Adult-FanFiction.org : Anime

Alternate Tracks 2nd Story in Rivalry Series	By : kurahieiritrJIO Category: +G to L > Initial D Views: 2560 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Initial D, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 31
- 32
- 33
Japanese Glossary Reminder: "moushiwake arimasen" meaning "there is no forgiveness for me." Doctor "isha sensei" Sensei is used with any politic, teacher, doctor or simply very respected person. "why" = "doushite." A/N: My writing program is acting up for some reason. I am going to try and figure out the problem with my grammar check ASAP. Please let me know if there are any glaring mistakes outside of dialogue.

CHAPTER 32

Takumi awoke with antiseptic smells clogging his nostrils. Pain throbbed in his right thigh. Fog prevented him from fathoming his location. His head turned to the left looking for Keisuke. The blond's sleeping face was not where he expected it to be. The amber-haired youth tried to understand the sense of irreversible loss and fear choking him. Takumi squeezed his eyes shut trying to make his muddled mind work.

'I'm in a hospital. . . . Keisuke was asleep . . . his head was on my bed. Where, . . . did he go? . . . Did I hit my head . . . steering wheel . . . Wasn't there a wreck? . . . iie . . . that can't be right. . . . Isha Sensei released me with some meds. . . . Where am I? . . . Something's not right, . . . my head, . . . should hurt . . . should be a bandage . . . forehead . . . not, . . . my leg? . . . Nan da? . . . My right leg hurts. Doushite am I . . . Didn't Keisuke follow me to the hospital?'

Takumi failed to get his hand to his face to check for the expected bandage. Blinking rapidly, Takumi's fuzzy impressions told him that something was weighing his arm down. He turned his head in and saw two tubes attached to his arm. Both were strapped to a long board so he could not bend his elbow. A metal bar was visible beyond his bound arm. His mind failed to function. Staring at the restraint on his arm made clear that he was thinking of another time. Takumi continued wrestling with his hazy mind straining to awaken and understand where he was. Something was very wrong and he could not place the difference. Without readily accessible memories, Takumi could not answer his own questions.

One tube attached to his arm was clear colored. Takumi sought to give a name to the tube. A second tube of a dark color deflected his attention from the first. He hunted within the jumbled mess within his head for words to accurately describe, or name both objects. One word reached the surface and clicked. IV. Takumi pieced together that he had two IVs in his arm. The contents of both eluded Takumi. However, something beneath the surface prompted that he knew the answer.

"Oh, you're coming around. Let your arm rest. We don't want you to destabilize." A woman's voice and blurry face came into view.

"Nan da? . . . Something happened?" Takumi forced words past his uncoordinated, swollen tongue.

"You're safe in post op, shonen. We completed your emergency surgery to remove a bullet from your right thigh. The surgeon sewed up your damaged veins, and pinned your shattered thigh bone back together. You may feel disoriented. It will fade as the anesthesia wears off. You're safe now, so you can relax."

The woman checked him over as she spoke. She flashed a light into Takumi's eyes. The strange woman held his wrist in an odd grip. The teen thought she was looking at something. Takumi knew there was a reason for her actions, but his brain could not conjure the terms needed to explain. His confusion mounted. Why would he need to get a bullet removed from his thigh? The fog refused to clear despite his strange feeling he ought to know what the woman was saying.

"Keis, . . . suke?, . . . Whe, . . . where's, . . . Keis, . . . uke?" Takumi fought to speak to the blurry face above him. His unsettled emotions demanded to know where his teammate had gone.

"Once you're moved to a regular room, you can see your friends. You have good vitals, so you'll be moved to a room very soon. Go ahead and rest since that is the best way to recover from the anesthesia." The woman's voice was calm, and reassured Takumi that everything was fine.

The teen could not shake the feeling that something was drastically wrong. He could not get his mind to recall the circumstances this strange woman mentioned. All he had was a strange gut deep certainty that Keisuke was in trouble badgered him. His heart and mind demanded that he make the woman tell him where to find Keisuke. Sleep pulled Takumi under before he could force the question past uncooperative lips.

'Keisuke walked beside 'Kāsan in a brilliant white fogged world. Takumi reached for both as they walked into another bank of insubstantial blinding white vapor. The teen ran as fast as he could to catch them, but the cloud was hiding a glass wall into which Takumi crashed.

Itsuke's voice struck his ears like a curse. "Am I that bad a friend, Tak? I mean, you're like a bro, but, I don't rate. You didn't even bother telling me you're sick, or anything else that matters." Takumi whirled to see the other person he genuinely trusted sink out of sight. The clouds of nothingness had swallowed Itsuke.

Takumi whirled to find Keisuke smirking at him. He turned to ask what was funny, only to have the unpredictable man vanish into wisps of smoke before his eyes. The harder Takumi searched for his spiky haired paramour, the less sure Takumi was that he had seen Keisuke. The youth moved through wispy tendrils that never ended, calling Keisuke's name.

Takumi tried to scream, but could not find the air he needed. His gut twisted as he observed the emptiness surrounding him. 'Looks like I'm alone again. Minnasan always leaves once I begin trusting them. Is there something wrong with me that pushes them into dumping me?'

"I know better than to reach out to anyone, don't I?! They always leave me when I start to trust them! How could I be so stupid? When will I learn to stop believing things people tell me?!" Takumi screamed at himself while glaring at floating tendrils and fog banks. Only his echoing voice remained to comfort him.

Physical discomfort tugged Takumi toward a different place. His mind shifted from the white nothingness where he pursued Keisuke, into red tinged darkness. Takumi's eyes flew open and his eyes focused on severe white walls. A look around showed Takumi that he was in a hospital room.

'Whoa! That was one hell of a nightmare! I haven't had a dream like that in a long time.'

Takumi looked to the left with a sense of anticipation. Disappointment flared when he saw that Keisuke was not resting in a chair beside him. Everything suddenly felt unbearably wrong. Takumi blinked his eyes as he fully awakened. The need to piece together his situation surfaced. Memory broke over him in a flood of images and sounds.

'Keisuke's hands wrapped around his upper arms. His boyfriend shoved him hard to the side. Keisuke bellowed, "Get behind something, Takumi," in a panic-laced voice. Mogi pulled a gun out of her handbag. . . . A sharp eerie cracking sound rent the air . . . Takumi was skidding on his side across the pavement. Keisuke was non the ground curled into a ball . . . Blood, and strange foam was bubbling out of Keisuke's mouth, and from the lower side of his chest . . . agony twisted the handsome blond's face as the color faded from his face. Takumi tried to get him to let go of his side so Ryosuke could save him. . . . The faintness of the man's voice as Keisuke attempted to say his name. . . . A strange rattle was rasping in Keisuke's throat as he fought to breathe while clutching Takumi's hand. . . . Ryosuke's voice, . . . "I hope the hell it gets here in time. I think Keisuke's got a punctured lung."

'Onegai, . . . don't die! . . . Damn it! If you survive, . . . I'll do anything you want. . . . I'll move in with you, . . . or whatever else, . . . you name it, . . . Keisuke! . . . I swear it, . . . just don't, . . . leave me, . . . alone, . . . Keisuke.' . . . Keisuke's ashen face turned a darker gray to bluish purple under the van's flood lights. . . . Keisuke was dying in his lap . . . The blond jerked harder than he had during his last two convulsions. . . . The blond's sparkling eyes turned dull before his lids fluttered closed. . . . A sharp pain clicked in the base of Takumi's head as his vision went dark.'

'Did Keisuke die?'

The thought took hold. Takumi closed his eyes. The youth labored to shut down the images and phrases from the shooting that tumbled about his mind as he began to shudder. He felt wetness slipping past his closed eyelids. Devastation spread through Takumi's soul as he tried to silence the unpleasant thoughts whirling about his brain.

Takumi jerked upright, unable to remain still, fists clenched in his lap. Tears flowed unchecked. A much worse pain than the one throbbing in his right thigh began shredding his core self. The amber-haired teen knew this grief better than anyone. He had lived with it for much of his life. Takumi had felt it the first time when 'Kāsan left. In an instant Takumi was transported back to when he was three-years-old.

'The small child sensed his failure as his okāsan spoke. "I've already said you can't come with me, Takumi. There's no way I'll take you where I'm going. You're staying with your otosān."

"I be good. I pomise. I be good, Haha. Don't go." Takumi lisped as he looked up at his beautiful mother with hope in his eyes. He clung to his mother's dress trying to convince her to keep him.

His mother was Takumi's whole world, and she was acting very different this morning. She had placed several big containers by the front door. Still, his mother seemed happy. She said that the man in the big car was taking her away for good. The man only came when his father was out, but that never mattered to Takumi before his mother said she was not coming back. Takumi had to change his mother's mind. His heart knew he could make his mother happy if she took him with her, wherever she was going. Takumi would do more to please her if given a chance. He would try harder to be good.

Takumi could not breathe as anguish whipped and tore at his guts. Alternate waves of icy dread, self loathing, and bands of tightness cycled through his awareness. Images he had long forgotten flowed into his mind to increase his misery as past and present overlapped.

"It won't work, Takumi. You'll ruin any chance I have of living a decent life if you go with me. I can't take care of you, and get anywhere worthwhile. Gomen, but you have to stay with otosān. You're adorable enough that you'll find a new okāsan quickly if you try, Takumi. It's a pity that you're the worst mistake I've ever made. Your otosān's the one that wants you. So behave like a good shonen should and stay here. Your otosān will get home soon. He'll take care of you."

Shuffling footsteps came closer. "Tak?" Itsuke's voice tugged at him from the foot of the bed. "Are you in a lot of pain?"

"I not be mithake anymore. I be good, Haha. I pomise I be good. Don't go." Takumi had trouble repeating some of the words she used, but he tried to make her see that he would do better as his tiny hands remained fisted in her skirt. Takumi held on with all the strength his tiny body could muster.

His mother patted Takumi on the head. Takumi's hope soared that she believed him until she tugged her skirt from his tiny hands. Takumi had no idea what he had done that was so bad, but his mother picked up her suitcases and headed out the door. Takumi heard the hollow boom of the door closing as he watched his world vanish from his sight. He sat in the middle of the floor trying to understand what a mistake was. It seemed to Takumi that if he was a mistake, he was very bad.'

Takumi opened his eyes seeking to break free of the long forgotten memory. He could not see beyond the tears burning his eyes. An image of Keisuke's gray skinned face flashed in his mind's eye. Takumi's heart compressed and shriveled in his chest. He tried to find words that would not come as fresh promises echoed through his mind, hammering all the way into his core.

'Keisuke pulled his head around to force eye contact. "Takumi, I'm not going anywhere you aren't." . . . "I love you, Takumi. I'm not going to leave because I can't stand being away from you. You're very stuck with me." . . . "I can't walk away from you. . . ."

The teen's shoulders shook as desolation rocked his soul. He had lost another integral part of himself. Somewhere during the previous year Keisuke became more important than Itsuke. Now that it was too late, Takumi appreciated how irreplaceable the blond was to him. Itsuke had never accepted his relationship with Keisuke. His best friend teetered on the verge of deserting him because of Keisuke's place in his life. It was only a matter of time before Takumi saw the last of Itsuke. The third and final blow would come soon. The three cornerstones of his life were vanishing, one after another.

"Speaking of life changing experiences, I'm not going to stop changing your life until you can't stand to be with anyone but me for the rest of yours. Think you can handle that?" . . . "You already deserve every bit of love I have to give, Takumi. I can't understand how anyone could stand to leave you. I can't stand it when I have to leave you for the night. Much less stay away from you for more than a couple days." . . . "I know we belong together in the same way they knew. I love you so I want to be with you for the rest of my life, Takumi. At least, I'm hoping you'll decide to stay with me that long, as my life partner."

"Hey, take it easy, Tak. I'm calling the nurse. I'm sure she can give you something for your leg." Itsuke's voice was beside him. Takumi knew who it was that spoke, but did not understand the reason for his childhood friend's presence. Did Itsuke feel that Keisuke's death was a good enough reason to remain his friend.

Takumi felt as if he would shatter when Keisuke began spasming again. Blood drained out of his open side . . . The teen ran his fingers along blue tinged lips to remove the strange foam that continued to bubble from between Keisuke's clenched teeth . . . 'Not now. What if Keisuke dies? I can't pass out. I have to make sure Keisuke's not dead,' flashed through his mind as Takumi tumbled into unconsciousness.'

Body shaking, Takumi tried to reconcile the emptiness felt, with the agony increasing with every beat of his heart. Takumi shook his head unable to tell Itsuke not to bother with anything. Takumi could not cope with his haywire emotions to speak. Nothing was left for Takumi that gave any meaning to his existence. He wanted to fade away so he would never face another harsh loss.

"Doushite are you crying if you don't want the nurse to bring you something for pain? . . . Tak, are you freaking out over Keisuke san?" Itsuke's voice intruded on his misery.

The amber-headed teenager nodded as he fought to get air in his lungs. It was the only thing he could manage. His own blind stupidity had cost him more than he could afford to lose. Because of him, Keisuke had died for nothing.

"Keisuke san's alive, Tak. He made it through his surgery too. Ryosuke san said that Keisuke san's stable. Calm down, Tak! The isha sensei think he'll make it." The teenager's voice held an odd note.

Takumi's topsy-turvy world tried to stabilize as the words began sinking into his hellish emotions. Keisuke was alive. The gaping hole seemed to shrink as the information began making sense. However, the gaping emptiness did not vanish when the second half of Itsuke's news jabbed Takumi's awareness. 'Think he'll make it' was not something Takumi wanted to hear. It was a sentence that kept his heels dangling over a bottomless abyss of emotional self-destruction. It meant that Takumi could still lose the man he had become so emotionally dependant upon without wanting to become attached

Once again, Keisuke had saved him. But, this time Keisuke had been injured in the process. Overwhelming self disgust gripped Takumi. It was his presence that harmed others. He had ruined his mother's life by existing. His father had suffered because of getting trapped with him for nineteen miserable years.

It seemed Takumi was destined to cause similar hardships to anyone he cared for, or who foolishly cared about him. Takumi knew he had hurt Itsuke by falling in love with another man. His attachment to Keisuke had ruined his childhood friend's trust. Keisuke had gotten shot because of having gotten attached to him.

"It's all, . . . my fault. I should have, . . . had better sense, . . . than to, . . . get attached."

"Nan da, Tak? You spoke too soft for me to hear you." He felt the side of the bed give. Itsuke sat beside him.

Takumi brought his good arm up to scrub the tears away. "It's my fault Keisuke got shot." Takumi fought to make his words clear.

"Tak, you got shot too. Mogi went completely crazy last night! Keisuke san saved your life the only way he could. He must have seen the gun and reacted. You'd be dead if he hadn't shoved you out of the way."

"All I do is hurt minnasan when I care about them." Takumi could not stop shivering. "I hurt you by being someone you can't accept. Keisuke's hurt because I hurt Mogi, and she couldn't handle it. I even messed up Oyaji and 'Kāsan's lives by being born. All I do is cause trouble for minnasan."

"Man, Tak, you can be such a dweeb." Itsuke's voice sounded annoyed. "I don't guess I'll ever get how you could fall in love with an otoko, but, . . . I've never been in love with one. I've never seen you come unglued like this so I guess it's obvious that you do love him. Keisuke san protected you without hesitation last night. He threw you out of the way even though he must have known he'd get shot. Keisuke san totally loves you, Tak. I thought he was just messing with your mind before last night. I was really wrong about Keisuke san. Moushiwake arimasen, . . . for being a huge jerk, Tak."

"I didn't know I'd get attached to Keisuke when I joined Project D, Itsuke. I didn't know I could get so attached to anyone. I should have walked away when Keisuke confessed. Keisuke would be fine if I had left when I found out about his feelings. I should have quit Project D the same day he told me. He'd be safe if I had left, and cut all ties."

"Tak? I, . . . look, it's not like, . . . Geeze, you didn't do anything wrong. I'm the one that's been a stupid jerk the last few weeks. Last night I realized that crazy as it seems, you found someone who is good for you." Itsuke's voice sounded strained. "Gomen, Tak. Guess I don't know how to help you." An awkward pat on his shoulder followed.

The sound of footsteps came close to the bed. "Are you in pain?" A woman's voice interrupted. Takumi could not see well enough to make out any features because of his tears. He lifted his unbound arm and tried to scrub away the moisture.

"I have a shot that will help, sir." Additional footsteps as the woman moved up to Takumi's other side caught his attention. He scrubbed at his face without success. A few moments later the woman's voice spoke next to his head. "I put the pain medication in your IV. It will take a few minutes for you to get relief. Would you like to drink some water once the pain begins to subside?"

Takumi shook his head. The only thing he wanted was to see Keisuke's face, and hear his feisty blond lover's voice. He looked up and could make out Itsuke's worried features. Itsuke looked as if he also wanted to cry.

The bedside rose as Itsuke got up. "Uhm, I should tell Ryosuke san that you're awake now, Tak. I'll be back in a few minutes."

Takumi dropped his face into his unfettered hand trying to regain control. He nodded that he understood Itsuke. His friend's feet shuffled from the room moments later. Wiping away tears that continued to fall, Takumi could not stop crying despite hearing that Keisuke was alive. Numbness spread through his body, and drug him back into the depths of tormented dreams before Itsuke returned.

-oo0oo-
- 31
- 32
- 33
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Alternate Tracks 2nd Story in Rivalry Series