Bound by Blood
Track Four: Drain
Background for the Story: Yoshiki and Shinya are cousins. Shinya is present day 17 years old and Yoshiki is 19. ^__^
ummm... here:
"..." - dialogue, what is really said
~...~ - thoughts, what the people think
//...// - flashback, what they remember
**...** - what Shinya hears come out from people's mouths
In this chapter, we finally get to tour around our Shinya's mind! I'm sorry that the last part was kind of short, but I figured that it went together perfectly!
*I'm using oba-san in this fic meaning aunt, not grandma ^__^.
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//"WHAT THE HELL WOULD YOU KNOW!?!"// Yoshiki shook his head, watching as the doctors attempted to stabilize the heart rate of his young cousin. Tears still welled up in his eyes and though Toshi repeatedly asked the drummer how he was feeling, Yoshiki always answered that he was okay. Toshi could see that he was lying though. ~Does it have to do with that outburst of anger so long ago?~ X's leader thought to himself. ~Should I have realized something was wrong when that happened? Am I so stupid to not have realized it before?~
The waiting room stood in quiet silence. It was full of X members and DeG members alike and neither were talking. In Toshiya's case, this was a problem, whereas in Pata's case, one could only expect this sort of quiet.
"Could someone explain this to us?" Kaoru finally broke the silence after one hour of not-talking-to-each-other. "I mean, something was definitely wrong out there and none of us have a clue."
Unfortunately, no one answered Kaoru and the pink-haired guitarist didn't bother asking the question again. He would get answers and hopefully soon.
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//"I wish that my voice will disappear and..."// The voice of a boy...
//"Don't ever say that about my son ever again!"// The voice of a relative...
//"That was a great piece and I'm sure you have more of a chance than us to win."// The voice of a cousin...
//"Why can't you be more like your cousin-?"// The voice of a mother... far away...
//"I hope to someday be just as good as X Japan, ne?"// The voice of a leader...
//"...I will never again speak for the rest of my life..."// The fading voice of an innocent child already feeling malice...
//"Even if I don't deserve it, even if it'd just be a lie, WHY COULDN'T YOU LET ME HAVE PRIDE IN MYSELF EVEN ONCE???"// The cry of a teenager...
//"The pain doesn't stop anymore, not anymore..."// Sobs. His own quiet sobs. He was ten. //"What should I do now?"// Rocking himself to sleep, alone, rocking himself in his own arms. //"The pain won't go away anymore, not anymore."//
~During the climax of a song, I get too carried away. I make mistakes, but doesn't everyone? No one's perfect... no, that's wrong. She said that her son is perfect; she said that he's more perfect than I'll ever be. It has to be true otherwise she wouldn't have said it... oba-san*...~ Shinya thought this, being rolled on a hospital bed passed the waiting room. His band, his cousin, and his cousin's band walked out. They asked the doctors how he was, and from there on Shinya didn't understand what they were saying. ~It doesn't matter if you're more perfect than I am, I'll just disappear...~
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"Is he going to be okay?" Yoshiki asked the doctors as they rolled his cousin out of the emergency room. The doctors thought for a bit and finally a nurse came to them, leading them back to the waiting room in order to talk with them. "Is something the matter, sensei?" Toshi tried his luck with the nurse.
"He'll be fine - physically." The nurse looked doubtful. "But we've detected depression and a severe case in that. It's possible that he'll withdraw himself completely from the world and just wind up hurting himself even more. He might store up way too much upset with no release and wind up committing suicide if we're not able to do something for him soon." Yoshiki sat down on a chair and held his head. He shook as head continually as the nurse continued, "We'll need a psychologist or psychiatrist of some sort to try and find the cause of the depression. Then we'll have to find a way to break through and hopefully bring back his will to live."
"How can we help?" Die asked. Die had always teased the quiet man and now he felt like this whole thing was partially his fault. "We'll do whatever we can."
The nurse shook his head, "I think only someone who knows Shinya very well can help right now."
"That's gonna be a problem..." Kyo let his sentence run unfinished, for even though he was extremely concerned, he could also feel sleep trying to take over him.
"Why's that?" The nurse, whose name is Miyabi by the way, asked Kyo.
...But Toshiya answered for the vocalist, "Because he doesn't talk. Most of us don't know him very well, so we don't know if he has any family or anything whom we can ask... what are we going to do?" Toshiya started sobbing and Kaoru tried to calm the bassist down.
"Is this true?" Miyabi asked, turning to everyone else besides the couple of lovers who tried to console each other in the other's arms.
"Shinya's always been a pretty secretive guy," Die replied. "It's true, I guess."
"That's what I meant by a problem." The blonde vocalist blinked innocently.
"So, now what?" hide asked. "Is there anything that anyone could do for him?"
Yoshiki jumped up from his sad position and grabbed the nurse by his shoulders. "I know a member of his family, sensei! I'm Shinya's cousin! If anyone's to know him, it'll be me most of all. Please," Yoshiki held Miyabi's hands in his own, "tell how I can help. I want to save my cousin."
"You're his WHAT?!?" Four guitarists, one vocalist, and three bassists all asked at the same time. None of them meant to say it very loud, but when they all said it together it ended up way too loud, thus they received a relatively loud "SSSHHH!!!" in return from Miyabi. The only ones who hadn't said those last three words were Toshi, Yoshiki, and Miyabi.
"Since when?" hide, Pata, Kaoru, and Kyo all demanded at the same time. "For how long?" Taiji, Toshiya, Heath, and Die all demanded at the same time. Miyabi couldn't help but smile at their simple minds, Toshi and Yoshiki found the subject matter much too serious to take their idiocity as a joke. Toshi was the one who answered the idiots, "They've been cousins since they were born. For as long as both of them were alive they were cousins."
hide turned to the vocalist, "You knew?" Toshi sighed and replied, "You forgot? Yoshiki and I have been friends for a long time. I've met his large family in Osaka before."
"Shinya's always been very different, very introverted," Yoshiki continued talking to the nurse. "I want to help my cousin. He's very important and close family to me, you have to let me help him, please-"
"All right, all right," Miyabi interrupted, shaking Yoshiki's grip on him. "We'll try our best and see what we can do for him." Yoshiki said his thank you's to then nurse, but his attention was turned to the direction in which the doctors had taken Shinya. "Can I see him any time soon?" Miyabi shook his head, "I won't let you see him until it's safe and we know he won't try anything like what he did at the competition again." Yoshiki sighed and the nurse continued, "Just to be on the safe side, Yoshiki-san."
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"Shinya-kun, are you going to talk yet?" The doctor sat before the orangy-haired boy. Shinya had slept for five days and hadn't spoke for two. The doctor sighed. "Please talk to us, Shinya-kun. We're trying to help you, understand?" Shinya still didn't answer. The doctor walked away.
The only thing they had confirmed was that Shinya and Yoshiki shouldn't be in each other's line of sight. Yoshiki would probably take his cousin into an embrace and apologize for something he didn't understand. Shinya would probably finish the job of stranggling his cousin which he started before in the competition.
"We've run out of ideas, we can't get him to talk if he doesn't want to," the doctors told the leaders of both bands. Kaoru looked down in defeat, Yoshiki still held determination to help. He needed more than anything to get his cousin back to normal, not only for the family that awaited him but also because it was his fault. He didn't know what he did against Shinya yet, but after the competition he could tell that he was the one who caused Shinya to be like this.
"Sensei, please let me talk to him," Yoshiki pleaded with the doctor who was already shaking his head to say 'no way, Yoshiki-san'. "I think since I'm the one who caused the pain that I'm the only one who could alleviate it as well. I have to be the one to speak to him and hopefully pull him out of his depression. Please, I know I can do it, sensei - if you only give me a chance."
"Look Yoshiki-san, if you make any sort of contact with him we have no clue how ugly the outcome may be," the doctor answered, shaking his head still. He wrote down some notes on his ugly brown clipboard paper and looked back at the drummer. Yoshiki still looked hopeful even though many doctors were already losing hope. He sighed, "There's no way we're letting you in there."
~I know Shinya,~ Yoshiki thought. ~Even though he tried to kill me, if it's to help him I'll risk anything.~
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~I don't know anymore,~ Shinya thought to himself, sitting alone in the white room. He was on a lush, plush and all around soft feeling couch. ~Why am I so worthless? Why couldn't I be perfect just like everyone wanted me to be? Why can't I live up to people's expectations?~ Shinya started pulling apart the material of the couch and began to pick at the stuffing once it was exposed. ~Why can I never beat him?!~
Shinya began to tear the beautiful couch to pieces. The doctors watched in silence as did Yoshiki. Shinya's eyes turned and locked with Yoshiki's. He saw pain, sadness, even pity reflecting in the eyes of his cousin, but Shinya interpretted it differently. The ever haunting voice in his mind told him, Yoshiki was just faking it. He didn't mean anything. X's drummer saw something different in Shinya's eyes - pain, sadness, hatred, confusion. ~I want to help you, Shinya... but what can I do? What can I do for you that won't hurt you, that won't make you even more hurt than you already are?~
To Be Continued
To the next part