This is also on the fly as well. X/1999 belongs to CLAMP. I own no one but one character in the story. Sumeragi Sotaru.
1st Year - Tokyo
"Shiyuu-san, was there anyone near me when you found me at Ueno Park?" Kusanagi blinks, glanced away from Yuzuriha and Inuki just for a moment to look at a nineteen-year-old Kamui. Kamui's gaze never left Yuzuriha or Inuki, watchful over his friend. Kusanagi frowns in a conflicted thoughts, he remembers seeing a Sakurazukamori with a mixture of sad and pained expression kneeling over an unconscious Kamui but nothing else. Except for one thing though.
"No, why?" Perhaps it's best to lie. Kamui hums a bit.
"It's weird, but I keep getting the feeling I was being watched." Kusanagi straightens, hairs standing on his neck and eyes peering from the corner of his eyes for the tall slender figure in black with mismatched eyes.
None.
Still though, now that Kamui pointed it out, Kusanagi begins to have a feeling that he's being watched as well. Yuzuriha and Inuki had been oblivious to it.
"You still remember nothing as to how you woke up from that coma." The former leader of Ten No Ryu shook his head in a 'no'.
"I don't, I remember being grateful though." Kusanagi softly intakes his breath, none of the surviving Ryus wanted to tell about the pentagram marks on Kamui's hands. Having forced the confused Kamui to wear gloves that conceals his aura and they begged, pleaded, not to take it off. In a concerned nod, Kamui agreed.
It still doesn't erase the unease inside of Kusanagi.
Guilt racks in the older man's lean body. He did nothing but brood over the fact that he just signed a death sentence for the one person that ever mattered in this world now. The number of body counts piled up in time, and nothing can erase the self-loathing over the fact what he had done.
The Tree for that matter is curious and waiting for what's to come after six years were over.
2nd Year - Okinawa
Okinawa was said to be one of the most haunted islands in the world. That said, it also houses a beautiful aquarium and one such trip, a Kigai Yuuto drags an unwilling Kamui to there to relax all the way from Tokyo.
"Why are we here again?" Kamui asks in an annoyed voice to which the water master laughs off smoothly.
"Just getting yourself relaxed. You've been all stiff from the final exams. This is your last semester, right?" Yuuto said as he continues to drag Kamui to the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium
"Yeah, well I still don't understand as to why do I need to wear these gloves even in a place this warm?" Yuuto's smile becomes a little strained.
"It's a fashion trend. See, I'm wearing a pair." The blond man was wearing a pair of leather gloves. Kamui looks unconvinced.
"Even when I had to sleep?" There was a doubtful silence.
"Uh yeah." Another bout of silence, before Kamui sighs. Relently.
"Fine, just because you are dating Karen-san, doesn't mean I should tolerate you." Kamui said and he ignores the beaming smile on the other's face.
He panics. He couldn't find him! He searches every building in Tokyo! Even using the tree's Maborashi to cloak himself and sneak and blend in CLAMP Campus. No sign of him. He briefly contemplates a thought, a belief, that he had left the country and found someone to spent his entire life with before disappearing off the face of the Earth from his hand. Something inside of him screams in denial, that the other couldn't, wouldn'tabandon him to this fate.
Still, he frets because the Tree shows no signs of changes of whether his prey has moved or not.
Almost like it drowns in sadistic amusement of watching it's puppet worries over something he doesn't know what he's worried about. Or why he should even be worried about.
3rd Year - Osaka
This time it was Arashi who brought him to Osaka to see the fireworks near Osaka Castle. That was after visiting Sorata's temple in the mountains. He shivers at the cold feeling he gets near the majestic castle. While it's beautiful and has a history that wows the numerous tourists that visit, he still couldn't shake as to why the castle itself feels sacred.
"Kamui? Is everything alright?" Arashi asks in her pink kimono with a maple leaf design, while Kamui is donned in his blue yukata with a koi pattern.
"I'm fine, I'm sorry about Sorata." Arashi stares at him, and a melancholy smile spreads on her face.
"It's been a few years hasn't?" Kamui doesn't voice out the change of subject as she didn't voice out about Fuuma, actually, he lets it.
"Yeah, it's been six years." The flash of color glow and a sound of boom echoes in the night sky catches their attention. Colorful circles and orchids in gold, green and red lights spread across the sky before fading with smoke left behind. The green and gold colour looks familiar to him and for a while, he doesn't hear sounds of fireworks anymore nor the voice of Arashi calling out to him. Just his mind thinking...
I wonder if he's seeing the same sky I'm seeing...
Someone shakes his shoulder, snapping him out of the daze. Worried brown eyes look at him, narrowing as to pinpoint the cause of his daydream. What has he been thinking? He feels a little lightheaded...
"Kamui?" He catches his forehead with a gloved hand and kneads his forehead with his fingers.
"Arashi, was there someone with us when I got trapped by Fuuma? Do you know who rescued me?" Arashi doesn't say anything for a while, and she knows that she wants to say yes but it'll burden his mind far more.
"No, it was just Sorata and me." A fibe, just this once, in order to keep Kamui safe from the Tree. Arashi and Sorata are the most logical reason as to how they got Kamui to safety after freeing him, even if that story feels paper thin on their tongue and through their lips. However, Kamui believes them and their lies.
Sleepless nights crawls through his soul, green and gold stares at the Tree and he raises his hand to raise the lock open slightly before pain shoots through him and the lock abruptly slams shuts!
He snarls at the Tree. It was one of the options that he had left to try and find him, locate him to bring a sense of relief!
The Tree mockingly waves him at in the wind, wagging it's twigs as if to say no cheating.
How can he sleep dreamlessly when he doesn't know where he went?!
4th Year - Hakodate
Hakodate feels peaceful enough, it's one of the few places in where his group of friends are feeling its safe for him to go alone. He was visiting Keiichi from the train station, and its where a man with green eyes runs into Kamui. Raven hair fringes nearly over the man's eyes, but they narrow in a thoughtful gaze.
"Magami?" There can't be any way for the other to know who is related to him. Amethyst eyes look at the man in surprise.
"Tokiko-san?" The man tries again, and Kamui sighs. No, he doesn't want to remember the despair of the birth of the Shinken or how the body of his aunt strewn apart with blood linking the pieces of the person that stood on the footsteps of Monou Shrine. He manages a grimace.
"I'm sorry." The man with green eyes closed his eyes, a pained and closed off expression filters over the man's face. Strange, I know a face like that.
"She knew, didn't she?" The question itself is vague, Kamui isn't sure whether it's about the fact that his aunt knew she'll die giving birth to a god's weapon or to that she was fated for it. The man's silence stems more, and Kamui hesitates before saying anything.
"Yes," He's not going to sugarcoat it. "she knew." The man let out a sigh.
"I don't know my aunt much, but would you like to join me for coffee so we can talk about her?" Green eyes look at Kamui, familiar green eyes, and the former leader of the Ten No Ryu feels a sense of deja vu. The gentle smile should have clicked, should have brought in clues, but it doesn't.
"That'll be nice. What's your name?" The man with the gentle smile asks with a hand raised.
"Shirou Kamui. What's yours?" The man's smile only widens.
"Sumeragi Sotaru." Kamui blinks, and almost frowns thoughtfully. He felt that he heard a familiarity with the name itself. Not Sotaru. He doesn't recall. Sumeragi brings something inside of him. Mix emotions swirl inside of him and he feels a smile spread, but the deep understanding and the quieted emotions of sadness and yearning ripples in his body.
"Shirou-san, are you alright? You're crying." Kamui blinks, and he reaches a part of his face to feel warm water slid down to his fingers. He didn't notice he was crying. He quickly wipes it away.
"I didn't notice, sorry." He also didn't notice that Sotaru's eyes kept on looking at his gloves, who barely manages to keep the frown off his own face. He knows those gloves and what they were for.
"It's fine."
He inhales a gasp as he feels a wave of emotions washes over him. It was after a kill when that wave of emotions hit him. It was a brief minute, and eyes widening. It was him! Those emotions, understanding, sadness, yearning, and the last one is hard to define but it's definitely him!
He wants to cry, he wants to laugh hysterically of relief, he wants to kill himself. Cause now he knows the other is ok, that he hasn't left at all, but he doesn't want the other to be him! Damn it on the other's conscience!
Why couldn't he just leave him alone?
He doesn't want to dwell as to why that question alone bothers him the most.
5th Year - Hokkaido
Kaze cheered at the snow continues falling, her father joins her on the sled and rides with her down the snowy hill. Her blond hair and magenta eyes will very much cause everyone to look at her with awe and curiosity. Her mother and godfather are watching through the glass window from the cafeteria.
"Thank you for coming, Kamui. I know it must be hard for you to be separated from your duties as clan heir." Karen said to the young man, who just quietly smiles.
"It's fine, I wouldn't miss it for the world. I've asked some people to handle it while I'm away." Kamui replies. It was still surprisingly easy to believe that Yuuto and Karen got engaged and decided to marry two years ago. Now with a child, Kaze has all the males wrapped in her little finger. One surprise after another, Yuuto had asked Kamui to be the godfather to their daughter.
That had floored him.
"How are you and Sotaru-san?" Kamui's hand tightened on the porcelain mug, he doesn't want to think about the other. Not now.
"I know that I'm selfish to say that I don't want to think about it, but at the same time I'll have to address it anyway." The fire mistress gently takes her longtime friend's hands gently, easing their grip on the mug and placing it on the table.
"He is the Fourteenth head of the Sumeragi Clan, isn't he?" Kamui sighs.
"He'll eventually have to marry someone." He shouldn't feel bitter about it, but the subject left a sour taste on his tongue.
"Are you jealous of him?" Kamui's eyes widen at this. Was he jealous? No, he wasn't...
"I'm not jealous, it's just..." Karen frowns at this. Maybe next year, it'll be the time to say the truth.
"...it should've been someone else there saying that." There was a wistful speck in Kamui's words. Sotaru, in a matter of a year, had grown to love Kamui as more than a friend. Had confessed in the begins of autumn and end of summer.
"I love you, I don't care if you don't! Just please consider me!"
Kamui didn't know what to say then, and he didn't what to say now at hearing that confession. A part of him that cherishes Sotaru was there to say yes, to take the chance. A large of part of him filled with graves of lost loves felt uncertain. Was it too soon?
"You have to tell Sotaru-san someday." Karen said motherly, and Kamui nods reluctantly. He doesn't want to ruin the family vacation. When the vacation ends and he's safe in his apartment in Harajuku, he dials a number and hits a call on his cellphone.
"Hello?" Kamui closes his eyes.
"Hey, Sotaru. Can we talk?"
He feels it again, another wave of emotions. Unlike the last time, this wave was stronger and he can taste it on his tongue. Regret, self-loathing, and frustration hit him and encompasses him that he nearly swallows at how heavy it felt.
He's nearby.
He's in Tokyo.
He's hurt.
The last thought sends an alarming wave of panic and he nearly flies into the direction of where the emotions come from, or where they felt in the most dense when sadness mix with another emotion near cripples him.
Mismatched eyes widening at the magnitude of emotions sweeping into him, and as soon as he steps out of Ueno Park in a haste, the emotions recedes into a tightly lid bottle that doesn't open.
He lost the beacon for where his prey is.
Frustrated, he goes out for another kill. Anything to make the Tree stop shaking it's branches like it's laughing at him.
If he had went south west, he would have met with a man leaning against his balcony rail and looking at the world below in a forlorn expression.
6th Year - Aomori
It's April, and the Kurosaki Park is a bloom of white cherry blossoms and falling petals. It makes a beautiful scene, and even more enchanting at night for those that deigned to have a wedding photos taken or ceremony.
Kamui never thought he saw white sakuras of this magnitude, and it was breathtaking. Enough to take off his mind of resigned acceptance spoken by an admirer of last year. Casual clothes, the group of former Ryus sans one steps into the park with wide eyes and awe.
"These are beautiful." Yuzuriha said, and Yuuto withhold a shudder. He knew of the previous Sakurazukamori and what he does. What the current Sakurazukamori does with his current power is a speculation that Yuuto doesn't want find out.
"Mm, prefect for a wedding. Right, Shiyuu-san?" Kusanagi chokes at his amazake from Arashi's comment.
"Aw, don't be so shy Kusanagi-san. Yuzuriha-chan would be overjoyed to hear that, wouldn't you?" Karen twittered, but Yuzuriha doesn't seem to hear them as she dances underneath the white falling petals with a full grown Inuki following behind her and pulling Kamui along with her.
"It's almost time." Yuuto softly whispers to Karen, her hand slips into his and she doesn't want to ruin Kamui's brief happiness with them. Doesn't want Kamui to lock himself up in his apartment if he had won, or to think that they might be visiting a grave the year later. She squeezes Yuuto's hand and god it hurts, because these past six years of their lives with Kamui had been the best days of their lives. For both Kamui and theirs.
"I know." Yuuto hand thumbs the back of her hand, brings it up to kiss the band of gold on her ring finger. Kusanagi grimaces and Arashi's face grows somber.
"We all want him to be happy. To smile and laugh." Arashi said softly, feels a sad smile spread across her lips and watching Yuzuriha making a flower crown before putting it on Kamui. He blushed slightly from embarrassment.
"Did you know that sometime two years ago, he stopped asking questions about his missing memories?" Kusanagi asks quietly, Arashi lets out a sigh.
"I know he wants to ask, but I think he knows how much it pains us to say the truth." Arashi said, until next May, they'll eventually have to lead Kamui to the answers he seeks. About the whispering memories of a person he holds close to and taken up the center of it without he or Sotaru even realizing it.
"Let's make the best of it, and be there for him whenever he needs us." Yuuto said quietly.
Fireworks of violet and blue and green and gold blooms across the night sky over the sea. You can see the fascination of color explosions painting over the night sky if you are over in the newly built Rainbow Bridge. He feels nothing but content, the faint peace and happiness washes over him. They weren't his own emotions, but the others. He stands from atop of a building to watch the bright lights of explosion and colors that fades with smoke. Still these emotions caused by him brings calmness and ebbing the numb and ice inside of him. He didn't know when it had started, when he start seeing that the other took a large part of him when he disappears from his radar.
"Just one year left until then." His voice quiet, and an almost peaceful expression slips on his face.
"You've been avoiding me quite well." There isn't a reply, but he knows the other is far away but hasn't left the country to reply to him.
"I wonder what you'll say when we meet..." A bitter smile spread across the man's lips.
The Tree, in Ueno Park, sways it's flowers and branches in the wind. It's anticipating of the year to come.
7th Year - Tokyo
"Visit Ueno Park, it's the key to your missing memories." Kamui sighs, it's been a long time since he's been to Ueno Park. He frowns, it's day, but the cryptic message given to him by his friends is enough to drive him up the wall last night. Making a beeline from the station to the park, he let his footsteps take a path inside the park. He blinks.
A Tree, in late bloom with pink blossoms and branches sways in the wind. Almost like saying hello to him. It's a beautiful tree, but something about it is haunting. He wasn't sure how long he stay there, but he hears a gasp and he turns around. Mismatched eyes of green and gold widens in surprise shock, mouth slightly agape and the person himself is attractive and dressed in black and in his mid-thirties. Still, he wonders as to why he felt he seen this man before. So without thinking, he says these next few words.
"Hello, have I met you before?"
He's stunned at his sudden return.
He finally returned.
He feels all sorts of emotions, emotions are not required in the current job of is.
Amethyst eyes stared back at him, with confusion embedded with understanding and welcoming and the owner of those eyes relaxed.
"Hello, have I met you before?"
That question alone shouldn't make him feel like the air has been sucked out of him.
0 Year - CLAMP Campus
Kusanagi brings an unconscious Kamui to the campus, he's out of breath but Kamui is the main concern. Kamui's hands had been marked, after setting him down on the hospital bed, Nokoru grimaces at seeing them.
"We should call Sumeragi-sama and explain the situation. We should also see if she could remake the pair of gloves she made for Subaru-san." Nokoru said grimly
"How long?" Yuzuriha asks sadly. It was Yuuto who answered.
"Seven years."
The pentagrams on the back of Kamui's hands glowed faintly in the light once, twice, before blinking out.
"If we meet again, I'll be with you for 1 year and you'll have to convince me to stay with you."
