je_united gift fic for stormy1990 Part 2/2
By the next day, Nikaido still isn't out of it and that's worrying because the very nature of Nikaido's injuries make him unable to dwell on things like this. It's worse, because Senga tells Yasui how they'd had to give Nikaido some medication to calm him down through the night and they never have to medicate Nikaido.
“Nika-chan?” Yasui asks gently, coming into Nikaido's room where the young man has shut himself. The curtains are drawn and Nikaido is hunched over the sink in the corner of the room.
“It won't come off.” Nikaido tells Yasui without looking at him.
“What won't come off?” Yasui asks, moving closer. He can see that Nikaido is scrubbing his hands.
“The blood.” Nikaido says shakily. “There's blood on my hands.”
Yasui grabs him and tugs him away from the sink. “What happened?” but when he looks at Nikaido's hands they're red and raw looking but there's no blood. “Nika-chan, there's no blood...”
“I know.” Nikaido tells him, and he looks at Yasui's eyes, his expression almost pleading. “I know there isn't but I saw it there, I can't wash it away again.” Yasui looks down at Nikaido's hands again, his right hand curls into a fist and the fingers of his left hand feather over the knuckles.
Nikaido never used weapons, back before the accident, Nikaido always fought with his fists, every one of the knuckles on his right hand is broken and two on the left are too. Yasui's jaw drops as he looks up at Nikaido's eyes. “Wait right here...” He darts back out into the corridor and along to the station where Ueda is still sitting. “Call Dr. Yokoo...I think his memory is coming back.”
It's a miraculous breakthrough. Truthfully, they'd never done a great deal of work with Nikaido on bringing back the memories of his former self but it had been unmistakably clear he had no memory of it. Nikaido is taken away less than an hour later, Dr. Yokoo insisting he can find out more with the help of his team in the University laboratory. He's still not back when Yasui's shift finishes at seven.
Yasui is a little reluctant to see Nikaido the next day, as much as he hopes that Nikaido is making a recovery, he doesn't want to get that old Nikaido back, he likes the fun and vivacious Nikaido that they have now. But more-so than that, he doesn't want Nikaido to get his memories back because he doesn't want Nikaido to have to live with those memories, he knows how crushing it would be for him to find out about the people he hurt.
Selfishly, he avoids Nikaido as much as his duties allow the next day, he feels bad for Nikaido though, still shut up in his room alone with God knows what going through his head. He's changed and ready to leave, but before he can open the door he hears Nikaido's unusually sullen voice behind him.
“Yasui-kun” he says. “I need to talk” and when Yasui's mouth opens he re-phrases. “I need to talk to you.” Yasui looks around at the carer's station, he shouldn't really when he's off duty, but Nikaido is different, he's Yasui's favourite.
“Alright.” he answers quietly, and then he turns to follow Nikaido back to his room.
Nikaido sits there quietly for a moment, steeling himself, and Yasui can see that this is a different person he's talking to, this isn't the Nikaido that he waved goodbye to at the end of last week. “I've been seeing pictures in my head.” Nikaido explains. “Horrible things...blood and violence and...and I'm the one doing it.” Yasui doesn't say anything, he can't say anything. “Dr. Yokoo says they're memories...that I was in a motorcycle crash and just forgot them...only, sometimes...I was hurting you...”
“Nika...” Yasui starts but he stops short, he doesn't know what to say.
“Yasui Kentaro...I knew you didn't I? I hurt you...” Nikaido's voice cracks “I can see it...all the horrible things that I did to you...and you've been taking care of me...”
Yasui smiles gently. “It was a long time ago, we're both different people now...I forgive you and I care about you. OK?” Nikaido starts to cry. It's the strangest feeling, because Yasui feels like he's known Nikaido twice, as two different people and he never thought he'd ever see either of them cry. “Don't upset yourself over it.” he pulls Nikaido into a gentle hug, one that he ends far too soon. “I'll see you tomorrow alright?”
He's woken sharply from his sleep. He reaches for his phone on the bedside table and registers first the number of the incoming call, the carer's station, and then the time 4:37AM. “Hello?” he answers sleepily.
It's Senga's voice that answers, he's on the late graveyard shift. “I'm sorry to call you so late.” Senga says sombrely. “I just thought that you would want to know...Nika-chan passed away...”
He can't process the words, he's half asleep and plummeting deep into shock and he's sure that he didn't hear right because “Passed away..?”
“He killed himself.” Senga clarifies. “He was tucked up in bed at the 3 o'clock check, when I went round at four he was hanging from the ceiling panels by his bedsheets.”
They all have to go through grief counselling. Nikaido had been there a long time, all of the staff were close to him, all of them are shocked and distraught and the higher ups are concerned about their mental health staff having mental breakdowns. The patients have to have a few sessions too though half of them aren't in the right mind to understand what happened. Taiga has to take the sessions too, even though he doesn't speak, and as they've discovered he doesn't seem to read or write either, but Taiga has to go to them because he was in the room with Nikaido when it happened.
Yasui's own sessions aren't going too well, he's done the psychology and he knows the theory but it's the first time he's ever experienced something like this and it just isn't that easy to talk about. Even the other staff try and get Yasui to open up about it but he just can't bring himself to say anything other than. “I'm just surprised, I'll be alright.”
The first time he does, it's not to a staff member, it's to Taiga. Taiga is sitting on his bed in what is now his room, it's so hard not to think of it as Nikaido's still. He's agitated, as he has been every night at lights out since Nikaido died, and Yasui can't be sure if it's because he's troubled over what happened or if he just doesn't like being alone. Yasui can't help him any more than the therapists if it's the former, but he sits with Taiga for a while whenever his shift coincides with lights off.
“It must have been awful...” Yasui says to Taiga one night, “Seeing it happen, not being able to do anything about it...you must be blaming yourself.” he's quiet for a moment, collecting himself. “I blame myself too. If I'd have stayed a bit longer that night...if I'd done more to convince him that I forgive him...that he's a good person now, that he's changed...if I'd have not been so stupid...if I'd have seen...really seen how much it was troubling him...I could have...” he's shaking his head. He looks up at Taiga and to his surprise Taiga is looking back at him and his expression looks a little worried. He shakes his head again and tries to smile. “If I hadn't have gotten so close to him it wouldn't have hurt him so badly to remember...he beat up hundreds of people...why is it me he was so worried about? Because I let myself get too close...”
Taiga doesn't say anything but he shuffles closer to Yasui, as close as he can get without actually touching him and the small gesture is so unexpected of Taiga that Yasui's whole chest throbs. Tears drop from his eyelids and Yasui sniffs as he turns away. Taiga leans around him, looking at the wet tracks on Yasui's cheek in what looks like a mix of concern and pity.
“I'll be OK.” Yasui tells him, and it's the first time that he feels like he actually might be. He lets out a shaky breath and his smile comes easier this time, it feels better to have gotten it off his chest, to finally understand why it's been breaking him apart so much inside. “It's painful...losing someone you care so much about...” He tells Taiga “It's a normal reaction to blame yourself...to think about all of the things you could have done differently...how that might have changed things...if you could have saved them...”
Yasui has always gotten along well with Fuma. He'd always thought he understood why Fuma was the way he was but now he realises that he never really did. He's not sure he still does. What he feels over Nikaido's suicide must be nothing compared to what Fuma feels. He can't imagine living with the memory of watching someone he loves brutally murdered, being there and not doing anything to try and stop it, not being able to react...It's unbearable to even think about.
He doesn't say any of this to Fuma, but he feels compelled to spend more time with him all the same. Maybe it's empathy, Yasui thinks, or sympathy at least, maybe he just wants to know that Fuma is alright, that he's recovering, maybe it will make Yasui feel like he'll be alright too.
So Yasui spends more time in the behavioural ward, and Taiga still doesn't seem to like being alone so sometimes he follows Yasui there, never interacting with anyone but watching, observing everything with his usual curiosity. It's on one of these occasions that Fuma has his first violent episode in weeks and Yasui doesn't even see it coming.
The solitary patients, since they spend the majority of their time in their room have one wall which is mostly a thick polycarbonate window, with just enough brick to give them privacy in their personal bathrooms. Yasui is standing beside the window of Fuma's room, they're chatting about some stupid drama that they both like and Fuma is laughing, he's nodding and then just like that his head is shaking instead, vigorously.
“No...” Fuma groans, his hands clenching into fists and thumping loudly against the window in front of him. Yasui jumps back, too startled at first to realise what's happening, but then Fuma's fists are pounding faster, beating against the hard plastic until his knuckles are leaving red smears behind them.
“Fuma!” Yasui shouts, “Fuma, it's OK.” It's not OK, Fuma can't even hear him, he's shouting himself.
“No!” he roars. “I can't watch it! I can't watch it any more.” Yasui knows he's not talking about the stupid drama, Fuma is long gone. There are tears running down Fuma's face as his fists move from the window to the sides of his own head, punching against his own temples.
“Fuma!” Yasui shouts again, and then he backs away quickly until he bumps into the door to the general ward. He turns and calls through it “Ueda, sedative!” As carers, administering sedatives is about the extent of their authority, that or restraining the patient but in Fuma's case, the second isn't advisable when he's in one of his rages. Yasui isn't sure that sedating him will be possible either, even if they could get close enough, Fuma's actions are so frantic he's not sure they'll be able to do it.
Behind his window Fuma is thrashing wildly, his voice almost a scream. “Stop it. I don't want to see!” and his hands are clawing at his eyes, leaving raw scratches along his brow and cheekbones.
“Fuma, stop it!” Yasui shouts, feeling helpless, and then Ueda is dashing through the door to the ward with Senga behind him and Yasui rushes over to unlock Fuma's door. Ueda and Senga dart through it, and Senga tries to grab Fuma, to pull him away from where he's now bashing his head into the window.
Yasui is rooted to the spot, horrified, even as Ueda manages to jab the sedative lightly into Fuma's arm before it's smacked away, even as Senga and Ueda manage to wrestle him to the ground, pinning him there on his stomach, his head raising to look out through the window.
“It's you” Fuma snarls and Yasui doesn't know to whom he's speaking but his tone is certain, almost lucid. “How are you doing it? How do you know about him?” he shouts and then his words break off into a shrill scream as he starts thrashing anew. “Stop it, please, make it stop.” Another scream and Senga and Ueda let go of him in panic. Fuma's hands move to his head, his fingers curled and pressing sharply against his temples as he rolls around on the floor. “Stop it, I don't want to see it. Get out of my head.” he bangs his head hard against the floor as he screams again, words like 'No' and 'stop' and 'please' slipping out between screams that seem about to tear him apart and then Fuma's shrill voice asks “What do you want from me?” and he looks up, his eyes swimming with blood from burst vessels and they fix on a spot directly over Yasui's shoulder with such hatred that Yasui feels breathless.
And then he loses his breath for real as Fuma slams his head down against the floor so hard that the crack resonates across the whole ward. Senga and Ueda dart forward, falling to their knees beside Fuma while Yasui stumbles backwards in shock.
He gets a second shock as a mental image forces it's way to the forefront of his vision. There's a dark alleyway and person laying on the floor, mass of blood and pulp where the face should be, a dank metallic stench hangs in the air. He never looked at the pictures of Kento's death, but he read the police reports, they were included in Fuma's file.
It's only when Taiga flinches away from him that Yasui realises he'd bumped into him, he turns to Taiga, not sure whether to apologise or to ask what the fuck that was, but then his attention is called back to Fuma, laying on the floor.
“Yasui!” It's Ueda shouting him. “Get the patients out of here.”
Senga is already dashing past him, muttering something about ambulance under his breath and Yasui turns back to Ueda, he wants to ask, but he can't bring himself to, instead he turns away again and starts to usher the patients out into the general ward. Taiga is nowhere to be found.
He goes about his duties in a kind of shocked automation, he gets the patients organised for dinner, collects their meals from the kitchen building, draws up the necessary medications, and then he speaks to the officer that accompanies the coroner. After that he retreats to the carer's station, busying himself with tidying the filing cabinets while they wheel out the stretcher with Fuma's body on it.
It wasn't his fault, he tells himself over again, what would he have done if he'd opened Fuma's door earlier, would he have been able to pull Fuma away alone? Would Fuma have fought back? Would he be the one now growing cold beneath the stark white sheet.
He finds Taiga later, sitting on his bed, his legs crossed and his eyes on his hands which are fidgeting in his lap. He's agitated, more so than he usually is at lights out, Yasui would almost go as far as to say distressed and he feels a sudden rush of tenderness for the strange young man. He'd come to find Taiga to find out what had happened, what he'd seen when he'd bumped into Taiga, but as he makes his way across the room and Taiga looks up at him in some semblance of relief, the questions disintegrate.
“I'm sorry that you had to see that tonight.” he says instead. “It was...” horrific? Traumatic? Yasui shudders, he can still see Fuma's face in his mind, strained, snarling, the blood in his eyes. He makes a small, involuntary noise of revulsion that shakes him from the thought, and he focuses on Taiga, on Taiga's almost anxious expression “I was terrified, and I knew what Fuma was like, I've seen him go through these violent outbursts before...I can't imagine how much it must have scared you.”
Taiga looks back down at his hands in what Yasui assumes is confirmation. His hands were still while Yasui was speaking but they're starting to fidget again now as the silence stretches on so Yasui tries to fill it again.
“I feel like I should have handled the situation better...like I didn't do enough...but there wasn't anything I could do for him...he was far too strong for me to try and restrain alone.” Taiga's attention is back on Yasui again, his features unsettled again and Yasui isn't sure that speaking is helping much. “I'm sorry.” Yasui says with a pained smile. “It's always you I seem to come to talk about stuff like this...” he turns to leave the room but one of Taiga's hands shoots out, it's almost as though he's reaching for Yasui only he's close enough to touch and Taiga's hand falls short. He keeps his eyes on Yasui's face though, until Yasui moves closer and then sits down on his bed.
It kind of feels as though maybe Taiga does need him after all “Can you talk?” Yasui asks him carefully but Taiga doesn't give him any kind of indication either way. “If you can...if you want to talk...I'm here for you...”
Taiga doesn't talk, but he's a good listener. Yasui goes to him more and more as the days pass, stretching out into weeks. And even though life at KINCI regains some semblance of normalcy he still finds it some comfort, just being able to talk to someone, and he gets the feeling that it does Taiga some good too, just being talked to.
Taiga never liked to be on his own, but he would rarely stray further than his own ward. As the days progress he ventures further and further on his own, and Yasui finds him more often than not in the behavioural ward. Yasui thinks it says something about how much Taiga actually understands that he seeks out those that are a little sounder of mind.
He gets more attention in there, though Yasui suspects that not all of it is wanted. Taisuke especially pays him a lot of attention. It's understandable, Taiga is a very handsome young man, even more so now that he is eating better and bathing regularly. His hair looks clean and almost sparkling silver, his face has filled out and although there are still purple bags beneath his eyes they're less pronounced. He's looking very good. Yasui would never say it aloud but he thinks it.
Taisuke does say it aloud. Taiga usually ignores him, however crude Taisuke's remarks get, but one day as Yasui is doing his usual rounds through the day he catches Taiga staring at Taisuke through the windowed wall of his room. Taisuke is standing just the other side of it, saying filthy things to Taiga through the thick plastic with his cock in his hand. Yasui goes to intervene. “Taisuke...put it away...”
Taisuke just bites his lip and strokes faster. “When he looks at me like that it's like I can feel it. I can't stop.” He's panting hard and his expression is caught somewhere between ecstatic and tortured. “I know I shouldn't but I just can't stop. He's so tight.” He comes suddenly, seeming to surprise himself as much as Yasui but Taiga doesn't even flinch as Taisuke spurts against the transparent barrier between them.
“Alright” Yasui says half in disgust, half in what he refuses to admit is arousal. “You've got your kicks, get yourself cleaned up.” Taisuke's expression turns almost pained but he just keeps on stroking. “Taisuke!” When the other man doesn't even look at him Yasui changes tactic. “Taiga, come away, let him be.” He reaches out to touch Taiga's shoulder, to steer him away, but the moment his hand makes contact he feels a sudden surge of arousal, one powerful enough to have him hardening right there in his uniform pants. He pulls his hand away but it's still there, it's squirming and spreading inside him.
“Yasui...” Taisuke says desperately. “Fuck me.” Yasui is half startled because there are people around, people that aren't meant to know that Yasui has let himself into Taisuke's room on more than one occasion to do just that, or the other way around, Yasui is easy. The part of him that is shocked is quickly overruled by the other part, the part that wants nothing more than to comply.
He groans as he reaches for the door, feeling the excitement throbbing inside him and it takes every ounce of self-discipline for Yasui to let go of it again.
“Excuse me.” he says to nobody in particular and then he dashes out of the ward and to the toilets, offering Kitayama a sheepish nod on the way past. He's barely got the cubicle door closed behind him before he's pulling his cock out of his pants. He lets out a relieved groan as he starts to stroke and it feels like so much more than his hand usually does, it feels like warmth and moisture, tight heat and he can see Taisuke in his head, an old memory, riding him.
He groans out loud, too loud probably, he should be embarrassed to be doing this, jerking off in the toilets like some horny schoolboy but he doesn't have room for embarrassment among all the pleasure. He squeezes hard, moans again and then cries out as the scene in his head changes. It's not Taisuke riding him now but Taiga, beautiful, fair skinned Taiga, all soft features and deep dark eyes that look down on him, making him shudder and thrust faster into his own hand.
His free hand flies out to the side, gripping onto the toilet roll dispenser to hold himself up as his knees start to turn to jelly, it's unbearable, he's so desperate, so close and yet he wants it to last forever.
In his head Taiga's lips part, a soundless moan maybe and Yasui thrusts up harder into him, thrusts harder into his own hand, faster, his voice more grunts than groans, strained, and Taiga's mouth forms a single silent word “Come.” And Yasui does just that.
He has to sit down on the toilet to catch his breath and shake the images from his head. He feels disgusted with himself and yet it had felt so good. The scene in his head, as immoral as it was, was perhaps the sexiest thing Yasui has ever seen. He feels like a pervert. Poor Taiga, first Taisuke doing that in front of him and then...his thoughts trail off. He left Taiga there with Taisuke.
He tucks himself away quickly and hurries to the sink to wash his hands before dashing back along to the behaviour ward. He's not sure who he's scared for or even why, but he feels scared.
His fears are realised when he goes back to Taisuke's room. He hadn't noticed as he'd hurried passed that Kitayama wasn't at the carer's station, but there he is in Taisuke's room, Taisuke's hands around his throat while Taisuke pounds into him.
Yasui runs up to the window and bangs against it hard. “Hey, stop that. Let him go.” Kitayama's eyes widen and look desperately in Yasui's direction as a gurgling noise escapes his purpling lips.
Taisuke is crying, muttering “I can't stop, I'm sorry, I can't stop, I can't stop.” and his expression looks genuinely distressed.
Kitayama's whole face is turning purple and Yasui panics, scrambling to the door he yells “Back up” to the general ward at large and then runs to Taisuke's door. Taiga is standing serenely, watching with one hand on the window.
By the time Yasui has fumbled his keys into the lock Kitayama's face is tinted blue and his eyes are unmoving. Yasui daren't think what that means, won't, it can't, and yet as hard as he tries he can't pry Taisuke's fingers from around his throat.
It takes three of them, Yasui, Myuto and Kamenashi-san himself to pull his hands free, but even then they can do nothing to stop his hips from driving hard and fast into Kitayama's motionless body.
“Sedative.” Yasui says, half in shock and his legs only half obey as he throws himself out of the room and along the ward. He's done this before under pressure, but this time it's different, this time he can't help his card slipping through his sweat-soaked hands, he can't still his trembling fingers to type in the pass-code right first try.
It seems to take forever, the whole dash back it seems like time itself is slowing and when he reaches Taisuke's room it stops altogether. Taisuke is laying face down on the floor beside his bed, a pool of blood beside his head. Myuto is knelt there beside him, crying, an overturned chair and a puddle of vomit by his knees. Kamenashi-san is by the bed, doing compressions against Kitayama's chest and for the longest time they seem suspended, just like that. Then Kamenashi-san shakes his head and steps away. “Yasui, Myuto, clear the patients from this ward, split them between the others as evenly as you can. I have some phone calls to make. The police will want statements from you both too.”
It takes no time at all for the police to arrive, but hours after for them to finish taking statements. There are ambulances and coroners, and Yasui has to finish moving the patients on his own because Myuto is in no fit state to help once he's started reliving the whole experience. Yasui doesn't want to relive it either, he wants to forget, forget everything that has happened recently, everything that has happened since Taiga arrived.
The thought of Taiga brings another thought back to the forefront of his mind. There's one phrase that keeps playing on Yasui's mind. “He's in my head.” Yamaguchi said it first, and Nikaido didn't say it at all only it would make sense because he was staying in Nikaido's fucking room. Fuma and Taisuke both said something along those lines and each time it's been directed at the same person.
“Taiga.” Yasui says resolutely. He should have finished half an hour ago but he can't leave without speaking to Taiga first. “I need to know...did you do something to Taisuke tonight?” his breath is shaking with panic and with fear. Taiga just looks back at him with his usual curious expression. He takes a breath and forces himself to say what he doesn't want to admit to himself. “Everything that's happened recently...you're the link...Yamaguchi had that breakdown...Nika...” his voice thickens so fast he thinks he might choke. “You were in his room when his memories started coming back...you were there the night...he...and Taisuke and Fuma...both times you were there. And I bumped into you that time and I thought...but it's impossible. Sometimes it feels like you're inside my head too but it's not possible right? You can't make people see things?”
For the first time, Taiga smiles. Yasui is kind of startled by it, but not as much as when Taiga takes a step closer and reaches out to place a hand on the side of Yasui's head. He's barely done more than gasp when the images start. He's looking down on himself, thirteen years old and bloody-faced. It's like watching a movie, the sound of his pleas echoing around him as a fist grips his collar tightly, and then another, bruised, one knuckle already sunken, collides with his jaw again. He's in a dark alley, and this looks familiar too but not because he was there, only because he's seen it before. There's a smartly dressed young man being pushed around between three others, each of them lands a punch each time, each one drawing more blood. Then there's a boy, he barely looks of age and this scene is entirely new. He's naked and crying, his arms held against the bed by larger stronger ones. “Onii-chan” he cries. One of the hands leaves his arm and moves to his throat.
He's in a brightly lit courtyard, he's watching his own body writhing on the floor, he drops to his knees over the younger version of himself, shaking the fragile body roughly by the shoulders, slamming him into the ground with each shake until there's a red smear in the spot his head keeps hitting. He's in the alley again, there's a well dressed man on the ground, his face too bloodied for Yasui to make out his features and the three men are around him, stamping feet against his already motionless body. The boy's face is turning purple but he's finally shut up, he's rocking wildly with the rough thrusts into him, there's the smell of blood and sweat and Taisuke's relieved moan rings out.
The perspective changes, now he's the one looking up at Taisuke, and this one feels more substantial because this is his memory he's seeing. It's the first time he let Taisuke fuck him, it's gone as quickly as it appeared, replaced with a door, the door to Nikaido's room and Yasui can feel the hate he'd felt then bubbling under his skin. He sees the moment again, the first time he saw Nikaido after he started work at KINCI, Nikaido walking up to him with a bright smile on his face, one that Yasui had never seen before, one shining from his eyes so brightly that the years of hatred melted away in an instant to leave a fluttering feeling in Yasui's chest.
The scenes change again, too fast for Yasui to really focus on, months worth of intimate encounters with Taisuke then years worth of scenes of Nikaido, the steady strengthening of their bond only Yasui knows where they're headed this time. He's scared of getting to close. It's like strobe lights in his head, erratic and yet somehow counting down, and then he sees it, he gets up from the bed, leaving Nikaido staring at his hands. “I'll see you tomorrow alright?” his voice is distorted, ringing in his ears and he wants to scream but he's still walking and the scream inside his head gets louder and louder and he closes the door and then it's just white.
He wakes up to pristine white sheets and that dull inoffensive off-white wallpaper that most institutions have. For one chilling moment he thinks he's in a bed at KINCI but then Ueda comes into view and he's wearing street clothes. “Where am I?” he asks Ueda, though he has a fairly good idea.
“The hospital.” Ueda tells him sombrely. “You had a seizure. The doctors think it's stress.”
“Stress?” Yasui asks.
“We all feel it...with everything that's happened recently...they're keeping Myuto in a few days too under observation. Yesterday really messed him up...”
He can hear the leading question in Ueda's words but he shakes his head. “I don't want to talk about it.”
Ueda nods and lets it go. “I have to get back to work anyway...I did a half shift last night so I could do a full day today to cover for...you know...Kamenashi-san will stay the whole day with me and then Senga will have to take the graveyard shift on his own. Get some rest yeah? We need you back.”
A seizure? Yasui thinks, as he's left there alone. He's only ever had one other seizure in his life. It was in his second year of high school, the last time Nikaido beat him up before getting expelled. He remembers Nikaido's hands around his throat, shaking him, he starts to feel dizzy and it conjures up the memory of the previous day, of Taisuke's hands around Kitayama's throat. He shakes that away but another memory takes it place. A young boy, tan skin, thick hair, almond shaped eyes and a slightly pointed nose, it could be a younger version of Taisuke and Yasui is looking down at his terrified face, there are hands around his throat.
He shakes the thought away quickly and gets up from his bed, only to be stopped halfway through changing into his clothes by a nurse and ushered back into bed. He has to stay for a few hours at least, she tells him, while they conduct some tests, but as soon a they're done, Yasui discharges himself and makes his way back home.
Being at home isn't much better than the hospital, he's alone, and somehow still tired but every time he closes his eyes there's some dreadful memory awaiting him, pools of blood and motionless bodies, purple lips...a faceless body laying in a dark alleyway...It's every time he loses focus, and at home alone there's not a great deal for him to focus on, he wishes he could go to work.
As awful as it will be, Yasui thinks, returning to the scene of the horrifying incidents plaguing his thoughts, at least at work there are things to be done, boring, menial tasks that would distract him. There are people to talk to, people that need him, there's Taiga.
The thought of Taiga brings with it a new addition to the barrage of jumbled memories, a small smile, a hand reaching towards him. He needs to talk to Taiga.
They don't want to let him to go into work so soon. Kamenashi-san himself insisting that he take some time off to rest, but they are understaffed after all so reluctantly Kamenashi-san agrees to let him come in and work the late graveyard shift with Senga so that he doesn't have to run it alone.
Yasui is tired enough to sleep, but even his dreams are uneasy, he's looking down at Taisuke's face, wide surprised eyes staring back at him, his hands around Taisuke's throat. He's straddling Fuma, only Fuma is face down and his hand is knotted in Fuma's hair, he slams his head down against the pavement of a dark alleyway and the resounding crack wakes him up.
There are tears running down his face when he sits up, he shakes the thoughts away and mutters to himself. “I didn't kill them...I couldn't have done anything.” He's done the psychology, he understands why he's having nightmares, why he's reflecting the blame on himself, but understanding doesn't make it any easier to bear. He abandons his sleep and prepares for work, running all the questions he has through his head to keep him distracted.
“Taiga.” Yasui says cautiously later that night, perching himself on the edge of Taiga's bed. The patients are all tucked in for the night and Senga is minding the station. Senga is pretty cut up because he was close to Nikaido too, but he never had the relationship that Yasui had with Fuma, he never had the kind of relationship that Yasui had with Taisuke. Senga understands why Yasui is so distracted and tense, understands that it's far too soon for Yasui to be back at work after his seizure, but he also understands that they were already understaffed even before Kitayama and Myuto.
Taiga looks up at him, and there's something in his expression that Yasui can't place, an ever so slight crease in his brow that looks like determination but could just as easily be concern or guilt. Yasui lets out a soft breath and moves to Taiga's bed, sitting on the edge of it. He has to look away, Taiga's eyes are powerful, they're like endless pits only the depth of them works the other way too, extending out, reaching into Yasui's eyes, into his mind.
“How do you do it?” he asks, breaking away from Taiga's gaze, looking at his hands. “What is it that you're doing? What are you trying to do?” he risks a look up at Taiga's face again and that crease has developed into a furrow, the expression almost human. Taiga looks lost. “You showed me their memories, our memories...no...our fears...is that what you showed them?” he doesn't want to continue. He's grown to like Taiga in a strange way, there's something alluring about his strangeness, something soft in his quietness, comforting. “Did you make them hurt themselves?”
Taiga flinches, his eyes blinking and it's the first time Yasui has noticed how strange that is for him. He blinks again, his eyes shining and Yasui thinks there might be moisture there, tears pooling up along his lower lids and Taiga holds out his hand.
Yasui remembers. Nothing good has come from touching Taiga, no wonder he doesn't like being touched. The few times it has happened have been accidents, all except for the last time. He remembers clearly now, Taiga's ice cold hand against the side of his face, his fingers on Yasui's temple and the barrage of memories that had assaulted his senses.
He doesn't want Taiga to touch him, and then as he looks up into Taiga's eyes again, he wants nothing more. There's just the stirrings of something inside him, a swirling feeling at first, warm, and the images, Taisuke laid out beneath him, head thrown back, eyes clenched closed. It's been so long since anybody last touched him.
Then it's Nikaido he's seeing, his bright, dorky smile. They're talking, laughing about something and that touch burns him even deeper, inside his chest. God he misses them so much, he just wants to feel something, a connection. And then the image inside his head is Taiga, it was a matter of days ago, Yasui is sitting cross-legged on his bed, talking to him while Taiga looks on in interest, his expression gentle and it feels like he's really listening. It's not the same, not the same as Nikaido at all, but it's the closest thing.
He leans in without thinking, letting Taiga's fingers brush through his hair, coming to rest at the nape of his neck and Yasui shudders, it's Taisuke again only it's not because it's Taiga and something ignites inside him. This can't be a memory because he's thought about it before but it hasn't happened, not yet, god does Yasui want it to.
Inside his head Taiga is gasping, it's so quiet but Yasui's face is close enough to his, leaning down, slow deep thrusts, and he can almost hear them as they tickle his ear. He tilts his head, feels the warm puffs of breath on his cheek, the rest of his body hot, something low and burning in his groin and he's so hard and it feels so good only Yasui knows he's actually just sitting on Taiga's bed.
He tilts his head further, both on the inside and for real, and he didn't realise just how close they really are. He can taste the minty toothpaste on Taiga's heavy breaths. “Taiga.” he says breathlessly, his voice cracked and quivering and it could be anticipation but it's also fear.
Taiga's fingers squeeze tighter in his hair and the Taiga in his head opens his mouth just millimetres from Yasui's, and Yasui's name falls from his lips in the airiest soft voice. “Yasui.” it says again, more substance, more desperation and then their lips are brushing together. He's kissing Taiga and even as everything inside him screams that what he's doing is wrong, Yasui wouldn't stop for the world.
Their lips move together over and over, each time a little harder, a little rougher and each time it's not enough. Yasui is on his knees before he's even thought it, his hand weaving into strands of silver silk, tugging, urging Taiga's head back to kiss him deeper and Taiga obliges, gasping against Yasui's tongue as it slides into his mouth.
When he closes his eyes he can still see it in his head, but the picture pales in comparison to reality so he keeps them open, fixes them on Taiga's hooded lids, the sparkle of desire in the black beneath them.
It's Taiga that shuffles around enough to lay himself down, but his hand is still in Yasui's hair, the other one is on Yasui's waist and he uses his grip to urge Yasui down with him. Yasui pulls away only enough to toss the starchy institution sheets aside and then he's laying down, his body covering Taiga's until they're touching head to toe.
It's kind of surreal, Yasui thinks, strange maybe, though strange is not a new idea when it comes to Taiga. He's barely touched Taiga before today, nobody has touched him, and now here Yasui is, touching him in almost every way he can be touched. Touching him so intimately.
Not intimately enough. He wants more, needs it maybe, and Taiga must too because when Yasui's hands move to his waist to push down his pyjama pants, Taiga only lifts his hips and wriggles out of them.
Taiga is hard, pale white, flushed red, a bead of moisture glistening at the tip and Yasui bites into his lip to keep from moaning just at the sight. He wants to see more, everything, to touch it all. He lifts himself enough to pull at the end of Taiga's pyjama top, and Taiga lifts himself enough for Yasui to tug it off and then his hands are on the bare expanse of Taiga's chest.
Taiga's skin is like ice, but Yasui is burning up. He strips his uniform T-shirt off and tosses it aside before moving his hands down to the waistband of his trousers. He pauses with his hands there, heaving in great breaths as he looks at Taiga, just to be sure.
An almost inaudible groan answers his question, and Taiga's eyebrows knit together as he licks his lips, his erection twitching. Yasui nods, certain. It's wrong, that he's certain of too, but Taisuke was wrong and he never, ever wanted that as much as he wants this, as much as he wants to be inside Taiga, in every way that he can be, mind, body, soul.
He pushes his trousers down quickly, along with his boxers, and then they're skin to skin. Yasui shudders almost violently, his flesh quivering with anticipation as he kisses Taiga soft but deep and then thrusts down.
Taiga's arms come up around his waist, tightening, pulling him down as his hips push back up against Yasui's and it's so urgent, so forceful that it knocks Yasui's breath from him. He gasps against Taiga's lips, tasting more than hearing Taiga's desperate mewls and he pulls back to look into Taiga's eyes, into the blazing, boundless abyss, itching to cast himself into it.
It's Taiga that spreads his legs, lets Yasui fall to rest between them, and Taiga that pulls one hand away to stuff it under his pillow and pull out a tube that Yasui recognises as once belonging to Taisuke. He's not sure how Taiga ended up with it, or why, or how long he's had it hidden under his pillow, how long he's been planning...Yasui should care, but he can't, he just grabs the tube eagerly and twists the cap off with his teeth before pushing himself up on one hand, just enough to dribble the slippery substance on his aching erection.
He throws the tube off to the side and strokes his hand along his cock just once to spread the lube and then his slick hand finds Taiga's rim. His fingers slide right in, two at once, sucking, squeezing, and Yasui moans out loud as he thrusts them quickly just a few times and slides them out.
Taiga's legs pull back, spreading him open and then they lift, hooking around Yasui's hips and pulling him in. It's Taiga that moans, a real one, loud and broken as Yasui slides inside, deeper, all the way until he's pressed flush against Taiga and has forgotten how to breath.
They both moan as he pulls back out, his own is low, half awe, half relief, all desperation and Taiga's just as broken as before, high and sharp, like cracking glass. Their next moans are cut off, barely silenced by each others lips, their tongues dancing as Yasui continues to drive his hips, pushing slowly, deeply, relentlessly into Taiga's waiting body.
His head is spinning, his breaths too short, too shallow and he feels dizzy with pleasure. The images are back inside his head, or it could just be fireworks behind his eyes, each of Taiga's high-pitched moans another soaring light, each of his desperate grunts another bang, all of it bright and loud and fast, faster, building up to that most powerful of explosions. His hips move faster, chasing it, Taiga's nails digging into his back and the pain only takes him higher until he's floating, soaring. Bang.
It's just white, his sharp cry echoing in his head along with the tingles of bliss and the rest of him feels so numb that he might not have a body at all. All that is left is just this, floating, white, dimming, dark. And then the voices.
“Our last hope is Earth”
A light airy voice answers, soft but urgent. “It is inhabited by humans.”
“We will overthrow them.” the deeper voice answers unconcerned.
“They have weapons.”
“The most deadly weapon they have is themselves.” That deep voice counters calmly. “They eradicate each other, kill themselves. All we need to do is find a way to harness that power, to manipulate them.”
“How?”
“That is for you to find out. You will go first, watch them, figure out how their minds work, what drives them...learn to use it against them. Others will follow you.”
He wakes up once again to pristine white sheets and that off-white colour wallpaper, and then he feels a cold sweat break out over his back as he realises he's in a bed at KINCI. He's in Taiga's bed, and the realisation brings with it images of the previous night, naked flesh and desperate moans, and then more, memories that feel only half real, pitch blackness and overheard whispers.
There's no sign of Taiga but the heavy curtains have been opened and Yasui panics as he sees how light it is outside. He has to get ready before the shift change. He darts out of bed, pausing in confusion when he sees that he's wearing KINCI issue pyjamas. He searches around frantically for his uniform but he has no luck finding it, and then he catches sight of the clock, it's already 10 o'clock, Ueda will be here already to relieve them for the day, he should be leaving.
It's only when he turns to the door that he notices the other occupant of the room, a strange young man with light brown hair and a thin face, who is just staring at him curiously from Nikaido's bed. He pauses, searching his mind for a name because he knows every single patient, it's his job to.
He hears voices out in the hall, Senga greeting Ueda with an all too cheery “Good morning” and he remembers his hurry. He dashes from the room and runs straight into Ueda.
“Yasui.” Ueda says with a smile. “Did you have a good sleep?”
The question catches him off guard because how could Ueda even know about Yasui being asleep. Unless Senga had said something...only he heard them greeting each other just moments ago. He shakes the thought away because there are more pressing matters at hand. “Have you seen Taiga?”
“Kyomoto?” Ueda asks in confusion, and that causes an equal expression of confusion on Yasui's face.
“No, Taiga...” Yasui says a little impatiently. “Patient...Blonde hair...kinda quiet...”
“Taiga isn't a patient...” Ueda starts but Yasui doesn't like the kind of scared look he's wearing. He gives a grunt of annoyance and turns to Senga instead.
“He was here last night...in his room” he points back at the room that he almost manages to think of as Taiga's now. “When I woke up he was gone...”
Senga looks at him almost pitifully. “Yasui, calm down, why don't you go back to bed for a while?”
He won't, he can't understand their reactions, it both scares and irritates him, only exacerbating the panic he was already feeling about Taiga's disappearance. “We're missing a patient and you want me to calm down...”
“Yasui, Taiga isn't a patient here.” Ueda repeats carefully and Yasui shakes his head.
“You're the one that told me when he first arrived...you left his file on the desk...” The file, that will prove his case.
He races to the filing cabinet, getting into the carer's station only because Senga is standing in the doorway, and he rakes open drawer after drawer but Taiga's file isn't where it should be. It isn't in any of the other drawers either, though there's something in the last one that makes his blood freeze in his veins. It's a file: Yasui, Kentaro.
He pulls it out, swallowing hard as he opens it, and right there in the corner of the first page his photograph is paper-clipped. He skims it, his profile information is right but then there are other words 'amnesiac', 'delusional', 'psychotic episodes', 'violent history'. The file falls from his hands, the pages fluttering across the floor and there are other pictures, a motorcycle crash, a faceless body, a young boy with what looks like it could be a brother. He gets up, his head shaking, his stomach turning, and wanders back out of the door to the ward, looking at it with what feel like new eyes.
There's an even bigger surprise waiting for him out on the ward. A handsome young man with silvery white hair and dark eyes is standing in the corridor, looking at him curiously. He's wearing street clothes and when Yasui raises a hand to point at him he opens his mouth to speak.
“Are you feeling better this morning Yasui-kun?” he asks, his voice light and airy, familiar, like something he once heard in a dream.
“He's been acting unusual.” Ueda answers for him. “Did anything happen last night Kyomo-chan?”
Taiga takes a few steps towards him and Yasui backs away. “He had an episode.” Taiga answers unhappily. “First one in months...it was bad though, he started talking about those guys he...you know...Nikaido and the others...he seemed to think it was an alien that killed them or something...” Yasui can't do anything but watch in horror. “We had to sedate him...it's all down in the log book.”
“No...” Yasui says, but Ueda is looking at him and nodding as though it's not at all unexpected. “No he...”
“Well, I need to get going.” Taiga says to Ueda and he heads to the door only to turn back just before he reaches it. “Oh, there was a new patient checked in yesterday evening...Juri, he's a very interesting one. They found him wandering in the woods on his own, he hasn't said a single word since they picked him up and they've checked fingerprints, DNA and missing persons but there's not a single lead on who he is or where he came from. There's something very strange about him.”
Yasui doesn't think he imagines the way Taiga's eyes flick to him as he speaks, but he doesn't know what to believe any more.
“Nika-chan?” Yasui asks gently, coming into Nikaido's room where the young man has shut himself. The curtains are drawn and Nikaido is hunched over the sink in the corner of the room.
“It won't come off.” Nikaido tells Yasui without looking at him.
“What won't come off?” Yasui asks, moving closer. He can see that Nikaido is scrubbing his hands.
“The blood.” Nikaido says shakily. “There's blood on my hands.”
Yasui grabs him and tugs him away from the sink. “What happened?” but when he looks at Nikaido's hands they're red and raw looking but there's no blood. “Nika-chan, there's no blood...”
“I know.” Nikaido tells him, and he looks at Yasui's eyes, his expression almost pleading. “I know there isn't but I saw it there, I can't wash it away again.” Yasui looks down at Nikaido's hands again, his right hand curls into a fist and the fingers of his left hand feather over the knuckles.
Nikaido never used weapons, back before the accident, Nikaido always fought with his fists, every one of the knuckles on his right hand is broken and two on the left are too. Yasui's jaw drops as he looks up at Nikaido's eyes. “Wait right here...” He darts back out into the corridor and along to the station where Ueda is still sitting. “Call Dr. Yokoo...I think his memory is coming back.”
It's a miraculous breakthrough. Truthfully, they'd never done a great deal of work with Nikaido on bringing back the memories of his former self but it had been unmistakably clear he had no memory of it. Nikaido is taken away less than an hour later, Dr. Yokoo insisting he can find out more with the help of his team in the University laboratory. He's still not back when Yasui's shift finishes at seven.
Yasui is a little reluctant to see Nikaido the next day, as much as he hopes that Nikaido is making a recovery, he doesn't want to get that old Nikaido back, he likes the fun and vivacious Nikaido that they have now. But more-so than that, he doesn't want Nikaido to get his memories back because he doesn't want Nikaido to have to live with those memories, he knows how crushing it would be for him to find out about the people he hurt.
Selfishly, he avoids Nikaido as much as his duties allow the next day, he feels bad for Nikaido though, still shut up in his room alone with God knows what going through his head. He's changed and ready to leave, but before he can open the door he hears Nikaido's unusually sullen voice behind him.
“Yasui-kun” he says. “I need to talk” and when Yasui's mouth opens he re-phrases. “I need to talk to you.” Yasui looks around at the carer's station, he shouldn't really when he's off duty, but Nikaido is different, he's Yasui's favourite.
“Alright.” he answers quietly, and then he turns to follow Nikaido back to his room.
Nikaido sits there quietly for a moment, steeling himself, and Yasui can see that this is a different person he's talking to, this isn't the Nikaido that he waved goodbye to at the end of last week. “I've been seeing pictures in my head.” Nikaido explains. “Horrible things...blood and violence and...and I'm the one doing it.” Yasui doesn't say anything, he can't say anything. “Dr. Yokoo says they're memories...that I was in a motorcycle crash and just forgot them...only, sometimes...I was hurting you...”
“Nika...” Yasui starts but he stops short, he doesn't know what to say.
“Yasui Kentaro...I knew you didn't I? I hurt you...” Nikaido's voice cracks “I can see it...all the horrible things that I did to you...and you've been taking care of me...”
Yasui smiles gently. “It was a long time ago, we're both different people now...I forgive you and I care about you. OK?” Nikaido starts to cry. It's the strangest feeling, because Yasui feels like he's known Nikaido twice, as two different people and he never thought he'd ever see either of them cry. “Don't upset yourself over it.” he pulls Nikaido into a gentle hug, one that he ends far too soon. “I'll see you tomorrow alright?”
He's woken sharply from his sleep. He reaches for his phone on the bedside table and registers first the number of the incoming call, the carer's station, and then the time 4:37AM. “Hello?” he answers sleepily.
It's Senga's voice that answers, he's on the late graveyard shift. “I'm sorry to call you so late.” Senga says sombrely. “I just thought that you would want to know...Nika-chan passed away...”
He can't process the words, he's half asleep and plummeting deep into shock and he's sure that he didn't hear right because “Passed away..?”
“He killed himself.” Senga clarifies. “He was tucked up in bed at the 3 o'clock check, when I went round at four he was hanging from the ceiling panels by his bedsheets.”
They all have to go through grief counselling. Nikaido had been there a long time, all of the staff were close to him, all of them are shocked and distraught and the higher ups are concerned about their mental health staff having mental breakdowns. The patients have to have a few sessions too though half of them aren't in the right mind to understand what happened. Taiga has to take the sessions too, even though he doesn't speak, and as they've discovered he doesn't seem to read or write either, but Taiga has to go to them because he was in the room with Nikaido when it happened.
Yasui's own sessions aren't going too well, he's done the psychology and he knows the theory but it's the first time he's ever experienced something like this and it just isn't that easy to talk about. Even the other staff try and get Yasui to open up about it but he just can't bring himself to say anything other than. “I'm just surprised, I'll be alright.”
The first time he does, it's not to a staff member, it's to Taiga. Taiga is sitting on his bed in what is now his room, it's so hard not to think of it as Nikaido's still. He's agitated, as he has been every night at lights out since Nikaido died, and Yasui can't be sure if it's because he's troubled over what happened or if he just doesn't like being alone. Yasui can't help him any more than the therapists if it's the former, but he sits with Taiga for a while whenever his shift coincides with lights off.
“It must have been awful...” Yasui says to Taiga one night, “Seeing it happen, not being able to do anything about it...you must be blaming yourself.” he's quiet for a moment, collecting himself. “I blame myself too. If I'd have stayed a bit longer that night...if I'd done more to convince him that I forgive him...that he's a good person now, that he's changed...if I'd have not been so stupid...if I'd have seen...really seen how much it was troubling him...I could have...” he's shaking his head. He looks up at Taiga and to his surprise Taiga is looking back at him and his expression looks a little worried. He shakes his head again and tries to smile. “If I hadn't have gotten so close to him it wouldn't have hurt him so badly to remember...he beat up hundreds of people...why is it me he was so worried about? Because I let myself get too close...”
Taiga doesn't say anything but he shuffles closer to Yasui, as close as he can get without actually touching him and the small gesture is so unexpected of Taiga that Yasui's whole chest throbs. Tears drop from his eyelids and Yasui sniffs as he turns away. Taiga leans around him, looking at the wet tracks on Yasui's cheek in what looks like a mix of concern and pity.
“I'll be OK.” Yasui tells him, and it's the first time that he feels like he actually might be. He lets out a shaky breath and his smile comes easier this time, it feels better to have gotten it off his chest, to finally understand why it's been breaking him apart so much inside. “It's painful...losing someone you care so much about...” He tells Taiga “It's a normal reaction to blame yourself...to think about all of the things you could have done differently...how that might have changed things...if you could have saved them...”
Yasui has always gotten along well with Fuma. He'd always thought he understood why Fuma was the way he was but now he realises that he never really did. He's not sure he still does. What he feels over Nikaido's suicide must be nothing compared to what Fuma feels. He can't imagine living with the memory of watching someone he loves brutally murdered, being there and not doing anything to try and stop it, not being able to react...It's unbearable to even think about.
He doesn't say any of this to Fuma, but he feels compelled to spend more time with him all the same. Maybe it's empathy, Yasui thinks, or sympathy at least, maybe he just wants to know that Fuma is alright, that he's recovering, maybe it will make Yasui feel like he'll be alright too.
So Yasui spends more time in the behavioural ward, and Taiga still doesn't seem to like being alone so sometimes he follows Yasui there, never interacting with anyone but watching, observing everything with his usual curiosity. It's on one of these occasions that Fuma has his first violent episode in weeks and Yasui doesn't even see it coming.
The solitary patients, since they spend the majority of their time in their room have one wall which is mostly a thick polycarbonate window, with just enough brick to give them privacy in their personal bathrooms. Yasui is standing beside the window of Fuma's room, they're chatting about some stupid drama that they both like and Fuma is laughing, he's nodding and then just like that his head is shaking instead, vigorously.
“No...” Fuma groans, his hands clenching into fists and thumping loudly against the window in front of him. Yasui jumps back, too startled at first to realise what's happening, but then Fuma's fists are pounding faster, beating against the hard plastic until his knuckles are leaving red smears behind them.
“Fuma!” Yasui shouts, “Fuma, it's OK.” It's not OK, Fuma can't even hear him, he's shouting himself.
“No!” he roars. “I can't watch it! I can't watch it any more.” Yasui knows he's not talking about the stupid drama, Fuma is long gone. There are tears running down Fuma's face as his fists move from the window to the sides of his own head, punching against his own temples.
“Fuma!” Yasui shouts again, and then he backs away quickly until he bumps into the door to the general ward. He turns and calls through it “Ueda, sedative!” As carers, administering sedatives is about the extent of their authority, that or restraining the patient but in Fuma's case, the second isn't advisable when he's in one of his rages. Yasui isn't sure that sedating him will be possible either, even if they could get close enough, Fuma's actions are so frantic he's not sure they'll be able to do it.
Behind his window Fuma is thrashing wildly, his voice almost a scream. “Stop it. I don't want to see!” and his hands are clawing at his eyes, leaving raw scratches along his brow and cheekbones.
“Fuma, stop it!” Yasui shouts, feeling helpless, and then Ueda is dashing through the door to the ward with Senga behind him and Yasui rushes over to unlock Fuma's door. Ueda and Senga dart through it, and Senga tries to grab Fuma, to pull him away from where he's now bashing his head into the window.
Yasui is rooted to the spot, horrified, even as Ueda manages to jab the sedative lightly into Fuma's arm before it's smacked away, even as Senga and Ueda manage to wrestle him to the ground, pinning him there on his stomach, his head raising to look out through the window.
“It's you” Fuma snarls and Yasui doesn't know to whom he's speaking but his tone is certain, almost lucid. “How are you doing it? How do you know about him?” he shouts and then his words break off into a shrill scream as he starts thrashing anew. “Stop it, please, make it stop.” Another scream and Senga and Ueda let go of him in panic. Fuma's hands move to his head, his fingers curled and pressing sharply against his temples as he rolls around on the floor. “Stop it, I don't want to see it. Get out of my head.” he bangs his head hard against the floor as he screams again, words like 'No' and 'stop' and 'please' slipping out between screams that seem about to tear him apart and then Fuma's shrill voice asks “What do you want from me?” and he looks up, his eyes swimming with blood from burst vessels and they fix on a spot directly over Yasui's shoulder with such hatred that Yasui feels breathless.
And then he loses his breath for real as Fuma slams his head down against the floor so hard that the crack resonates across the whole ward. Senga and Ueda dart forward, falling to their knees beside Fuma while Yasui stumbles backwards in shock.
He gets a second shock as a mental image forces it's way to the forefront of his vision. There's a dark alleyway and person laying on the floor, mass of blood and pulp where the face should be, a dank metallic stench hangs in the air. He never looked at the pictures of Kento's death, but he read the police reports, they were included in Fuma's file.
It's only when Taiga flinches away from him that Yasui realises he'd bumped into him, he turns to Taiga, not sure whether to apologise or to ask what the fuck that was, but then his attention is called back to Fuma, laying on the floor.
“Yasui!” It's Ueda shouting him. “Get the patients out of here.”
Senga is already dashing past him, muttering something about ambulance under his breath and Yasui turns back to Ueda, he wants to ask, but he can't bring himself to, instead he turns away again and starts to usher the patients out into the general ward. Taiga is nowhere to be found.
He goes about his duties in a kind of shocked automation, he gets the patients organised for dinner, collects their meals from the kitchen building, draws up the necessary medications, and then he speaks to the officer that accompanies the coroner. After that he retreats to the carer's station, busying himself with tidying the filing cabinets while they wheel out the stretcher with Fuma's body on it.
It wasn't his fault, he tells himself over again, what would he have done if he'd opened Fuma's door earlier, would he have been able to pull Fuma away alone? Would Fuma have fought back? Would he be the one now growing cold beneath the stark white sheet.
He finds Taiga later, sitting on his bed, his legs crossed and his eyes on his hands which are fidgeting in his lap. He's agitated, more so than he usually is at lights out, Yasui would almost go as far as to say distressed and he feels a sudden rush of tenderness for the strange young man. He'd come to find Taiga to find out what had happened, what he'd seen when he'd bumped into Taiga, but as he makes his way across the room and Taiga looks up at him in some semblance of relief, the questions disintegrate.
“I'm sorry that you had to see that tonight.” he says instead. “It was...” horrific? Traumatic? Yasui shudders, he can still see Fuma's face in his mind, strained, snarling, the blood in his eyes. He makes a small, involuntary noise of revulsion that shakes him from the thought, and he focuses on Taiga, on Taiga's almost anxious expression “I was terrified, and I knew what Fuma was like, I've seen him go through these violent outbursts before...I can't imagine how much it must have scared you.”
Taiga looks back down at his hands in what Yasui assumes is confirmation. His hands were still while Yasui was speaking but they're starting to fidget again now as the silence stretches on so Yasui tries to fill it again.
“I feel like I should have handled the situation better...like I didn't do enough...but there wasn't anything I could do for him...he was far too strong for me to try and restrain alone.” Taiga's attention is back on Yasui again, his features unsettled again and Yasui isn't sure that speaking is helping much. “I'm sorry.” Yasui says with a pained smile. “It's always you I seem to come to talk about stuff like this...” he turns to leave the room but one of Taiga's hands shoots out, it's almost as though he's reaching for Yasui only he's close enough to touch and Taiga's hand falls short. He keeps his eyes on Yasui's face though, until Yasui moves closer and then sits down on his bed.
It kind of feels as though maybe Taiga does need him after all “Can you talk?” Yasui asks him carefully but Taiga doesn't give him any kind of indication either way. “If you can...if you want to talk...I'm here for you...”
Taiga doesn't talk, but he's a good listener. Yasui goes to him more and more as the days pass, stretching out into weeks. And even though life at KINCI regains some semblance of normalcy he still finds it some comfort, just being able to talk to someone, and he gets the feeling that it does Taiga some good too, just being talked to.
Taiga never liked to be on his own, but he would rarely stray further than his own ward. As the days progress he ventures further and further on his own, and Yasui finds him more often than not in the behavioural ward. Yasui thinks it says something about how much Taiga actually understands that he seeks out those that are a little sounder of mind.
He gets more attention in there, though Yasui suspects that not all of it is wanted. Taisuke especially pays him a lot of attention. It's understandable, Taiga is a very handsome young man, even more so now that he is eating better and bathing regularly. His hair looks clean and almost sparkling silver, his face has filled out and although there are still purple bags beneath his eyes they're less pronounced. He's looking very good. Yasui would never say it aloud but he thinks it.
Taisuke does say it aloud. Taiga usually ignores him, however crude Taisuke's remarks get, but one day as Yasui is doing his usual rounds through the day he catches Taiga staring at Taisuke through the windowed wall of his room. Taisuke is standing just the other side of it, saying filthy things to Taiga through the thick plastic with his cock in his hand. Yasui goes to intervene. “Taisuke...put it away...”
Taisuke just bites his lip and strokes faster. “When he looks at me like that it's like I can feel it. I can't stop.” He's panting hard and his expression is caught somewhere between ecstatic and tortured. “I know I shouldn't but I just can't stop. He's so tight.” He comes suddenly, seeming to surprise himself as much as Yasui but Taiga doesn't even flinch as Taisuke spurts against the transparent barrier between them.
“Alright” Yasui says half in disgust, half in what he refuses to admit is arousal. “You've got your kicks, get yourself cleaned up.” Taisuke's expression turns almost pained but he just keeps on stroking. “Taisuke!” When the other man doesn't even look at him Yasui changes tactic. “Taiga, come away, let him be.” He reaches out to touch Taiga's shoulder, to steer him away, but the moment his hand makes contact he feels a sudden surge of arousal, one powerful enough to have him hardening right there in his uniform pants. He pulls his hand away but it's still there, it's squirming and spreading inside him.
“Yasui...” Taisuke says desperately. “Fuck me.” Yasui is half startled because there are people around, people that aren't meant to know that Yasui has let himself into Taisuke's room on more than one occasion to do just that, or the other way around, Yasui is easy. The part of him that is shocked is quickly overruled by the other part, the part that wants nothing more than to comply.
He groans as he reaches for the door, feeling the excitement throbbing inside him and it takes every ounce of self-discipline for Yasui to let go of it again.
“Excuse me.” he says to nobody in particular and then he dashes out of the ward and to the toilets, offering Kitayama a sheepish nod on the way past. He's barely got the cubicle door closed behind him before he's pulling his cock out of his pants. He lets out a relieved groan as he starts to stroke and it feels like so much more than his hand usually does, it feels like warmth and moisture, tight heat and he can see Taisuke in his head, an old memory, riding him.
He groans out loud, too loud probably, he should be embarrassed to be doing this, jerking off in the toilets like some horny schoolboy but he doesn't have room for embarrassment among all the pleasure. He squeezes hard, moans again and then cries out as the scene in his head changes. It's not Taisuke riding him now but Taiga, beautiful, fair skinned Taiga, all soft features and deep dark eyes that look down on him, making him shudder and thrust faster into his own hand.
His free hand flies out to the side, gripping onto the toilet roll dispenser to hold himself up as his knees start to turn to jelly, it's unbearable, he's so desperate, so close and yet he wants it to last forever.
In his head Taiga's lips part, a soundless moan maybe and Yasui thrusts up harder into him, thrusts harder into his own hand, faster, his voice more grunts than groans, strained, and Taiga's mouth forms a single silent word “Come.” And Yasui does just that.
He has to sit down on the toilet to catch his breath and shake the images from his head. He feels disgusted with himself and yet it had felt so good. The scene in his head, as immoral as it was, was perhaps the sexiest thing Yasui has ever seen. He feels like a pervert. Poor Taiga, first Taisuke doing that in front of him and then...his thoughts trail off. He left Taiga there with Taisuke.
He tucks himself away quickly and hurries to the sink to wash his hands before dashing back along to the behaviour ward. He's not sure who he's scared for or even why, but he feels scared.
His fears are realised when he goes back to Taisuke's room. He hadn't noticed as he'd hurried passed that Kitayama wasn't at the carer's station, but there he is in Taisuke's room, Taisuke's hands around his throat while Taisuke pounds into him.
Yasui runs up to the window and bangs against it hard. “Hey, stop that. Let him go.” Kitayama's eyes widen and look desperately in Yasui's direction as a gurgling noise escapes his purpling lips.
Taisuke is crying, muttering “I can't stop, I'm sorry, I can't stop, I can't stop.” and his expression looks genuinely distressed.
Kitayama's whole face is turning purple and Yasui panics, scrambling to the door he yells “Back up” to the general ward at large and then runs to Taisuke's door. Taiga is standing serenely, watching with one hand on the window.
By the time Yasui has fumbled his keys into the lock Kitayama's face is tinted blue and his eyes are unmoving. Yasui daren't think what that means, won't, it can't, and yet as hard as he tries he can't pry Taisuke's fingers from around his throat.
It takes three of them, Yasui, Myuto and Kamenashi-san himself to pull his hands free, but even then they can do nothing to stop his hips from driving hard and fast into Kitayama's motionless body.
“Sedative.” Yasui says, half in shock and his legs only half obey as he throws himself out of the room and along the ward. He's done this before under pressure, but this time it's different, this time he can't help his card slipping through his sweat-soaked hands, he can't still his trembling fingers to type in the pass-code right first try.
It seems to take forever, the whole dash back it seems like time itself is slowing and when he reaches Taisuke's room it stops altogether. Taisuke is laying face down on the floor beside his bed, a pool of blood beside his head. Myuto is knelt there beside him, crying, an overturned chair and a puddle of vomit by his knees. Kamenashi-san is by the bed, doing compressions against Kitayama's chest and for the longest time they seem suspended, just like that. Then Kamenashi-san shakes his head and steps away. “Yasui, Myuto, clear the patients from this ward, split them between the others as evenly as you can. I have some phone calls to make. The police will want statements from you both too.”
It takes no time at all for the police to arrive, but hours after for them to finish taking statements. There are ambulances and coroners, and Yasui has to finish moving the patients on his own because Myuto is in no fit state to help once he's started reliving the whole experience. Yasui doesn't want to relive it either, he wants to forget, forget everything that has happened recently, everything that has happened since Taiga arrived.
The thought of Taiga brings another thought back to the forefront of his mind. There's one phrase that keeps playing on Yasui's mind. “He's in my head.” Yamaguchi said it first, and Nikaido didn't say it at all only it would make sense because he was staying in Nikaido's fucking room. Fuma and Taisuke both said something along those lines and each time it's been directed at the same person.
“Taiga.” Yasui says resolutely. He should have finished half an hour ago but he can't leave without speaking to Taiga first. “I need to know...did you do something to Taisuke tonight?” his breath is shaking with panic and with fear. Taiga just looks back at him with his usual curious expression. He takes a breath and forces himself to say what he doesn't want to admit to himself. “Everything that's happened recently...you're the link...Yamaguchi had that breakdown...Nika...” his voice thickens so fast he thinks he might choke. “You were in his room when his memories started coming back...you were there the night...he...and Taisuke and Fuma...both times you were there. And I bumped into you that time and I thought...but it's impossible. Sometimes it feels like you're inside my head too but it's not possible right? You can't make people see things?”
For the first time, Taiga smiles. Yasui is kind of startled by it, but not as much as when Taiga takes a step closer and reaches out to place a hand on the side of Yasui's head. He's barely done more than gasp when the images start. He's looking down on himself, thirteen years old and bloody-faced. It's like watching a movie, the sound of his pleas echoing around him as a fist grips his collar tightly, and then another, bruised, one knuckle already sunken, collides with his jaw again. He's in a dark alley, and this looks familiar too but not because he was there, only because he's seen it before. There's a smartly dressed young man being pushed around between three others, each of them lands a punch each time, each one drawing more blood. Then there's a boy, he barely looks of age and this scene is entirely new. He's naked and crying, his arms held against the bed by larger stronger ones. “Onii-chan” he cries. One of the hands leaves his arm and moves to his throat.
He's in a brightly lit courtyard, he's watching his own body writhing on the floor, he drops to his knees over the younger version of himself, shaking the fragile body roughly by the shoulders, slamming him into the ground with each shake until there's a red smear in the spot his head keeps hitting. He's in the alley again, there's a well dressed man on the ground, his face too bloodied for Yasui to make out his features and the three men are around him, stamping feet against his already motionless body. The boy's face is turning purple but he's finally shut up, he's rocking wildly with the rough thrusts into him, there's the smell of blood and sweat and Taisuke's relieved moan rings out.
The perspective changes, now he's the one looking up at Taisuke, and this one feels more substantial because this is his memory he's seeing. It's the first time he let Taisuke fuck him, it's gone as quickly as it appeared, replaced with a door, the door to Nikaido's room and Yasui can feel the hate he'd felt then bubbling under his skin. He sees the moment again, the first time he saw Nikaido after he started work at KINCI, Nikaido walking up to him with a bright smile on his face, one that Yasui had never seen before, one shining from his eyes so brightly that the years of hatred melted away in an instant to leave a fluttering feeling in Yasui's chest.
The scenes change again, too fast for Yasui to really focus on, months worth of intimate encounters with Taisuke then years worth of scenes of Nikaido, the steady strengthening of their bond only Yasui knows where they're headed this time. He's scared of getting to close. It's like strobe lights in his head, erratic and yet somehow counting down, and then he sees it, he gets up from the bed, leaving Nikaido staring at his hands. “I'll see you tomorrow alright?” his voice is distorted, ringing in his ears and he wants to scream but he's still walking and the scream inside his head gets louder and louder and he closes the door and then it's just white.
He wakes up to pristine white sheets and that dull inoffensive off-white wallpaper that most institutions have. For one chilling moment he thinks he's in a bed at KINCI but then Ueda comes into view and he's wearing street clothes. “Where am I?” he asks Ueda, though he has a fairly good idea.
“The hospital.” Ueda tells him sombrely. “You had a seizure. The doctors think it's stress.”
“Stress?” Yasui asks.
“We all feel it...with everything that's happened recently...they're keeping Myuto in a few days too under observation. Yesterday really messed him up...”
He can hear the leading question in Ueda's words but he shakes his head. “I don't want to talk about it.”
Ueda nods and lets it go. “I have to get back to work anyway...I did a half shift last night so I could do a full day today to cover for...you know...Kamenashi-san will stay the whole day with me and then Senga will have to take the graveyard shift on his own. Get some rest yeah? We need you back.”
A seizure? Yasui thinks, as he's left there alone. He's only ever had one other seizure in his life. It was in his second year of high school, the last time Nikaido beat him up before getting expelled. He remembers Nikaido's hands around his throat, shaking him, he starts to feel dizzy and it conjures up the memory of the previous day, of Taisuke's hands around Kitayama's throat. He shakes that away but another memory takes it place. A young boy, tan skin, thick hair, almond shaped eyes and a slightly pointed nose, it could be a younger version of Taisuke and Yasui is looking down at his terrified face, there are hands around his throat.
He shakes the thought away quickly and gets up from his bed, only to be stopped halfway through changing into his clothes by a nurse and ushered back into bed. He has to stay for a few hours at least, she tells him, while they conduct some tests, but as soon a they're done, Yasui discharges himself and makes his way back home.
Being at home isn't much better than the hospital, he's alone, and somehow still tired but every time he closes his eyes there's some dreadful memory awaiting him, pools of blood and motionless bodies, purple lips...a faceless body laying in a dark alleyway...It's every time he loses focus, and at home alone there's not a great deal for him to focus on, he wishes he could go to work.
As awful as it will be, Yasui thinks, returning to the scene of the horrifying incidents plaguing his thoughts, at least at work there are things to be done, boring, menial tasks that would distract him. There are people to talk to, people that need him, there's Taiga.
The thought of Taiga brings with it a new addition to the barrage of jumbled memories, a small smile, a hand reaching towards him. He needs to talk to Taiga.
They don't want to let him to go into work so soon. Kamenashi-san himself insisting that he take some time off to rest, but they are understaffed after all so reluctantly Kamenashi-san agrees to let him come in and work the late graveyard shift with Senga so that he doesn't have to run it alone.
Yasui is tired enough to sleep, but even his dreams are uneasy, he's looking down at Taisuke's face, wide surprised eyes staring back at him, his hands around Taisuke's throat. He's straddling Fuma, only Fuma is face down and his hand is knotted in Fuma's hair, he slams his head down against the pavement of a dark alleyway and the resounding crack wakes him up.
There are tears running down his face when he sits up, he shakes the thoughts away and mutters to himself. “I didn't kill them...I couldn't have done anything.” He's done the psychology, he understands why he's having nightmares, why he's reflecting the blame on himself, but understanding doesn't make it any easier to bear. He abandons his sleep and prepares for work, running all the questions he has through his head to keep him distracted.
“Taiga.” Yasui says cautiously later that night, perching himself on the edge of Taiga's bed. The patients are all tucked in for the night and Senga is minding the station. Senga is pretty cut up because he was close to Nikaido too, but he never had the relationship that Yasui had with Fuma, he never had the kind of relationship that Yasui had with Taisuke. Senga understands why Yasui is so distracted and tense, understands that it's far too soon for Yasui to be back at work after his seizure, but he also understands that they were already understaffed even before Kitayama and Myuto.
Taiga looks up at him, and there's something in his expression that Yasui can't place, an ever so slight crease in his brow that looks like determination but could just as easily be concern or guilt. Yasui lets out a soft breath and moves to Taiga's bed, sitting on the edge of it. He has to look away, Taiga's eyes are powerful, they're like endless pits only the depth of them works the other way too, extending out, reaching into Yasui's eyes, into his mind.
“How do you do it?” he asks, breaking away from Taiga's gaze, looking at his hands. “What is it that you're doing? What are you trying to do?” he risks a look up at Taiga's face again and that crease has developed into a furrow, the expression almost human. Taiga looks lost. “You showed me their memories, our memories...no...our fears...is that what you showed them?” he doesn't want to continue. He's grown to like Taiga in a strange way, there's something alluring about his strangeness, something soft in his quietness, comforting. “Did you make them hurt themselves?”
Taiga flinches, his eyes blinking and it's the first time Yasui has noticed how strange that is for him. He blinks again, his eyes shining and Yasui thinks there might be moisture there, tears pooling up along his lower lids and Taiga holds out his hand.
Yasui remembers. Nothing good has come from touching Taiga, no wonder he doesn't like being touched. The few times it has happened have been accidents, all except for the last time. He remembers clearly now, Taiga's ice cold hand against the side of his face, his fingers on Yasui's temple and the barrage of memories that had assaulted his senses.
He doesn't want Taiga to touch him, and then as he looks up into Taiga's eyes again, he wants nothing more. There's just the stirrings of something inside him, a swirling feeling at first, warm, and the images, Taisuke laid out beneath him, head thrown back, eyes clenched closed. It's been so long since anybody last touched him.
Then it's Nikaido he's seeing, his bright, dorky smile. They're talking, laughing about something and that touch burns him even deeper, inside his chest. God he misses them so much, he just wants to feel something, a connection. And then the image inside his head is Taiga, it was a matter of days ago, Yasui is sitting cross-legged on his bed, talking to him while Taiga looks on in interest, his expression gentle and it feels like he's really listening. It's not the same, not the same as Nikaido at all, but it's the closest thing.
He leans in without thinking, letting Taiga's fingers brush through his hair, coming to rest at the nape of his neck and Yasui shudders, it's Taisuke again only it's not because it's Taiga and something ignites inside him. This can't be a memory because he's thought about it before but it hasn't happened, not yet, god does Yasui want it to.
Inside his head Taiga is gasping, it's so quiet but Yasui's face is close enough to his, leaning down, slow deep thrusts, and he can almost hear them as they tickle his ear. He tilts his head, feels the warm puffs of breath on his cheek, the rest of his body hot, something low and burning in his groin and he's so hard and it feels so good only Yasui knows he's actually just sitting on Taiga's bed.
He tilts his head further, both on the inside and for real, and he didn't realise just how close they really are. He can taste the minty toothpaste on Taiga's heavy breaths. “Taiga.” he says breathlessly, his voice cracked and quivering and it could be anticipation but it's also fear.
Taiga's fingers squeeze tighter in his hair and the Taiga in his head opens his mouth just millimetres from Yasui's, and Yasui's name falls from his lips in the airiest soft voice. “Yasui.” it says again, more substance, more desperation and then their lips are brushing together. He's kissing Taiga and even as everything inside him screams that what he's doing is wrong, Yasui wouldn't stop for the world.
Their lips move together over and over, each time a little harder, a little rougher and each time it's not enough. Yasui is on his knees before he's even thought it, his hand weaving into strands of silver silk, tugging, urging Taiga's head back to kiss him deeper and Taiga obliges, gasping against Yasui's tongue as it slides into his mouth.
When he closes his eyes he can still see it in his head, but the picture pales in comparison to reality so he keeps them open, fixes them on Taiga's hooded lids, the sparkle of desire in the black beneath them.
It's Taiga that shuffles around enough to lay himself down, but his hand is still in Yasui's hair, the other one is on Yasui's waist and he uses his grip to urge Yasui down with him. Yasui pulls away only enough to toss the starchy institution sheets aside and then he's laying down, his body covering Taiga's until they're touching head to toe.
It's kind of surreal, Yasui thinks, strange maybe, though strange is not a new idea when it comes to Taiga. He's barely touched Taiga before today, nobody has touched him, and now here Yasui is, touching him in almost every way he can be touched. Touching him so intimately.
Not intimately enough. He wants more, needs it maybe, and Taiga must too because when Yasui's hands move to his waist to push down his pyjama pants, Taiga only lifts his hips and wriggles out of them.
Taiga is hard, pale white, flushed red, a bead of moisture glistening at the tip and Yasui bites into his lip to keep from moaning just at the sight. He wants to see more, everything, to touch it all. He lifts himself enough to pull at the end of Taiga's pyjama top, and Taiga lifts himself enough for Yasui to tug it off and then his hands are on the bare expanse of Taiga's chest.
Taiga's skin is like ice, but Yasui is burning up. He strips his uniform T-shirt off and tosses it aside before moving his hands down to the waistband of his trousers. He pauses with his hands there, heaving in great breaths as he looks at Taiga, just to be sure.
An almost inaudible groan answers his question, and Taiga's eyebrows knit together as he licks his lips, his erection twitching. Yasui nods, certain. It's wrong, that he's certain of too, but Taisuke was wrong and he never, ever wanted that as much as he wants this, as much as he wants to be inside Taiga, in every way that he can be, mind, body, soul.
He pushes his trousers down quickly, along with his boxers, and then they're skin to skin. Yasui shudders almost violently, his flesh quivering with anticipation as he kisses Taiga soft but deep and then thrusts down.
Taiga's arms come up around his waist, tightening, pulling him down as his hips push back up against Yasui's and it's so urgent, so forceful that it knocks Yasui's breath from him. He gasps against Taiga's lips, tasting more than hearing Taiga's desperate mewls and he pulls back to look into Taiga's eyes, into the blazing, boundless abyss, itching to cast himself into it.
It's Taiga that spreads his legs, lets Yasui fall to rest between them, and Taiga that pulls one hand away to stuff it under his pillow and pull out a tube that Yasui recognises as once belonging to Taisuke. He's not sure how Taiga ended up with it, or why, or how long he's had it hidden under his pillow, how long he's been planning...Yasui should care, but he can't, he just grabs the tube eagerly and twists the cap off with his teeth before pushing himself up on one hand, just enough to dribble the slippery substance on his aching erection.
He throws the tube off to the side and strokes his hand along his cock just once to spread the lube and then his slick hand finds Taiga's rim. His fingers slide right in, two at once, sucking, squeezing, and Yasui moans out loud as he thrusts them quickly just a few times and slides them out.
Taiga's legs pull back, spreading him open and then they lift, hooking around Yasui's hips and pulling him in. It's Taiga that moans, a real one, loud and broken as Yasui slides inside, deeper, all the way until he's pressed flush against Taiga and has forgotten how to breath.
They both moan as he pulls back out, his own is low, half awe, half relief, all desperation and Taiga's just as broken as before, high and sharp, like cracking glass. Their next moans are cut off, barely silenced by each others lips, their tongues dancing as Yasui continues to drive his hips, pushing slowly, deeply, relentlessly into Taiga's waiting body.
His head is spinning, his breaths too short, too shallow and he feels dizzy with pleasure. The images are back inside his head, or it could just be fireworks behind his eyes, each of Taiga's high-pitched moans another soaring light, each of his desperate grunts another bang, all of it bright and loud and fast, faster, building up to that most powerful of explosions. His hips move faster, chasing it, Taiga's nails digging into his back and the pain only takes him higher until he's floating, soaring. Bang.
It's just white, his sharp cry echoing in his head along with the tingles of bliss and the rest of him feels so numb that he might not have a body at all. All that is left is just this, floating, white, dimming, dark. And then the voices.
“Our last hope is Earth”
A light airy voice answers, soft but urgent. “It is inhabited by humans.”
“We will overthrow them.” the deeper voice answers unconcerned.
“They have weapons.”
“The most deadly weapon they have is themselves.” That deep voice counters calmly. “They eradicate each other, kill themselves. All we need to do is find a way to harness that power, to manipulate them.”
“How?”
“That is for you to find out. You will go first, watch them, figure out how their minds work, what drives them...learn to use it against them. Others will follow you.”
He wakes up once again to pristine white sheets and that off-white colour wallpaper, and then he feels a cold sweat break out over his back as he realises he's in a bed at KINCI. He's in Taiga's bed, and the realisation brings with it images of the previous night, naked flesh and desperate moans, and then more, memories that feel only half real, pitch blackness and overheard whispers.
There's no sign of Taiga but the heavy curtains have been opened and Yasui panics as he sees how light it is outside. He has to get ready before the shift change. He darts out of bed, pausing in confusion when he sees that he's wearing KINCI issue pyjamas. He searches around frantically for his uniform but he has no luck finding it, and then he catches sight of the clock, it's already 10 o'clock, Ueda will be here already to relieve them for the day, he should be leaving.
It's only when he turns to the door that he notices the other occupant of the room, a strange young man with light brown hair and a thin face, who is just staring at him curiously from Nikaido's bed. He pauses, searching his mind for a name because he knows every single patient, it's his job to.
He hears voices out in the hall, Senga greeting Ueda with an all too cheery “Good morning” and he remembers his hurry. He dashes from the room and runs straight into Ueda.
“Yasui.” Ueda says with a smile. “Did you have a good sleep?”
The question catches him off guard because how could Ueda even know about Yasui being asleep. Unless Senga had said something...only he heard them greeting each other just moments ago. He shakes the thought away because there are more pressing matters at hand. “Have you seen Taiga?”
“Kyomoto?” Ueda asks in confusion, and that causes an equal expression of confusion on Yasui's face.
“No, Taiga...” Yasui says a little impatiently. “Patient...Blonde hair...kinda quiet...”
“Taiga isn't a patient...” Ueda starts but Yasui doesn't like the kind of scared look he's wearing. He gives a grunt of annoyance and turns to Senga instead.
“He was here last night...in his room” he points back at the room that he almost manages to think of as Taiga's now. “When I woke up he was gone...”
Senga looks at him almost pitifully. “Yasui, calm down, why don't you go back to bed for a while?”
He won't, he can't understand their reactions, it both scares and irritates him, only exacerbating the panic he was already feeling about Taiga's disappearance. “We're missing a patient and you want me to calm down...”
“Yasui, Taiga isn't a patient here.” Ueda repeats carefully and Yasui shakes his head.
“You're the one that told me when he first arrived...you left his file on the desk...” The file, that will prove his case.
He races to the filing cabinet, getting into the carer's station only because Senga is standing in the doorway, and he rakes open drawer after drawer but Taiga's file isn't where it should be. It isn't in any of the other drawers either, though there's something in the last one that makes his blood freeze in his veins. It's a file: Yasui, Kentaro.
He pulls it out, swallowing hard as he opens it, and right there in the corner of the first page his photograph is paper-clipped. He skims it, his profile information is right but then there are other words 'amnesiac', 'delusional', 'psychotic episodes', 'violent history'. The file falls from his hands, the pages fluttering across the floor and there are other pictures, a motorcycle crash, a faceless body, a young boy with what looks like it could be a brother. He gets up, his head shaking, his stomach turning, and wanders back out of the door to the ward, looking at it with what feel like new eyes.
There's an even bigger surprise waiting for him out on the ward. A handsome young man with silvery white hair and dark eyes is standing in the corridor, looking at him curiously. He's wearing street clothes and when Yasui raises a hand to point at him he opens his mouth to speak.
“Are you feeling better this morning Yasui-kun?” he asks, his voice light and airy, familiar, like something he once heard in a dream.
“He's been acting unusual.” Ueda answers for him. “Did anything happen last night Kyomo-chan?”
Taiga takes a few steps towards him and Yasui backs away. “He had an episode.” Taiga answers unhappily. “First one in months...it was bad though, he started talking about those guys he...you know...Nikaido and the others...he seemed to think it was an alien that killed them or something...” Yasui can't do anything but watch in horror. “We had to sedate him...it's all down in the log book.”
“No...” Yasui says, but Ueda is looking at him and nodding as though it's not at all unexpected. “No he...”
“Well, I need to get going.” Taiga says to Ueda and he heads to the door only to turn back just before he reaches it. “Oh, there was a new patient checked in yesterday evening...Juri, he's a very interesting one. They found him wandering in the woods on his own, he hasn't said a single word since they picked him up and they've checked fingerprints, DNA and missing persons but there's not a single lead on who he is or where he came from. There's something very strange about him.”
Yasui doesn't think he imagines the way Taiga's eyes flick to him as he speaks, but he doesn't know what to believe any more.