Whisper in the Darkness Ch6

[ryunuka]

I'm trying to get a lot of writing done recently, as much as I can so updates aren't so slow, so here's the next chapter of WITD and I hope I'll have the next chapters of this and SFSB up soon too, douzo~.

WHISPER IN THE DARKNESS - CHAPTER SIX

“And we’re done! Good job people!”

Ueda sighed and leant over on his knees. They had said there would be no dance, but to stay completely stationary for the entire song had been deemed too boring and he couldn’t argue, they had come up with a simple routine that involved somehow spinning and joining hands and switching mics and some obscure hand movements similar to those for Bokura no Machi de, those had been the hardest, the instructor had taken hold of his hands, putting them right and leading him through the movements at least three times before he got it.

With his eyes covered he obviously couldn’t see where he was going so the spinning, even though it was fairly slow, made him dizzy very quickly and they kept having to stop to let his brain catch up with his body. The injury to his head and the medication he had been given also didn’t help.

Thankfully the fact that the others had to join hands with him as they spun and switched places kept him grounded enough to stay upright and focused long enough to have the dance almost down pat.

He remembered the steps when he thought about it, it was just hard to put it into practice, but he was pretty sure their performance would go just fine.

He jumped as a hand landed on his shoulder.

“Are you okay Uepi?” Ueda smiled, the silly nickname giving Taguchi away, even if Ueda didn’t already recognise his voice.

“I’m fine Taguchi,” he smiled up in the direction he was sure his band-mate’s voice had come from and straightened up, running a hand through his hair, holding back a wince as his hand ran over the stitched and glued wound on the back of his head.

“Here Uepi, drink this,” he stood stationary and mildly confused as Junno pushed something cylindrical and cold into his hand and the sound of a ring tab being pulled reached his ears. He smiled and slowly lifted the can to his lips, sipping tentatively and smiling when the creamy liquid hit his tongue and a nutty taste flooded his mouth.

“Peanut milk? Where the hell did you find this?”

“I bought it yesterday and brought it in,” he could hear the ever present warm smile in Junno’s voice and couldn’t help but return it to him.

“Thanks Taguchi,” he said.

“Ok, KAT-TUN, you’re good for today!” Ueda sighed in relief and walked with Taguchi toward the door. He jumped when another voice was suddenly beside him.

“How’re you doing Uepopu?”

“Jeez Koki, don’t do that to me!” Koki laughed.

“Sorry, so, how was the practise for you? Do we need to change anything?”

“I’m good, it’s not too hard, I think I pretty much got it, I was spinning the right way and everything right?” Koki grinned as Maru caught up with them.

“Yeah, you were fine, hey! You gonna get Nishikido to take you boxing tonight?” there was a distinct sharp slapping sound as Maru’s hand connected with Koki’s head.

“Don’t you think you should just rest for tonight Ueda?” he asked, concern dripping off his tongue as he spoke. Ueda smiled, and had he been able he’d have rolled his eyes.

“Maru, I’m not dying, I’m just temporarily visually impaired, besides, the doctor said boxing is fine as long as I go easy and don’t spar,” he gave a derisive snort as they reached the elevator.

“Like I’d try,” he muttered.

~~~

Back in KAT-TUN’s room Kame and Jin left first, starting to wave before realising what they were doing and calling out instead.

“See you tomorrow Uebo,” Kame called as Jin briefly clapped a hand on his shoulder. Koki and Junno left soon after them, insisting he have more interesting news for them tomorrow. He smiled and waved at them and sank back on the couch, feeling mildly annoyed that he couldn’t just leave by himself. Not that he didn’t want Ryo to come and get him, on the contrary he was somewhat thrilled Ryo was doing so much for him, though he felt a little guilty that he was causing trouble for him. But being so dependent on others was a pain in the ass and somewhat humiliating.

Suddenly he was back in pre-school and couldn’t leave until Mummy or Daddy came to get him.

“Ueda, is Nishi-?” Ueda sighed and tipped his head back on the back of the couch, cutting Maru off before he could get into a full blown yarn.

“Nishikido is coming to get me and taking me home as soon as he’s done with whatever he’s doing, yes I probably will try and go boxing, no I won’t push myself to hard, yes I will be careful, yes I am absolutely fine,” he heard his friend sigh and felt a pang of guilt. Nakamaru was just being a good friend, and he appreciated that, he just couldn’t stand being in a position where everyone had to constantly look out for him, literally.

“Ueda, I just-” Ueda cut him off again.

“I know Yucchi, I’m sorry, I just…” Nakamaru’s hand suddenly landed on his shoulder.

“It’s okay, just make sure you don’t do anything to make me worry, I’ll see you tomorrow, we’re not on Utaban until the day after, so we have another rehearsal and a concert meeting,” Ueda made an effort to smile at his friend, lifting his hand to the edge of the bandage again. As he noted the movement, hidden from Ueda’s damaged eyes a worried look flitted across Nakamaru’s face before he smiled and stepped back.

“See you Tat-chan,”

“See you, Yucchi,”

Left alone in the room Ueda drew his knees up to his chest and rested his chin on them, wrapping his arms around his shins, his bangs falling forward to cover most of his face. He’d never felt so small in his life, and the fact that he was never sure exactly where he was going or what was in front of him was only making him more nervous. The room was silent without the others and he suddenly realised that without his sight he was simply sitting in a huge open space, he couldn’t be sure where the room ended, what was in it, how to get out of it…

“Hime?” he jumped and lifted his head.

“Nishikido, you surprised me,” he mumbled, listening to Ryo’s footsteps as he crossed the floor. He sat beside him and though Ueda wasn’t aware he was giving him a very worried look.

He knew Ueda had had some kind of nightmare last night, he knew thanks to Maru that he had been having them for the past week, and he also knew that Ueda was not the type to seek help or comfort from anyone concerning either the nightmares or the fact that being blind was scary for him.. But whether he admitted to it or not, he was slowly sinking further and further into himself, enveloping himself in his own fears and if he carried on or got any worse Ryo might not be able to pull him out of it.

Glancing at the man in question he took note of the death grip he had on his own ankles as he sat, curled up onto the couch, his head bowed, with his hair almost completely obscuring the bandage. That thing had been trickier to change than either of them had thought. They had assumed that as long as Ueda kept his eyes shut the whole time they shouldn’t encounter any problems.

Ryo had sat him on the edge of the bath while he laid out the gauze, the bandage, the tape, before unclipping the little elastic grip that held the bandage in place and unwinding it all. It was wrapped thick and tight for the maximum protection to Ueda’s eyes, which Ryo noted and reminded himself he would also have to do.

Once the bandage was off, all that was left were the two gauze pads, one over each eye, which he carefully unstuck and threw away. The second he did Ueda gave a strangled gasp and clapped his hands over his eyes.

“Ueda? What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?” Ryo frantically tried to move his hands off his eyes so he could see, but Ueda flinched away, almost toppling backwards into the bath. Ryo caught him by his shoulders as he opened his mouth.

“The light, it hurts,”

“The light? Did you open your eyes?” Ueda shook his head fiercely, not moving his hands in the slightest.

“No! It comes through my eyelids!” he groaned, lowering his head, his fingers twitching. Ryo couldn’t carry on if Ueda kept his hands in front of his eyes like that, but Ueda couldn’t remove them with the light on, which Ryo couldn’t work without. Biting his lip he looked around desperately as if expecting to find the answer scrawled on the walls in eyeliner or something. Instead his eyes fell on his phone. He flipped it open and set it to have a completely white background before flicking off the light.

“It’s okay, you can take your hands away now,” he said, gently taking hold of Ueda’s wrists.

By the light of his phone he managed to tape two new pads of gauze over Ueda’s eyes, and after warning him he would do so he flipped the light on again, but this time they both heaved a sigh of relief: the light couldn’t get past the new layer of gauze and hurt Ueda’s eyes anymore. Wrapping the bandage around Ueda’s head three times and carefully pulling it tight he cut it and clipped it in place.

“Ok Hime, you’re good to go,” Ueda had sighed and shakily thanked him before feeling his way back to his room for his bag.

Snapping back to the present Ryo noticed Ueda touching the bandage again. If he hadn’t seen him do it countless times beforehand he would have worried he had set the gauze wrong or wound the bandage too tightly. Instead he knew it to be new habit Ueda seemed to have developed, but that didn’t worry him any less.

Sighed he reached out and, attempting to ignore the way Ueda’s flinch, took his hand, standing up and pulling him up with him. Ueda wobbled slightly, surprised at suddenly being yanked to his feet.

“C’mon, I hear from Jin that you want to try boxing,” Ueda bit his lip and bowed his head again in a slow nod.

“Let’s go then, we’ll see what we can do, okay?” Ueda lifted his head again and nodded, letting Ryo lead him from the room and down to the parking bay. He was silent all the way home, and once again Ryo couldn’t tell if he was listening to the radio or not, so he left it alone. Once they reached Ueda’s apartment Ryo pulled him into his room.

“Okay, what do you need?” Ueda bit his lips and wrapping his fingers around his elbows.

“Um, my gloves, tape, clothes,” he mumbled. Ryo smiled at him, knowing that even though he couldn’t see it he could hear it.

“Ok, where is everything?” Ueda directed him to the whereabouts of all his stuff which Ryo packed up into a bag and led him though to the living room telling him to wait a second. He ran to the guest room and grabbed a set of the clothes he usually wore for dance practice and stuffed them into another bag.

He led Ueda back down to the car and asked him where his gym was.

Ueda was silent again as they drove, and kept his silence until they stepped into the gym. He jumped slightly when the owner was suddenly in front of him.

“Ueda-san! I haven’t seen you in a little while!” he blinked suddenly, looking more closely at Ueda, noticing the bandage under his bangs.

“What the hell happened to you!” he asked in shock. Ryo shot Ueda a look and was about to answer for him but Ueda took a breath and raised his head slightly.

“Had kind of an accident, long story short I can’t see, and I have to keep my eyes covered for a month or so,” Ryo glanced at the trainer and noted the shocked and concerned look in his eyes.

“You…you’re…blind?” he asked. Ueda shook his head.

“Temporarily, my eyes have to heal, but I’ll be able to see again,” the trainer stared at him for a moment, unable to think of a single thing to say to him. He didn’t have to however because Ueda spoke up again, and Ryo couldn’t help but feel a little proud of him.

“I know sparring is totally impossible but there’s other training I can do, right?” Ueda’s hands fiddled with the strap on his bag, waiting for an answer. Ryo felt the tense aura hovering over him, could almost see it curling around him. For a second he felt the need to act, to do something to stop the tense ring of uncertainty and fear from choking Ueda, but at that moment the trainer spoke up again, and turning to look at him Ryo saw that he was wearing an encouraging smile, which Ueda could obviously hear in his voice, for his shoulders instantly relaxed.

“I think we could work some things out, I think you can do some basic training, push ups or sit ups or whatever, I can go through a few patterns with you,” Ryo finally smiled too, catching the attention of the gym owner who blinked at him, as if only now even able to see him.

“Sorry, where are my manners, are you a friend of Ueda-san’s?” Ueda turned his head slightly in Ryo’s direction.

“Ah, this is Nishikido Ryo, from the same agency, he’s been making sure I don’t stumble into oncoming traffic or something,” Ryo grinned and glanced at him, overwhelmingly relieved to hear him joking and to see the smile working its way onto his face.

“So I guess you’re here to make sure he doesn’t overwork himself,” the trainer said pointedly and Ueda sighed again in the way that made Ryo think he was somehow mentally rolling his eyes.

“How many mothers does a person need?” he said. The trainer laughed and clapped a hand on his shoulder.

After changing clothes Ryo led Ueda back out into the gym where a couple of people he was obviously familiar with called out greetings to him before carrying on with their training. The owner must have let them know about his eyes as none of them asked about the bandage.

“Ok Hime, what do you want to do?”

“Uh, Nishikido, better question, what are you gonna do?” Ryo blinked at him.

“I guess I’ll just train with you,” Ueda was silent for a moment but seemed to accept the idea and for about an hour they trained alongside each other and Ryo found himself constantly glancing over at the other man, in total awe of both his stamina and his strength. He was by no means the strongest person there, but to say he spent a lot of time in the same workplace he had never thought he was so strong.

He simply couldn’t keep up, push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups; Ueda was better and faster at all of them. Ryo was no lightweight at it, he trained too but Ueda had obviously trained more and he was incredibly impressed. Having no vision obviously didn’t erase what the rest of his body could do.

Finally he slumped back against a wall, watching Ueda pull up to the bar for the nth time and drop gracefully to his feet, swiping a hand across his brow. Ryo watched him sigh and run a hand through his hair suddenly.

“You okay Ueda?” Ueda smiled at him and nodded.

“I’m fine, this all just seems way too different from usual, not like boxing training at all,” Ryo bit his lip and thought for a moment.

“You can’t spar, but what if you tried the sandbag?” Ueda cocked his head to one side.

“If I can’t see it swing I won’t know where to hit,” he said.

“What if I hold it for you? Then it won’t move too much and you’ll be able to hit it,” he felt his chest implode at the sudden smile that bloomed on Ueda’s face at the suggestion.

“Really? You’d do that?” Ryo grinned back at him.

“Sure,” he fetched his gloves for him and helped him with the tape and fastened the Velcro on the gloves before leading him to the sandbag.

The owner of the gym watched them from the doorway to his office, smiling fondly as he watched Ryo help Ueda with the tape, the gloves and press himself to the sandbag, holding on with his forearms pressed into the leather covering.

He glanced at Ueda’s face as he judged where the bag was a couple of time with both gloves before hitting it once, experimentally with his right glove. Ryo blinked in mild surprise and adjusted his footing as Ueda hit again.

Smiling and shaking his head he turned back into his office. Even if those two couldn’t see or feel the vibes from each other, simply watching them while they had been here was enough to tell him what they were both feeling. And Nishikido Ryo was supposed to be taking care of him? One of them had to see it eventually, he wasn’t going to meddle.

つづく

A/N Not a particularly long or good chapter this time, sorry, I think I’m a little distracted or something. KAT-TUN are on Utaban next chapter, I’ll get to work on that right away, I have a couple of other things to be working on so bear with me, I’m trying to get these multi-chapters written quickly. Enjoy ^_^
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