Fruits Basket Fan Fiction ❯ Storm Beneath Calm Waters ❯ Storm Beneath Calm Waters ( One-Shot )

Disclaimer: Fruits Basket and all its characters belong to N. Takaya and Hana to Yume. This fic earns no cash, though someday I hope to earn cash through writing… Until then, I will just have to content myself with the glorification of Furuba… and Yuki. ^_^.

January 23, 2002

Storm Beneath Calm Waters

By Ina-chan

"Are? Here he comes!"

"Who?"

"You know, him! The handsome doctor whose been visiting Room 211!"

"Room 211? You mean THAT boy…"

"Waaaah! He's so handsome! Why can't he work here instead?"

"Do you think he has a girlfriend?"

"Shhh! You're here to work, not gossip about the patients' relatives!"

"KONNICHIHA SENSEI!"

The young man silently bowed his head politely to the group of young nurses as he passed by the nurses' station on his way to the private room near the end of the hall. He tried his best to ignore the high-pitched whispered squeaks and giggles behind him. This unwanted attention was one of the few things that he didn't miss from an inpatient hospital. However, he has come in and out of these hospital doors for a various and many reasons that he might as well work here… and he hated each of those visits. It's bad enough that this need had recently started to become more frequent. At last, he paused before the closed door of his intended goal. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before opening it and stepping inside.

"Yo!" A tired voice greeted him cheerfully from the chair across the bed

"How is he?" The young man asked as eyes immediately wandered to the sleeping figure buried in the covers of the bed

"Haaaa? Ha-san is so cruel! Here I was, keeping watch for almost three days straight and you can't even ask how I am?" Shigure replied pitifully, "After all we've gone through together…"

"You're still an idiot, that's enough indication that you're still normal," Hatori interrupted flatly, "Now answer my question."

"You're no fun at all," Shigure retorted with a long defeated sigh as he rubbed his eyes, "There's not much change since yesterday. He woke up several times, but he would always almost immediately go back to sleep. But at least now he's talking, if you can keep him awake long enough. Auntie visited last night, but she didn't stay long. I had to unplug the phone because Aya was driving me insane every five minutes. That boy can sleep through a typhoon," Shigure paused as he made a quick glance to the untouched hospital tray on the side table, "He hasn't started eating either."

Of all his younger cousins, Hatori had to admit that Ayame's younger brother is the one he felt most responsible for. The brothers' estrangement was not a big secret in their family. Though Ayame was trying very hard to close that rift now, there were still many instances he and Shigure continued to act as a substitute body for their best friend. It was probably more out of habit. Nevertheless, having to go through what happened the days before was as close as the feeling he could get of almost loosing the younger brother he never had. Hatori glanced at his other cousin from the corner of his eye. From the look of his other cousin's harried form, it would seem that he was not alone in feeling that way.

"Shigure," The young doctor called out quietly, "Why don't you go home and rest. Kaori-san is coming in a few hours, I'll keep watch until then."

"Hai, hai," Shigure replied lightly as he let out a huge stretch. He reached over and fixed the blanket over the delicate figure it encased, and spoke in a more serious tone, "This was really close, wasn't it?"

Hatori didn't reply, as he simply watched the pale sleeping boy. The recent events definitely made the boy look even frailer than usual.

"Hatori," Shigure began, uncharacteristically serious, "Don't scold him too much. It's not entirely his fault. I think it would be better if we concentrated more on how we can help get him out of there before he dies or before he succeeds…" The young man intentionally let his words trail as a grim expression clouded over his face

"He'll never agree to it," Hatori replied

"We won't know until we try, would we?" Shigure closed his eyes, and forced a small smile and held up his hand in "Yosh! I'll leave this one to you then. Tell Kaori-san that I might be a little late in relieving her turn tonight."

Hatori watched the other man leave the room before turning back to the sleeping boy before him, totally oblivious to the world. The boy sleeps like the dead when he goes into episodes like this. The young doctor idly inspected the state of the various IV sites that dotted his younger cousin's arm before turning to the small pump silently feeding the milky life-giving nutrients from the bulky bag directly into his younger cousin's veins.

If his frequent visits to the hospital made him a familiar figure within its wings, the boy's frequent visits as a patient made him as much as less of a stranger to this hospital as well. Hatori lost count the number of times the boy was rushed here for emergency medical attention when the intensity of his attacks and its complications exceeded the intervention available at his outpatient clinic at home. The boy was no stranger to these sporadic episodes of depression either. There was only one other incident in the past wherein the boy stopped eating and succumbed to a deep sleep to the point that invasive intervention such as this was needed to keep him alive. But, unlike that other incident… Hatori had a fairly good idea what triggered this one.

Nevertheless… he NEVER expected anything like what happened more than a week ago. He could still feel his blood run cold at the memory of it. The boy was not breathing, he had a blood pressure way below the scale, and he had a pulse so faint and erratic that it was next to nothing. By the time they reached the hospital, the boy was so critical that Hatori had already expected the worst.

The young man clenched his teeth as he tried to control the intense emotions that accompanied the memories. His fingers instinctively reached into his pocket to pull out and light a cigarette to calm his frayed nerves before stopping as he remembered where he was. Then, without making a sound, he quickly spun around and pulled open the blinds covering the window across the bed. The blinding daylight poured through the room and landed directly on the sleeping youngster's face. The boy made an instinctive flinch and turned to move away from the offensive light.

"Wake up," Hatori's voice rumbled loudly through the four corners of the room, "You and I are going to have a talk."

The younger boy simply made a small groan of protest.

"Now."

"…la'er `tori…tired… le' me sleep… lil'…bit… long…" Came the almost inaudible moan with much effort

"I've had enough of your foolishness. You've been doing nothing but sleep for more than a week," Hatori began sternly, "The way I see it, you have two choices. You either make an effort to pull yourself together and talk to me right now, or you continue on with this foolishness…" The young doctor paused for effect, "…and wait for Akito to come talk to you himself."

Hatori could just barely keep a smile of relief from breaking through his stern face as a pair of purple eyes snapped open to give him the most scathing of all indignant glares. He pulled up the chair and waited patiently as his younger cousin struggled to sit up with all the strength his weakened body could muster, only to collapse back as his muscles failed him. Hatori allowed himself to give the boy a smirk in amusement, "If you press that button, the bed will move up, you know."

"Oh, shut up!"

It was only then that the young man allowed himself the leisure of enjoying the strong sense of relief that washed over him. He could see how much effort the boy was trying to maintain his defiant look through his barely open eyes. If the boy can summon enough will for passive insolence, then it would just be a matter of time before he returns to his usual self. "What happened?"

"I had pain, so I took some medicine."

"How many did you take?"

"One."

"One?" Hatori echoed as he crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow.

"I may have taken another."

"Just another?"

"And another… and another… and another… and another…" The boy replied icily, "Happy?"

"Let me get this clear, you had pain so you took 30 pills."

"It was a lot of pain. I just wanted to feel better."

"With 30 pills of your mother's narcotic painkiller medication, you'll feel better all right," Hatori let out a sardonic laugh, "Tell me truthfully. Why did you try to kill yourself."

"Hatori, you know me," This time, it was the boy's turn to smirk, "If I really wanted to kill myself, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"So what exactly was that? It's a little too early for April's Fool, don't you think?"

The boy closed his eyes, "It was an accident."

"Yuki," Hatori began slowly, "Getting a paper cut can be an accident, a car skidding on an icy bridge can be an accident, and the sinking of the Titanic was an accident. Taking 30 Tylenol #3 pills to stop pain is NOT an accident."

"So what do you want me to say, Hatori?" Yuki replied in the same manner, "`Yes, I tried to kill myself. It was a choice between hanging, razors, or drug overdose. Asphyxiation is not really the most pleasant looking manner to die… and of course that woman would freak if I stained her bathroom floor, so I decided do everyone a service and took the least messy route.' Is that good enough for you?"

"You are trying my patience."

"I'm sorry, am I ruining our professional doctor-patient relationship."

"Technically, as long as you are a patient in this hospital, I'm not your doctor. So right now, I am simply your older cousin who is this close to loosing his temper and give in to beating some sense into you."

The boy averted his eyes and muttered under his breath, "Take a number."

With that, the young man stood up abruptly, turned around and quickly opened the window as wide as it let him. He leaned against the sill and let the fresh outside air seeping into the room brush against his skin. He didn't really realize how much this incident affected him until this moment. Of all the things he hated the most… it was this feeling of total loss of control when his emotions break through his cool layer of calm. He would give up anything for a cigarette just about now. After a few more deep breaths, Hatori turned once again and paced to the other side of the bed. He stood in the middle of the room in silence before starting again."Why did you do it? Why didn't you come to me or to Shigure?"

"What could either of you have done?" Yuki replied tiredly

"We could have done SOMETHING," Hatori stressed, "For someone who's supposed to be smart, how in God's name did you think you could get away with something so stupid. Did you honestly think that no one would find out?"

The boy simply stared at an invisible point on the wall with an impassive expression.

"Do you even realize what you did?"

Silence.

"Yuki, you lied to everyone. First you take a high school entrance examination from another school behind our back. Then you forged your mother's signature in your official documents. Its bad enough that you defied Akito by not going to the school he chose… YOU CHOSE A CO-EDUCATION HIGH SCHOOL! It was just a matter of time before one of your teachers was bound to get suspicious."

"I know what I did, and the only thing I regret about it is that I got caught."

"Even if Iwakamura-sensei didn't make a home visit to "inform" us about his concerns… what made you think that you would get away with it? That school is quite a distance from the main house."

"I don't know… I'd commute."

"So six days a week for the next three school years, you will leave home pretending to go to the school Akito choose, make a detour to go to your school, then after clas…"

"I don't know, okay? I didn't think that I would actually get this far," Yuki replied his voice falling into a hoarse whisper, "I just wanted to get away… somehow."

Hatori sighed and tiredly rubbed his thumb and forefinger on the bridge of his nose, "Well… that school isn't too far away from Shigure's house. He said he will be willing to take you in when the school year starts."

The boy slowly turned his head to face his older cousin with an expression of disbelief, "But… Akito will never agree…"

"Let Shigure worry about Akito," the older man replied as he wheeled the hospital side table nearer to the bed

The boy continued to stare at the young man in shock for a few more moments, before quietly curling up in his bed and burrowing his face under the covers. Hatori let out another sigh as uncontrollable sobs erupted from the unidentifiable lump under the blankets. He sat down on the edge of the bed and placed a comforting hand on top of the younger boy's head over the blankets.

"I'm soh-… sorry," the boy's muffled voice broke through, between sobs, "Ah… I did- didn't mean it toh-… to hap- happen. Ah- Akito was… guh- going to find out after… after… seh-… sensei visited. It… it hurt so… so much. I juh- just wanted the puh-… pain to go away. I didn't meh-… mean to drink all… all of it…"

Without another word, the young man pulled down the blankets. The boy automatically clung tightly to his older cousin's arm and continued to sob silently. The young doctor stroked the younger boy's hair with his other free hand, silently realizing the bitter irony that this was a repetition of an almost identical scene nearly nine years in the past. The only difference was that he was giving comfort after causing his younger cousin's pain.

/I just wanted the pain to go away./

Hatori closed his eyes and prayed that this deal with the devil that Shigure planned would work. Only God knows how much pain his young cousin had already endured… and only God knows how much more pain he could bear. He could only hope and pray that this action is one step closer to granting his younger cousin's wish.

~Fin

Author's squawk:

First of… thank you for my birthday greetings! WAAAAH! I feel so happy and touched! I even got a cyber cake! You guys are so sweet. ^_^. So this fic is my thank you gift to everyone for make me feel special. ^_^.

As you can see this fic is inspired from my Yuki character analysis. It's one of my possible theories that could have been the reason to how they managed Akito to consent in letting Yuki live outside of the Souma Main House. For those curious to where I got the character stats, they can be found in the Fruits Basket Character Book. Unfortunately, there are no birthday dates. But you can assume their birthdays within the time line of their western Zodiacs! ^_^.

Okay… more side notes: So far in the manga, Yuki doesn't call his mother "mother", he refers to her as "Ano mono tachi" when he talked about her with Ayame in vol. 8. Which is, BTW, actually long way of saying the equivalent of the pronouns "her", "him", or can also be translated as "that person". I find that Yuki really detests and feels no connection with his mother at all, so I translated him referring to his mother as "that woman". Though I do believe that if Yuki was talking to her, he probably would call her "Hahaue" or "Oka-sama" (highest tone of respect when calling your mother).

Gomen, I'm bringing technical terms from work. ^_^. The "bulky bag" containing fluids being infused to Yuki is a TPN bag. TPN stands for "Total Parenteral Nutrition". It's basically a procedure you basically feed a patient by directly infusing food into their veins via a central venous catheter when for some reason, their physical condition prevents them from eating. A central venous catheter is something like an IV line… only its a smaller opaque white line and its directly connected to a major vein deep in your arm or sometimes in your chest, not more superficial veins in your hands and inner arm.

That's it… I think. Comments, criticism, bricks to ina_chan@yahoo.com

This fic is also available via Fanfiction.net and Mediaminer.org.

Ja!

Ina-chan