Prompt: 091 ~ Hospital                                                                                                                                                                    May 2011©
Fandom: The GazettE
Focus: Reita (Suzuki Akira) x Kitty (OC)
Word Count: 1,080

            Reita stood completely still, even as his shoulders were heaving with exertion and his thoughts were swirling with emotion.

            “It’s about time you got here,” Meisa said in a quiet hiss as she helped Maki slide out of the bed in front of the bassist. The hospital bed was just a bit too high off of the ground for her to step away unassisted.

            Reita felt Ruki’s hand on his shoulder for a moment, and then it was gone. They were all gone.

            He was alone in standing as his continued to pant in the quiet of the vacated room. Reita’s eyes were fixed on Kitty as she sat up in the hospital bed with a pout on her face and an IV in her arm.

            “What are you doing here?”

            Reita didn’t even hear her. He was too busy thinking over the past few days and kicking himself internally. He’d been fighting with Kitty again, but he couldn’t even remember what it had been about. All he knew was that he’d stormed off in a huff, dragging Uruha with him on an unplanned vacation to the hemisphere’s best spa retreat. Fighting with Kitty always prompted Reita to crazy extremes, but now he was thinking he’d gone too far, literally. Going so far away had cut him off completely from her, and though at the time he’d wanted nothing less, now he regretted ever being more than in the next room.

            Watching as Kitty glared at him for another moment, Reita then stepped forward with lead in his boots and sharp ice in his veins. He wrapped his arms around Kitty’s frail form and pressed his face into the stretch of skin at the crook of her neck. Reita gave her as tight an embrace as he dared, she felt so small in his grasp, so fragile as she was cloaked in nothing but a hospital gown. Without her skirts and bows and ruffles, she was such a tiny figure to behold.

            The pressure of the embrace was enough to pull off Reita’s bandanna and Kitty sighed. She could feel the uninterrupted line of skin on Reita’s face that signaled he’d forgotten to wear his noseband. “Reita, what are you doing here?”

            Ignoring her question for the moment, Reita pushed Kitty back down on the bed. Sitting up couldn’t be very good for her. Once she was mostly laying down, Reita explained, “The video of you collapsing has gone viral. It’s everywhere.”

            Reita wasn’t sure if he wanted to kiss Ruki for having uploaded the video, knowing that the singer had done it for the specific purpose of getting Reita to notice it, or if he wanted to kill the midget for having not called him immediately.

            Kitty huffed and tried to sit up again, indignant. The only way Reita could get her to lay back down was to climb into the narrow bed with her and physically restrain her. He did so without the slightest hesitation. She continued to struggle for a bit, squirming around a moment before she finally settled down with a heavy sigh.

            “Why didn’t you let Ruki call me?”

            Ruki would have definitely called, Reita knew that. It had to have been Kitty’s direct wish that he not do so that prevented him. Reita was kicking himself internally all the harder for knowing that it was probably his fault for making Kitty not want him to know that she was hurt. He was the one that had stormed out after all.

            “This is why, ReiRei,” she said softly. “You’re blaming yourself, and you shouldn’t. You’re being stupid.”

            “No, I was stupid to leave like that.”

            Kitty kicked him. “Ow!”

            Unapologetic, Kitty said, “If you go all ‘this is my fault’ on me, I’m going to dump you once and for all right here. I’ve done that emo, super-dependent relationship thing before and it sucked.” She huffed and, shifting away from Reita, added, “So if you feel like freaking out over one little collapse, your ring is with the nurses and you’d better take it with you now if you don’t want me to sell it on ebay.”

            “One little collapse?” Reita asked in disbelief. “Kitty, you were comatose.”

            “For like a day and a half.”

            Reita sighed. “What exactly happened?”

            “I was trying to rework the part of the show’s choreography where Uruha always slips,” Kitty explained. Then she added a bit sheepishly, “His guitar is a lot heavier than I thought it was.”

            “Baka,” Reita chuckled quietly and explained, “Uruha slips on purpose. It makes Leslie worry about him.”

            Pouting, Kitty complained, “Yeah, well it makes me worry about him, too.”

            Reita grinned a bit at her pout and snuggled closer. He had missed her warm heart. And her warm body; the warmth radiating out of her made her impossibly comfortable to lay next to. Reita had missed laying next to her, even in the short time he’d spent away. He’d missed her, and what having her next to him implied. It was only now sinking in just how much he had truly missed her.

            Finally, with a resigned half sigh, Kitty relaxed into the GazettE’s bassist. “Nee, Akira,” she whispered as she settled her head onto Reita’s arm.

            “Hm.” Reita’s murmured response may have seemed half asleep, but he was on full alert. Kitty rarely used his real name.

            “Gomen ne.”

            “What are you sorry for?”

            “For not telling you.”

            “You dummy,” Reita told her. He settled in for a nap as the adrenalin of worry and panic began to wear off. “I’m the one that should be sorry. If I hadn’t run off, you wouldn’t have needed to tell me.”

            Kitty punched his shoulder, but there wasn’t any real force to the blow. “I told you that you aren’t allowed to feel sorry for yourself.”

            “I’m not feeling sorry for myself,” Reita protested, his rough voice definitely more asleep than not. “I’m sorry for us. I’m sorry for fighting.”

            “Me too.”

            In the chipper haze of sleepiness Reita was in with Kitty lying next to him, he suggested, “Then let’s never fight again, shall we?”

            Kitty tucked herself in as close as she could get to Reita. “My stupid little Bakira, fighting is what we do.”

            Reita didn’t respond. Soon she was asleep beside him and Reita was just about to join her in dreaming when he heard a quiet click behind him at the door. Ruki snickered softly. The picture would probably go viral within the hour, but at the moment Reita was too content, too relieved, to care.

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