closer. “And they’re not butchering you; don’t say stuff like that.”
“Yes it is!” Kame recognizes the way Ryo’s hands start to flap a little, because his do the same thing. Head injuries suck. “And don’t freak out, okay, because that's the last thing I need, sympathy from you of all people.”
It’s pretty apparent how frightened Ryo is; not only is he being a bigger bitch than usual, he‘s lost weight and he‘s got dark circles under his eyes. Kame presses his bad hand to Ryo’s knee, making sure Ryo feels the shake as he closes his fingers over Ryo’s kneecap.
“Who’s being the pussy now?” Kame asks, slow and steady just the way Ryo hates it, and Ryo literally snarls at him, lip curled and everything. “You’ll be okay, Ryo. That's all you have to tell yourself.”
Ryo smacks his hand against Kame’s wrist, fingers icy on Kame’s skin. "I wish you'd just leave me alone," Ryo mutters.
"Oh well," Kame says. "You're stuck with me."
Ryo goes soft, even though the haunted expression in his eyes remains. He traces the bump of Kame's wrist bone; drops his hand to the bed. He smoothes his fingers over the scratchy hospital sheets, poking the little flowers that decorate them.
"Hey, if they ever have to reset any of your bones,” Ryo says, cool again, “make sure they reset your nose too. What the hell is wrong with it? Are you sure that wasn't caused by the accident?”
“Don't disappear on me again," Kame says fondly. "Next time you try it, I'll probably be able to beat you up."
++
It’s been a few months of searching and Kame’s sort of given up on getting in touch with Nico or any of his representatives. Everyone has been elusive; even the publishers aren’t talking.
“I think he’s gone overseas?” says a sweet-voiced intern who is both starstruck and doe-eyed in the face of Kame’s acquired superstar charm. (He’s still damn good at it. No mere car crash could take that from him.)
“Oh, really?” Kame thinks back to the accident reports he’d read; the way the other car crumpled against Kame’s Prius. “How is he doing?”
“Well, fine, I guess, if he’s overseas,” she says. “Is there anything else I can help you with, Kamenashi-san?”
Kame knows it’s a long shot, but he asks, “I don’t know. What else do you know about him?”
“Nothing,” she says, and it’s honest, completely honest. “He’s so mysterious!”
Kame hangs up, disappointed. Nobody knows anything about Nico. It’s almost as though he doesn’t actually exist.
++
Ryo’s fallen asleep on the chair next to Kame’s bed when Kame’s friends show up. There are only a few of them-guys from the team, mostly, and one of the waterboys. There’s Yoshinobu, who has bandages wrapped all over his wrist, and Nomaguchi, who is afraid of hospitals. Takayuki is cute like a little boy, and Marc Kroon is a skinny American guy with a kind smile. They are all really loud, and there’s a camera with them.
Kame is a little uncomfortable…in fact, he’s a little horrified, but he hasn’t seen any of the guys since the press conference, so it’s a pretty welcome sort of horror.
Ryo, however, is not amused. If he wasn’t so out of it, he’d have hidden under the bed or something by now.
The guys are obnoxious and boisterous and Kame gets obnoxious and boisterous with them, and they wheel him all over the room and make his chair pop wheelies like little children. Kame insists on introducing Ryo to them, Ryo who is his new friend who can’t hear but is really brave, and Ryo just glares at everyone, blank and sullen. Kame’s friends sort of stare at him in confusion for a few seconds before the cameraman suggests taking a tour of the hospital. Kame nods, and calls a few of the “regular crew-“ his doctor, his anesthesiologist, the young intern in psychiatrics he and Ryo like messing with and, of course, Takizawa-to see if they’d be willing to be interviewed. Everyone agrees, of course.
"Come with us," Kame says, slapping Ryo's leg.
"No," Ryo says flatly.
"Why not?" Kame rolls his eyes. "Have some fun. It won't kill you."
Ryo refuses to look at him until Kame just gives up and leaves.
When Kame finally comes back, Ryo is still sitting in his chair, unamused.
“You’ve been here the whole time?” Kame frowns.
“They better not televise that with my hair looking the way it does,” Ryo snaps, pointing to the bald spot, as Kame’s nurse helps him into bed.
Kame laughs, loud and barking, even though he’s exhausted. “Aw, poor Ryo. You didn’t sign any release forms anyway; I don’t think they’ll broadcast you.”
“Any what?” Ryo asks.
“Release forms,” Kame repeats. He thanks the nurse and bids her goodnight. Ryo waves absentmindedly. “Anyway, go to bed. What’re you still doing here?”
Ryo crosses his arms over his chest. “Waiting for you to stop being an attention whore.”
Kame rolls his eyes. “If you wanted to have a sleepover, you could’ve just said something. We’ll call Takeuchi-sensei and let him know you’re here.”
“Shut up, I’m not staying here.”
Kame grins. “But you’re lonely.”
“I am not,” snaps Ryo. "I don't need to be surrounded by people all the time like you do."
Kame almost cuts Ryo a new one for that remark, but stops when he sees the way Ryo's sort of curled into himself, face turned toward the window. He's lying, Kame realizes. He's worse than Kame is. He and Kame haven't gone a single day without seeing each other since Takizawa tricked Ryo into talking to Kame again.
Kame taps Ryo's cheek until Ryo will look at him again.
“Seriously,” Kame says, “why haven’t you told anyone yet? Aren’t your friends worried about you?”
Ryo blinks slowly. “I told them not to come,” he says after a moment.
Kame sits up, brow furrowed. “Ryo, don't be that way. They're your friends, you don't have to be-”
“What?” Ryo grumbles. “We couldn’t do anything together anyway.”
“What do you mean?” Kame asks, annoyed. “They’re your friends, you don’t just. Just. DO things together.”
Ryo just deadpans at Kame like he’s the biggest idiot in the world. When Kame doesn’t say anything, he harrumphs loudly. “Are you stupid? They’re all in the band! We jam together, okay? They can’t see me like this.”
There’s an awkward silence, and then Kame says, a little disgusted, “Your friends won't visit you in the hospital because they can’t jam with you? What assholes.”
"I can't understand you!" Ryo shouts, jumping out of the chair.
"YOUR FRIENDS ARE ASSHOLES," Kame shouts back.
“No,” Ryo says angrily. “Don’t say shit like that! They’re not like that!”
“Then you’re just being a coward and making excuses,” Kame replies, and grabs the edge of the bed to help roll over. “I can’t believe you’re embarrassed just because you hit your head and you can’t hear anymore. You're going to waste your entire life, being like this.”
“What?” Ryo snaps. “What did you just say?”
Kame ignores him.
“Fuck you!” Ryo cries, knees shaking.
“Yeah, whatever, you’re still too good for them anyway,” Kame replies, blanket pulled over his face.
++
The next morning, Ryo’s in his room again. Kame wakes up to find him on the floor, though, not the chair.
“Ryo?” Kame asks sleepily, peering over the bed’s guard rail. “Oi. Ryo.”
Ryo doesn’t respond.
Kame hisses a few curses before paging the doctor, half-panicked. Ryo is still in Kame’s room because he’d never actually left.
++
Ryo wakes up to find Kame freaking out all over him.
"Oh my god," Kame says, and puts his hands all over Ryo's face, sliding twitching thumbs over his cheekbones and behind his ears. "You are an idiot. You're a big stupid idiot."
"What's going on?" Ryo asks groggily, and Kame wonders if he knows who he's talking to; if he's seen Kame’s mouth moving or not.
When his eyes flutter closed again, Kame decides he probably hasn't. When he does wake up again, they get in another fight, this time about Ryo taking better care of himself. Ryo just gets stupidly defensive, forgets what he was talking about, and asks for ramen.
++
Kame’s concern for Nico wavers in and out: some days all he can think about is the accident; on other days-the good days-Kame almost forgets anyone else was involved in the crash.
There are photographs on the internet he has access to; transcribed details of the event kept by the police department. Nico’s license plate numbers, address, and former phone number are easy enough to find, but every bit of paperwork leads him to a dead end. Nico’s number has been disconnected, his former apartment rented out to foreign models, his car totaled. Kame is granted permission to speak with the officers who were at the scene, to the paramedics as well, but nobody seems to remember what Nico looked like. Even if they do, it’s a ridiculously generic description; they can’t even tell Kame an accurate height. There is only so much Kame can do to track down Nico’s current whereabouts; he keeps running into laws about privacy he didn’t know existed, and people who know Nico but refuse to say one thing or another about him. The guy has no family, no former aliases floating around, no crackpot conspiracies about who he actually is circulating the internet. There is one website in English dedicated to the biblical messages inherent in Nico's work, but that does Kame no good whatsoever. Perhaps strangest of all is the lack of press on Nico’s involvement in the crash. Kame figures there must be people paid off all over the place to keep his identity so secret. It’s like Kame is chasing the ghost of a man who never existed at all.
++
Kame's mom is late making her thrice-weekly morning visit, and Kame decides he wants her to meet Ryo. They ride the elevator to the neurological ward, happily chatting about Kame's brother and his goofy new girlfriend, and they stop by the nurse's station to say hello to Takizawa and Kame's nurse, Tanakasan.
Ryo is reading a comic book when they arrive, and he stares at Kame in shock for a few moments.
"Kaasan," he says, smiling at Ryo, "this is Ryo. Ryo, this is my mom." He turns to his mother and says, "Ryo's parents are in Osaka."
"Oh, my," his mother gasps. "That's so far."
Ryo is totally furious with Kame for a good five minutes before he turns into a complete softy. From then on out, Kame's mom spoils Ryo worse than she does her own children. Ryo really misses his parents. Kame thinks he's a big idiot.
++
On the morning Kame' moves his little toe an entire centimeter to the right, Ryo is transferred to the hospital’s live-in quarters across the courtyard. It’s more work for Kame to visit him, but Takizawa insists the exercise is good for Kame anyway. Ryo’s new nurse, a gentle, witty thing named Koyama (who everyone refers to as Keichan), is much nicer to Kame than Ryo’s last caretaker. Ryo likes him better, too.
“How’re you holding up?” Kame asks on a cold Monday morning.
“I go in for surgery in three weeks,” Ryo says. He’s sitting cross-legged on his bed, shadow-eyed, and he’s slurring pretty badly. The slurring is normal, his doctors tell him.
Kame nods, resting his chair beside Ryo’s bed. “That’s good. You’ll feel better.” He pauses. “What is it for?”
“Well, the pressure, you know,” Ryo shrugs. “Normal stuff. Takeuchi-sensei says there’s a chance that I’ll recover hearing, if the tinnitus was you know. Exacerbated by swelling, or something.”
“That’s good!” Kame says, delighted.
“Uh, yeah, sure, if they don’t hit anything that’ll make me go blind, too,” Ryo grumbles. He’s got a clamp in his left hand, and he’s squeezing it open, closed, open, closed in a half-hearted, steady rhythm.
“They won’t,” Kame says, but it’s a pretty empty promise; he knows that. “Think positive, you brat.”
“I can’t believe I'm the one getting worse. You're the one that like, almost died,” Ryo mutters. “You’re the one who’s basically a quadriplegic.”
Kame ignores that, not least of all because he isn’t in any way, shape or form. “Ryo, it’s going to be okay, okay? And if it’s not, well. Well.” Kame takes a deep breath. “There are ways to get around it. Life goes on.”
“For you,” Ryo mutters. “You have children to save or something. You‘re going to fucking walk again.”
“Hey,” Kame grabs for him and yanks him forward. It's the strongest grip he's managed since before the accident. “Look. You were the one that snapped me out of my bullshit. Now it‘s my turn."
"I did not," Ryo cuts in, pouting spectacularly. "You snapped yourself out of it. You were born snapped out of it. You're just this miracle bundle of competence and determination that can do anything you want to and save the children of the world and still look good in...girl's pants when you can't even fuck someone properly."
Kame rolls his eyes. "That didn't even make sense, Ryo. What do girl's pants have to do with anything? And who says I can't fuck someone properly?"
Ryo pauses. "Well, I don't know. Can you?"
Kame deadpans. "Stop changing the subject. You aren’t working with me here.”
“Maybe I don’t want to be worked with,” Ryo says, twisting himself away, nearly catching Kame with the clamp he's holding. His foot spasms and he loses his balance, and Kame has to push him backwards to keep him from falling off the bed. Kame really wishes he could just stand up and...sit on him or something.
“Maybe you just want to be difficult,” Kame says, hands struggling to keep their hold on Ryo's shirt, elbows locking up warningly as Ryo struggles. Ryo just closes his eyes like a little kid, effectively blocking Kame out.
“Don’t do this today,” Ryo barks. Kame's fingers go weak, hands tingling, as Ryo jerks backward. Ryo sways just slightly and Kame tries to steady him, but Kame can’t do it; his elbows won’t respond. Ryo falls forward a little, just enough that Kame’s shoulders block him from falling off the bed, and he‘s cold and a little clammy. "I'm really fucking scared, okay?" he tells Kame’s temple.
Kame breathes into Ryo’s hair for a few moments. It smells clean and antiseptic, like baby shampoo, but Ryo‘s skin is all musky, like sweat, like the outdoors. "It'll make you feel better," Kame says against his ear, and drops his momentarily useless left hand onto Ryo's thigh. It’s nice to be so close to someone. Kame hasn’t been this close to someone in a year and a half.
"I can‘t hear you," Ryo says dully.
“God,” Kame sighs, laughing a little helplessly as he pulls away. “We are such a pair. We really are.”
“Fuck,” Ryo mutters, giving up on the clamp. He scoots closer again, straddling Kame's shoulders with his knees. He stares hard into Kame's face, all grim determination. “Fuck, Kame. I really hate you sometimes.”
“You know, you don't scare me when you pull stuff like this,” Kame grins, still chuckling a little. Ryo is shaking, but not in the way his hands shake. Kame’s first girlfriend shook like this. It’s cute.
“I should,” Ryo says. Kame imagines him whispering; imagines the tender lilt his voice would take on when talking to a lover. “I’m emotionally unstable.”
“I’m famous,” Kame coos. “I’m used to emotionally unstable people.”
Ryo kisses him full on the mouth.
Part 2