By Your Side (ioriku)

1

"Hello?" Iori calls, taking a cautious step into the presumably empty hospital room. The lights are dimmed to the lowest setting, the eerie silence only adding to the ambience.

Iori walks inside, clutching the strap of the school bag around his shoulder. He reaches a red curtain and pulls it back in one swift motion.

And there it is— No, there he is. A boy sleeping soundly, his chest rising up and down with faint breaths as his hands lay by his sides. As if in a trance, Iori can't stop staring, gaze stuck on the sleeping boy. Suddenly, the boy starts to groan, shifting uncomfortably in his sleep. His body turns as he pulls up the sheets before relaxing himself once more.

Iori gets a good, proper look at him this time. At his red hair and soft features, his saddened expression, eyes tightly shut and lips pressed into a thin line.

He begins to mumble faintly, "Tenn-nii..." his voice is filled with sorrow, low and almost pitiful. He silently continues in a sleepy trance. "Why did you leave me?"

Iori could feel his heart twang with a desolate pain.

Iori had gotten so enthralled with the boy that he hadn't heard the footsteps coming from behind him. A nurse stands attentively at the foot of Riku's bed, looking at Iori with a raised brow.

"Good afternoon," she says, rather tense. "Are you a friend of Riku-kun's?" She asks with a tilt of her head.

Normally, Iori didn't lie. He could hardly bring himself to do it without feeling guilty. But for some reason— for a reason he didn't know— he decided to lie.

"Yes," he says, surprised to hear himself say it. "I'm his friend."

The nurse looks just as surprised as Iori feels. She lets out a breath she'd been holding and smiles, "That's great. He doesn't get many visitors, I was starting to worry he didn't have anyone who would visit."

Iori blinks twice in surprise, clutching the strap of his bag even tighter. He looks back down at the sleeping boy and then back up at the nurse.

"Is that so?" Iori says, eyebrows knitted in concern.

"Well, besides his brother, of course," the nurse adds.

"Right," Iori nods, faking understanding.

"Anyway, I'm getting too ahead of myself," she says. "I should check in with Riku-san, it's about time for him to wake up and take his medicine."

Before she can say anything more, Iori quickly begins to head towards the door.

"Oh, would you look at the time," he says, staring down at the imaginary watch on his wrist. "I'm going to be late. I'll be off, then."

He rushes off without another word, afraid that his little white lie would turn into something more if given the chance. Once he feels he's run far enough, he leans against a wall with a deep sigh.

The boy with the red hair was stuck on Iori's mind. The boy who hardly got any visitors. The boy with a brother. The boy in the hospital room.

He shook his head, resetting himself. What had he been here for again? Right, to pick up a prescription for his brother. His brother whose voice had gone sore from singing. That's who he should be thinking about instead, not some stranger.

He quickly drifts by the doctor's room, the correct one, and picks up his brother's prescription, hands jittery and mind still racing. He wonders whether Riku took his medicine already and whether he'd fallen back asleep. What if he was having another nightmare? Iori smacks himself in the side of the head, refusing to acknowledge the absurd interest he had in a stranger. So he'd promised himself that he'd stop thinking about Riku. 

But it wasn't long before he broke his own promise. 

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a/n:

yayy first chapter :333 i hope u liked it !!

i'll try and update this weekly :)) since i've already got a couple of chapters written

i realize the cover's kinda clickbaity since theyre not even idols in this but idc 😭

also yes, this is a rewrite of my og ioriku fanfic... (shhhh)