(Strong language!)
NANA
I'm awakened by an immense pain in my ribs.
I can't breathe.
My eyelids flicker open, and I struggle to see or feel anything but my aching chest. But as my eyes adjust, I see blood under me. I lift my head and realise my face is bleeding. I wince as I breathe and try to sit.
And then I see Maki's body lying on the pavement.
Any pain or blood or breathlessness is forgotten as I run towards him.
"Maki! Maki..." I kneel next to him. "Maki, wake up."
He's pale. Too pale. Oh, fuck, oh, fuck.
"Please, please..." I can feel tears pouring from my eyes, mixing with the blood on my face as I reach for his neck. I don't want to check. I can't do it. Because what if...
I reach for my phone in my pocket, but it's a broken mess. "Fuck!"
I sweep the hair from Maki's face and stare at it, so serene and white. I lift my fingers to his lips and touch them gently, my hand shaking as sobs wrack my body. He can't be dead. He just can't be.
Suddenly, a woman runs up behind me.
I'm too much of a shambles to comprehend what's happening. The woman asks me questions as she phones for an ambulance. I try to tell her that Maki's brother is just inside the pub next to us, but I can't get the words out. But I don't need to say anything because suddenly Tamaki and Amber are here and they're asking me what happened.
"I don't... I don't..."
Tamaki is kneeling beside me, his hand on Maki's stomach as Amber stands in front of us, his fingers grabbing at his hair.
"I can feel him breathing..."
I feel a great gulp of air spill out of me. "Oh god, thank you, thank you," I whisper to myself.
Soon, the ambulance arrives, but I can't do anything but observe them lift Maki on to a stretcher as if he's a broken doll, and strap him in.
"Why hasn't he woken up yet? I woke up straight away. Why hasn't he woken up?" I'm screaming, and Tamaki is holding me tight like I might fall apart if he doesn't. I'm hardly even aware of how many people are now crowding around. All I can see is Maki being lifted onto the ambulance, and Amber watching, and Tamaki's hair. "He has to wake up, Tamaki."
Tamaki only wraps his arms around me tighter.
"Why isn't it me, Tamaki?" I sob. "Why did it have to be him?"
Nothing is broken, so they decide not to keep me overnight. My ribs are bruised slightly, and my face is battered, but I didn't need any stitches.
They kept telling me how lucky I am. Apparently, witnesses said the car had been going at well over forty miles per hour, and I could have died. The driver was caught speeding along... somewhere. He was four times over the legal alcohol limit.
But I don't really care about that.
Tamaki sits by me in the waiting room. My face is bandaged lightly above my right eyebrow, and my arms are covered in faint grazes. Lucky.
"He would have died, you know," Tamaki says darkly after half an hour of silence.
"What?"
"If you hadn't grabbed him. He would have died."
"The doctor said that?"
Tamaki nods. "The way he was hit, the car clipped him. If he'd been closer to the edge of the pavement, it would have hit him full force." His face is blank of any emotion, like a lifelike robot. "So, you saved yourself a broken leg. But you saved Maki's life."
"But what if something goes wrong in surgery? Or if he doesn't wake up? Or --"
"Nana." Tamaki puts his hand on my knee. "Don't think about it."
My head falls. "It's my fault he was even out there. If I hadn't been so fucking stupid..."
Tamaki doesn't say anything. I can tell he's probably silently agreeing but is too sweet to say so.
And then I see the doctor coming towards us, and Tamaki stands abruptly.
"Makiato is out of surgery, and everything went fine," she says to him, smiling. "But he won't be awake for a little while yet."
"Can I see him?"
"Of course."
Tamaki starts to follow her and then stops and turns to me. "Come on then."
The doctor turns. "Sorry, it's family only just now."
"He's Makiato's boyfriend," Tamaki says, glancing at me slightly.
The doctor bites on her lip as she looks at me, and then nods.
I stand and follow them.
Maki looks so small in the hospital bed. My heart wells with emotion as I glimpse over all the tubes attached to him, and the metal fixture encasing his leg, and the heart monitor beeping quietly in the corner. His face is still white and flawless, free of any bruising or scrapes, but I dread to think of the state the rest of his body is in.
Soon, Tamaki and I are left alone with Maki's sleeping body. We sit on either side of him like we're his guardian angels. I want to touch him, but I'm afraid he'll break or turn to dust. I watch Tamaki place his hand on his brother's.
"This is the most scared I've been in my entire life," he says, his voice dull and monotonous. "I can barely even remember a time when Maki wasn't around."
I nod silently, watching Maki's face, his chest slowly moving up and down. I can't look away from him. I never want to take my eyes off him again. We watch him for god knows how long until Tamaki speaks.
"You know," he says with a slight chuckle. "Maki has fancied you for ages."
I turn to him. "What?"
"Yeah, like... I don't even know. Probably since he saw you."
I can feel my face go red. "Really?"
"We used to make fun of him for being afraid of you, but we knew it was because he thought you were hot."
I smile. "That's cute."
"How do you feel about him?"
I stare at Maki again, knowing damn well how I feel, wishing I'd it realised a lot sooner. "I feel... a lot. Since I met him, I've felt this... pull." I gently reach for Maki's face. "There's so much I want to say to him that I wish I'd said earlier."
"You'll be able to when he wakes up."
If.
I nod slightly, feeling myself cry again.
"Nana, when I met you, I did not know you were such a crybaby," Tamaki says, barely even looking at me.
I laugh. "Neither did I."
MAKI
Everything is white.
A methodic beeping brings me to consciousness. A strong disinfectant smell assaults my nose.
My eyelids hurt as they flutter open. A dazzling room forms in front of me. I feel as if I'm being crushed by lead.
The room becomes clearer. I look around at the machines I'm attached to and the frame of the bed. My right leg has been elevated, and there's this almost mechanical metal cage around it. The skin under it looks utterly disgusting. I don't dare try to move it.
And then I see a fluffy pink head resting on scraped, tattooed arms, face down on the mattress, the owner of the head sitting by the bed.
I lift my hand weakly and run my fingers gently over the matted hair. I hear a light moan as the body stirs.
"Nana..." I whisper to him, my voice is croaky and painful.
He lifts his head. "Maki..." He looks at me in a post-nap squint. And then his eyes widen as if seeing me for the first time. "Maki!"
And then he bursts into tears.
"Nana, why are you crying?" I say, stroking his face.
Nana grips at my hand like he's not sure if he's still asleep or not, running his fingers through mine. "You're actually awake!"
There's an excruciating pain shooting up my leg. "Ah, fuck!"
"Don't move..."
I notice the large purple and yellow bruise around Nana's eye, and the dark grazing. "What happened to your face? And why am I part robot now?"
"Do you not remember? The doctor said your memory would be okay, but I guess it'll take a little while come back to you." He sniffs, his sudden tears subsiding quickly.
"The last thing I remember is..." Nana's face and the feel of his lips and his hands in my hair. I feel myself blushing hard. "I remember being in the alley behind the bar."
"Nothing after that?"
"I don't think so."
"Who do you remember being there?" Nana's face is solemn and full of distress.
"Just you."
He nods slowly. "We ended up in front, by the road. And a drunk driver came up onto the pavement and hit us. But... you're okay. You fractured your leg in two places, but your face is intact. Unlike mine." He laughs, pointing at his bruises.
I smile at him. "How long have we been here?"
His eyes meet mine. "You've been asleep for two days."
"Shit."
"Yeah."
We're quiet for a minute, just looking at each other. I want to say something about what happened before the accident about my running away. I feel like I owe Nana some kind of explanation, to tell him about the whole Sen thing. But this isn't the right time. I'm on too many drugs.
Nana's face suddenly softens, all worry and pain completely gone from his eyes. "I'm so happy you're awake."
The next two days are a blur. Dad and Pops come back from their trip early so they can take me home and look after me, and Tamaki takes a few days off University so he can help. I try to tell them I don't need three people taking care of me, but they won't listen. Nana texts me every day but doesn't visit me until the weekend. Tamaki comes to my room before Nana gets here.
I'm surrounded by various snacks and flasks of tea - which is a terrible idea given that going to the toilet is a complete nightmare with the fixation - and Tamaki has been on call to change the DVD in the player or to bring me anything. I'm not sure whether I like being waited on hand and foot like this.
"So are you gonna talk about the other night with Nana?"
"No."
"Why not?" Tamaki flips through the hundreds of DVD cases stacked up by my desk and holds out A Nightmare on Elm Street. I shake my head, and he continues rifling.
"Because it's not the right time. I mean, it's my fault we ended up getting run over."
"How is it your fault?" He picks out The Ring, chuckling slightly. "Sorry..."
"Don't."
"C'mon, how is it your fault? It's no one's fault, other than the driver."
"It was me that ran out," I say, opening a fresh bottle of water. "I don't even know why I did that." This is a lie. I know exactly why. Because I'm an emotional wreck.
"I don't know why either; you've been gagging to jump his bones since you saw him."
I spit out the swig of water I've just taken. "Jesus, Tam!"
Tamaki giggles at me as he puts The Ring into the DVD player. I don't have the energy to argue with him, but it's the American version, so it doesn't really matter.
"Don't go saying that to him, please."
He looks at me with a sideways glance as he fusses around me, picking up empty bottles and wrappers. "You're so messy, Maki."
"You didn't."
Tamaki says nothing.
"You twat, you told him?!"
"Oh, come one, everyone knew. And I didn't use those exact words. Nana said it was cute."
I throw one of the empty bottles at him, and it hits him in the chest.
"For that, you're not getting the buttons." He grabs the remote and walks out.
I yell out at him, but he's gone. I think about hopping after him with my crutches, but even the thought exhausts me.
I tilt my head back against the padded headboard. It's been quite a while since I've spent this much time in my old bedroom. I look at it, and I feel small. I've gotten so used to my tiny dorm room that this one seems like an entire flat to me. It still has all my old posters and photographs all over the walls; all the Japanese rockstars stare back at me, as well as the faces of all my high school friends. I squint and notice the old photo of Sen and me still sits above my desk. I'm overcome with the want to get up and take it down before Nana gets here, but it's not like he'd think anything of it. For all that he (and everyone) knew, Sen and I had been "just friends". I wish we had been so I wouldn't be dealing with all the emotional baggage he left me with.
There's a faint knock on the open door, and I turn my head just as Naomi Watts has finished watching the cursed tape, on the large TV screen.
"Hello," Nana chirps, holding a bottle of honey whiskey and his acoustic guitar.
I smile. "Is this how we're going to fix each other from now on?"
"Why kill a tradition?"
"It's hardly a tradition. This will be the second time."
"Shut up," he says with a laugh, walking towards the bed. He sets the guitar down next to me before turning and looking around the room. "Wow."
I watch Nana walk around the bed, taking in all the little details; the anime figures on the dresser, the stuffed toys on the bookshelves, the stack of comics and manga by the desk. And then he looks at the photographs, all taken with an instant camera and placed on strings of fairy lights, above where my laptop used to be kept. He eyes each one individually.
He picks off one that is just me, playing the guitar on a step in the garden. It was taken by Pops the summer before Tamaki, and I went to University. I don't even remember putting it there, or why I did.
"This one is cute." Nana looks towards me, not even trying to hide the slightest blush on his cheeks. "Your hair is so long now."
"I couldn't be bothered cutting it after I went to uni." I stare at him deadpan. "If I had, I wouldn't be able to scare bartenders."
"This is true," Nana replies, keeping his tone sober before letting a smirk slip onto his lips.
I shake my head at him.
"Speaking of!" He points at the TV.
"Tamaki put it on." I sigh. "It seemed like too much effort to try and stop him. And he took the remote."
Nana comes around the other side of the bed and sits next to me, stretching his legs out on the duvet. "It's not such a bad film... We should make a drinking game out of it."
After discussing several rules, Nana opens the bottle of whisky, and we watch the film. The film passes slowly, and I'm grateful. Having him next to me almost makes me forget the searing pain in my leg whenever I laugh at him, and the more we drink, the more I'm reminded of how much I adore him.
Why did I have to push him away?
And when the film ends, we're both suitably tipsy on honey whiskey, only half of the bottle now remaining. I want to tell Nana how I feel. He said we didn't need to say it, but we do. I want to tear my heart out like he did his and give it to him. But before I can say anything to that effect, he reaches over me and grabs the guitar.
"Sing for me, Maki," he says, still mirroring our moonlit graveyard excursion.
"Aren't you sick of my singing yet?"
"Never." He looks at me with such sincerity I feel my heart dance from it. "If I could die listening to you sing, I'd die happy."
I'm almost mad at him for making me feel like this, the butterflies in my chest cavorting up a storm. My heart is a hurricane.
NANA
He looks like a little doll on the bed. It's so huge I could get lost on it. In all honesty, I'd happily lose myself with Maki right now, but I decide against it.
In my head, I'm kissing him and telling him how beautiful he looks with no makeup and his hair all tidy and flowing past his shoulders. I'm touching his face and his neck and his tattoos, even the little moon on his hip that he doesn't know I know about. I'm bundling him up in my arms and whispering sweet words to him and breathing him in and vowing to never let him go, never let him push me away.
In reality, Maki is looking at me in an almost stunned silence, until his face suddenly changes to a cheeky smirk with a wicked look in his eyes. His stage mask.
"I'll sound like shit. I've not sung since I was so rudely hit by a car, and haven't had a single cigarette."
"Bull shit. You'll still sound great."
I start strumming something we'd been working on before the accident. Maki had been writing lyrics, and when he'd shown them to us, we'd applauded him for the passion in them.
Maki places his hand on my arm. "Not that song."
"Why?"
He looks shameful. "The lyrics... they're too..."
"Too amazing? Too full of emotion?"
"Angry."
"Well, I guess they are a little... But I thought they were good."
"I wrote it about you," he says, his voice full of guilt. "I was mad at myself."
I try to hide any feelings I'm having (mostly just wounded ones). "Do you still feel like that?"
"A little. For different reasons now."
I look away, wanting and not wanting to ask. What are your reasons now?
"Play it," Maki says, stroking his fingers on the wood of the guitar. "I'll ad-lib."
As I strum again, he closes his eyes, waiting for the beat to come around, for the perfect time to start.
And then his mouth opens.
Just start.
I'm waiting
and there's only so much
my heart can take.
Don't rush.
When I think of you,
my heart fills
with all the blood it can make.
Come to me.
The love in my heart
flowing over the edge,
your lips kiss me awake.
It's as if my heart has stopped as I watch him, the words coming out of him as naturally as air. If gold had a voice, it would be like this; tender and vibrant and full of hidden power, waiting to destroy your mind and build up your heart.
The song takes on an entirely different sound now, with a slower tempo and sweeter voice. I want to touch it, it's so beautiful. I want to touch him.
He stops.
"Sorry, that's all I can think of."
I behold him, the beautiful enigma that he is. I want to tell him how amazing he is and bask in the vast light he creates whenever he opens his damn mouth, how he makes me weak from it. I've never felt so angry at myself. I think about all the time I've wasted not realising my love for him.
But of course, I don't say any of this.
"No, that was good," I say, struggling. "Better than the original, I think."
I glance at the clock on the wall and notice it's nearly ten p.m.
"Aren't you tired?" I say to him.
"A little." Maki pauses. "I probably shouldn't have been drinking. I'm on pretty heavy painkillers."
"Oh shit!" I gasp. "I totally didn't think. Are you okay?"
He laughs. "I'm fine. Just... feeling a bit sleepy now. Honestly, it's been a good few hours since I took them. It just means I won't be able to take any more until the morning."
"I'm sorry," I say, reaching for his arm. "I'll go."
I move my feet onto the floor, and he looks up at me pleadingly. "Nana, I'm okay."
I lean over and stroke his hair briefly before kissing the top of his head. "You need to rest."
Maki nods sadly. "Okay."
I grab my guitar and hesitate in the doorway. A voice in my head is repeating and repeating: Tell him you love him.
"I..."
He looks up at me, hopefully.
"I... I'll tell Tamaki you're ready for bed."
Maki's face falls, and he nods again before muttering a quiet "Goodnight."
As I walk down the hall towards Tamaki's bedroom, I inwardly curse myself for being such a coward.
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