It was late at night as Jiro's new Honda glinding down the empty road of Tokyo. He sighed as he drove, recalling the events earlier that night. It was suppose to be fun, the hanging out in the local club earlier that night, with Takuro and Teru and Hisashi.
But what happened was another fight with Hisashi.
Why did it always have to happen? He could get along really well with Takuro and Teru. In fact, both of them were like older brothers to him. They were nice, really fun to talk to, to hang out with.
But what was it with Hisashi? What was it in the blue haired guitarist that made him couldn't be as close as he was with Takuro or Teru? Or rather, what was it in *him* that made Hisashi despise him very much? It seemed as if the only time Hisashi was acting really friendly to him was during a concert. Maybe when in the concert, Hisashi was too swallowed up in his overflowing emotion and energy that he forgot that he and Jiro didn't get along well.
Maybe that was it. Because every time after a concert or a celebration ended, he became the old Hisashi who was cold and hated him very much. Jiro nodded inwardly. Maybe that was it.
He felt so tired. He should've enjoyed his time in the club, but thanks to Hisashi, all of that became sour.
He was never happy with the way their relationship going. Sometimes he wondered, what he should do so he could befriend with Hisashi the way he could befriend with Teru and Takuro. Sometimes he wondered, whether Hisashi feeling the same way. Whether Hisashi also hated the way their relationship was, or whether he was just being totally ignorant of it.
He wished to God that he could be goodfriends with the blue-haired guitarist. He was getting tired with all the fights they had. It didn't do them any good. Sometimes, he even felt guilty to Takuro for fighting with Hisashi, but he also couldn't help it.
He wished he could find a way, some ways, *any* way, to fix his relationship with Hisashi. He wished Hisashi would regard him as a friend, a *real* friend, not just a band mate. He wished…
His train of thought was suddenly broken with the sudden bright light that flod through the wide screen. In his surprise, he saw two huge headlights bearing down upon him… on his side of the road. Jiro was like a deer caught in the light, so fixated by the hot white bulbs and felt as if he had been staring at them for minutes. In reality it was only a split second before he let out a surprised scream and turned the steering wheel violently to the left in an attempt to swerve out of the way.
There was not enough time. Jiro realized it before he heard the squealing tires, the shattering glass and the loud, dull scrunching noise as metal scraped metal. The impact shoved him forward violently and he felt the seatbelt cut him into half as he felt the air knocked out of his lungs and his head smacked the window. It stunned him and made him dizzy.
The world spun crazily and it took him a few moments to realize that it was actually not his imagination. That the car was actually rolling. He felt the shattered glasses stabbed and cut his flesh. The noise was deafening, debrises of the car flying to his face, body and arms.
The car kept jolting and rolling for a couple more moments before it finally slammed the brick wall of a building and came to a dead stop. Jiro felt his body lolled powerlessly to one side and dimly he could hear the faint noises from outside, but he didn't really care.
The last thing he felt was this mind-blowing pain that stabbed every inch of his being to the deepest core, before he was finally swallowed into unconsciousness.
* * *
Hisashi sat on his beloved sofa in front of the television with Ayu curled up comfortably on his lap. The television was turned on, and there was a late night dorama playing on the television, but Hisashi didn't pay any attention to it.
He felt somewhat uneasy. He had this nagging feeling in the back of his mind which annoyed and worried him at the same time. It was as if that feeling was trying to tell him something. To warn him about something.
But what was it? He knew that something not good would happen. It always happened whenever he had this feeling.
It was trying to tell him something. But what? What would happen now? Who would be the one to be this unlucky person? He himself? Takuro? Teru? Jiro?
He felt the nagging feeling becoming more and more insistent as his heart beat getting faster and louder. Whoever and whatever it would be, Hisashi knew it would be very bad and he wouldn't like it any bit.
He grabbed his beer and took a big gulp, trying in vain to ease his feeling but didn't succeed. Now he just could wait and hope that his feeling was wrong.
The phone suddenly rang, loud in the silence of the night, making him almost jump in surprise. Ayu screeched and hopped down to the floor, running to the bedroom. Hisashi stared at the phone for a few moments, knowing that this might bring the bad news to him. He took a deep breath and after the fourth ring, picked up the phone.
"Hello," he said timidly.
"Hisa!," Takuro exclaimed from the other end, sounding panicked and worried and… scared? Hisashi couldn't decide but he knew that his feeling was right. "Hisa, oh God, come to the city hospital now!"
"Where are you? What happened?"
"I'm in my way there," Takuro answered. "It's… it's Jiro… he had a car accident… the police called me a couple minutes ago…"
Hisashi squeezed his eyes shut. Jiro. Car accident. "How is his condition?"
"I don't know! The police didn't tell me anything about that! Just get there soon!"
"Have you called Teru?"
"Yes, he was the first I called. He should be in the hospital by now"
"I'm on my way," Hisashi said and put the phone down abruptly. He needed to sit down, to calm himself, but there was no time to. Hurriedly, he grabbed his coat and his keys and took off.
* * *
By the time he got there, he was greeted by a horde of journalists from TV stations, newspapers and magazines. They shouted so many questions at the same time to him, trying to get some information out of him but he pointedly ignored them and with the help of some securities, he walked past them without opening his mouth even once.
"Takuro-san is waiting in the ICU room," one of the securities informed him. "I'll take you there"
Hisashi just nodded and followed him. When he reached the small waiting room he saw Takuro sitting gloomily on one of the seats and Teru was pacing around impatiently. There was also their manager, sitting not far from Takuro.
"Ah, Hisashi," Takuro greeted tiredly as he saw Hisashi walked in. "You finally come"
"Yeah," Hisashi nodded. "I got obstructed by the journalists out there". He took a seat on the chair in front of Takuro. "So?"
Takuro shook his head. "I don't know. He had been in there since they brought him in," he said, staring at the operating room.
"How could it happen?," Hisashi asked to no one in particular. "He wasn't drunk when he was driving, right?"
"No!," Teru answered quickly. "He couldn't possibly be drunk. You know he would never drive if he were drunk. He was very careful about that"
"The police is still interrogating the other driver," their manager said. "We will be informed as soon as they know clearly what has happened"
"What was the other vehicle?"
"A truck," Takuro answered solemnly. "It was a big truck"
Hisashi covered his face with his hands. A truck. A truck against a sedan. Hell, what chance did Jiro has?
The room fell quiet as they waited impatiently in silence. Teru kept pacing around restlessly. Hisashi knew that Teru cared about Jiro very much. Jiro was like a younger brother to Teru. Teru was always the one to separate Jiro and him when they were having a fight, which was *really* often.
The fight.
Hisashi's mind wandered back to the time earlier that night. The time when he and Jiro fight again. The time when he saw Jiro for the last time.
What had they fought about? Hell, he didn't even remember. They'd fought too often. Too often that he himself wondered how come they didn't run out of things to be fought about.
There were times when he wondered how come they couldn't get along well with each other. When he wondered why they always got into a fight. Teru once asked him what was it that he hated about Jiro.
What was it indeed? What was there in Jiro that made him hate the bassist? He honestly didn't know. He couldn't put a finger on what made them like cat and dog. As lousy as it might sound, it just happened. Whatever it was between him and Jiro, it just… happened.
There was this heavy silence between the four people in the small waiting room, full with nervousness, worry and anticipation. Time dragged on, each minute felt like and eternity. Teru was getting more and more restless. He would pace around, then sat, then paced around again, over and over. Frankly, it was starting to get to Hisashi's nerves.
"Teru, stop it," he finally snapped the vocalist, unable to contain himself any longer. "You're making me more nervous!"
"It's been too long! It's more than two hours already since he was brought in there! What could've taken the doctors so long in the operating room?" Teru asked, worry painted all over his face.
"Teru, calm down," Takuro said. "I'm sure the doctors can save him. He will survive"
"How can you be so sure?" he muttered.
"You just have to have faith in him," Takuro said and leant back to the chair.
Teru reluctantly agreed and sat on one of the chairs, though Hisashi was sure that it wouldn't last long. He wished the doctors would just come out, enlighten them about Jiro's condition. Anything to release them from this worry, uncertainty…
A police walked in and he gave a report to their manager before walking out again.
"Read it," Teru said. "I wanna know"
"You won't like it"
"The hell I will," Teru muttered. "Read it"
The manager flipped some pages, read it briefly. "They have catch the truck driver," he said. "And it wasn't hard to prove that he was guilty. He was horrendously drunk when he crashed with Jiro"
"Fuck!," Teru swore loudly. Hisashi saw the fury blazed in the vocalist's eyes. Teru was almost shaking with rage, opening his mouth but nothing came out. He was too angry. Too upset.
Well, it wasn't as if he and Takuro weren't angry too. It was just they didn't react as openly as Teru, though Hisashi could see that the same fury blazed from Takuro's eyes as the band's leader fisted his hands tightly that his knuckles turned white.
They waited in silence then, as tenseness hung in the air. And waited. And waited.
After an eternity, a weary looking doctor entered the waiting room as everyone's attention snapped to full awareness at the sight of the doctor.
"Are you here for Wayama-san?," he asked.
"Yes," Takuro answered. "How is he?"
There was a moment of silence as the doctor stared at them gravely. "It doesn't looking good," he finally said, taking a seat near the door. "He was practically dying when they brought him in. He lost too much blood, and his body was taking too much impact from the crash".
There was light silence as the doctor paused and the room occupants tried to make sense of what the doctor had just said. Hisashi's head was spinning. Dying. Jiro was dying. The loud, hyper, energetic Jiro was dying. God, it seemed so unreal.
The doctor took a deep breath, looking decidedlly tired and worn off. "There are some internal organs that are damaged and he has a very serious internal bleeding. He almost didn't make it, his breath and his pulse stopped that we had to shock him to get him breathing again. Thankfully, he did breath again and his pulse was there again, but his condition is still not good"
"We have done what we can, and now we have removed him to the ICU room. We have to hook him to some machines though to support his life chance. You can visit him, but please be quiet and not too long"
"Is he… he's going to wake up, right, doc?" Teru asked. "He's going to be okay, right?"
The doctor stared at Teru for a moment. "He hasn't woken up ever since they brought him in. And I highly doubt he will open his eyes anytime near. He is in a coma"
"In a coma," Takuro repeated, as if trying to shove the thought into his mind which was refusing it. "For how long?"
"I can't tell," the doctor said. "It can be a few days, a week, two weeks, a month, or, as much as I don't want this to happen, if he doesn't have any power left to fight for his life, he will never awake"
'… he will never awake…'
The thought snapped something inside Hisashi. It meant that there was still a chance that Jiro would die. Jiro. That Jiro. And he might die. Hisashi couldn't imagine what it would feel like if Jiro died. What would happen to their lives, to Glay… no matter what happened between them, they were such an important factor in each other's life, he couldn't imagine losing any of them.
He couldn't imagine losing Jiro.
Much as he disliked the blode bassist, he couldn't imagine losing him. He couldn't imagine how his life - their lives - would be if Jiro gone.
"Can we visit him now?" he heard Takuro asked.
"Sure," The doctor nodded then stood up. "I'll take you there"
Hisashi reluctantly stood, unsure whether he should join them to visit Jiro or not. He wasn't sure it was a very good idea, but he also couldn't contain his curiousity. He needed to see Jiro's condition by his own eyes. He decided to join them.
They walked along the empty, quiet corridor, following the doctor before finally stopping in front of a door. Hisashi stared briefly at the door, noticing the sign with Jiro's name written on it.
"Remember," the doctor said again. "Be quiet and not too long. I'm outside if you need me"
Takuro nodded and Teru opened the door, walking into the dim room. The bed was in the middle of the room, with a curtain drawn around it. Teru pulled the curtain… and froze half way.
"Teru…?" Hisashi called timidly, wondering how awful Jiro's condition was that made Teru froze there.
His voice snapped Teru off his stunned state and he pulled the curtain wider, revealing the full view of the bed.
And then Hisashi knew why Teru had been so stunned.
Jiro lied there, his body was bare down to his waist. Hisashi could see the bruises and cuts that marred that boyish face, and there was a dressing on his forehead. A transparent mask placed firmly covering his nose and mouth with the plastic piping attached to it leading up to the respirator that hissed with every breath it pumped to his lung.
Hisashi's eyes moved down and saw that there was a stiff neck brace around Jiro's neck, and there were so many cuts and bruises covering his chest. There were IV tubes potruded from both arms and distantly Hisashi could hear the monotonous beeping sound of the pulse monitor.
He stared at the unconscious figure on the bed once again. This wasn't Jiro. This wasn't their Jiro. Not the Jiro he knew. Not the bright, happy-go-lucky Jiro.
He didn't know this man.
How he wanted to believe that thought. But it was Jiro who was lying there. It was their Jiro, deep in a coma.
Teru was the first to tear his gaze away from the gruesome sight and he turned to the door directly, without waiting for the others. Takuro followed him a moment later, shaking his head sadly, in disbelief. Their manager followed soon after and soon Hisashi was alone in the room with the comatose Jiro.
He moved to the bedside, studying the prone figure there closer. Tentatively, he brought his hand to hold Jiro's.
It was cold.
He ran his hand along Jiro's bare arm.
It was cold. Cold, lifeless.
He knew that Jiro didn't feel like this. When his skin contacted with Jiro's skin, accidently or not, he was sure of one thing. Jiro's skin was warm.
Warm, lively. Full of life, of energy.
But the hand he was holding now, the flesh that contacted with his own…Hisashi felt chill creeping up his body.
It was cold, lifeless. Cold, dead.
Biting his lips hard, he abruptly turned around, letting go of the hold he had on Jiro's limp hand, unable to bear the sight, the thought any longer. But at the door, before he walked out of the room, he stopped and threw another stare at Jiro. And he wished, prayed.
Prayed to the God he almost didn't believe in, that in whatever cost, Jiro would survive. Prayed that Jiro would wake up, because no matter how bad the relationship between them, he couldn't, for the life of him, imagining Jiro die.
He prayed. And, closing the door behind him as he stepped
out of the room, he hoped that it would be enough.