Title: Haunted

Author: Takada Saiko/ Chase Yuy

A/N: Hello to all. I really don't put much anime fanfiction under this name, but as I seem to have lost the password to my Chase Yuy account, and I no longer have the email address to get it, I'm going to repost this long abandoned fic here because I have the urge to begin again on it. : sigh : Anyway, if you've read this before, I promise I'm not stealing it. They are both me. I have far too many names on this site for my own good, and we'll see where this goes to.

Warnings: Shonen ai content and also AU

Chapter One: Rain Falling from the Sky

The sound of rain slapping the window pane outside had no effect on the silent figure inside the room. The shadows played on the wall until the entire room was lit by lightning and a thin figure was shown to be standing in the doorway.

"Subaru?"

They'd found him in an alley, clutching a jar close to his heart. He hadn't responded to anything said to him and his eyes were blank.

"Subaru?"

Kamui moved forward to his friend's side. He hadn't let go of the jar in the twenty-four hours since they'd brought him back The younger boy knew what it meant even if no one expected him to: 

Sakurazuku Seishirou was dead and Sumeragi Subaru had taken his place, willingly. The fact that the jar contained his dead friend's eye was a sign of that. The question now was to what extent the nearly catatonic man understood what he had done.

"Subaru? Subaru, please?" Kamui's thin hand touched his elder friend's shoulder lightly. The other hand hovered just over his face and searched its way down, never touching, to the jar clutched so tightly. "Please, Subaru…. He's gone. We're still here."

Kamui started when he felt a drop of water fall against his hand and realized that it was one of many tears that were to follow the first. They streamed down Subaru's face openly. "It should have been me. That was my Wish. I wanted it to be me. I never wanted…."

"He knows," Kamui reassured him.

"And you? What do you know?" Subaru hissed, an unusual anger filling his voice, but he sounded too exhausted to put much force behind it.

"I know that none of us want to lose you!" Kamui responded with feeling. "Not to a ghost. Not to this!" He grabbed at the jar and tried to pull it away.

"No! Please!" Subaru sounded pathetic, the younger man had to admit. He sounded as if his life depended on that jar that held a human eye in it.

"I won't see you waste away," Kamui said sternly. "Not when I've lost so much already. I won't stand for it. I'm selfish, Subaru, and I won't give you up to him, nor to her, when they can keep each other company now! They're beyond our reach."

The tears were streaming down his too pale face and Subaru reached a hand up to grasp at the jar, but with all his might he seemed not to be able to force himself to stand. "Kamui…."



"I'm going to get you something to eat."

Subaru was left in the darkness of the room, alone, with only the sounds of his own sobs to keep him company. His breath hitched several times before he tipped over on the floor, his fingers clawing at the rug and a half-sob, half cry of anguish escaped from his throat. It wasn't long before he fell asleep where he was. He never knew when Kamui brought his food to him, he never heard the phone call or the frantic voice over the message machine of someone that had heard so much and so little. He never heard it and he never knew it. He dreamt only of the sakura tree that had been the death of so many and how its leaves bled his sister and his love dry. In his own private hell he screamed the night away.

--

The rain had driven her under the shelter of many sakura trees. She shuddered from the cold. "We couldn't even get a decent umbrella," she grumbled, pushing her short dark locks from her face.

"Picky, picky," a taunting voice came from behind.

The young woman looked up at the taller man. "Mou…. Has all this depressing rain made even you sad?"

"I'm never sad."

"But you feel," she replied with a knowing smile.

"You always knew too much."

"It's what I do best," the girl responded with a carefree shrug. "You'll learn to handle it again."



"The question is why…." His voice was low and thoughtful as he reached out one pale hand and touched the bark of the tree he was standing next to.

"Who cares?" the girl grumbled. "It doesn't matter. It is what it is. Death, life…. We have no cycle, do we?"

"Who knows?"

"If you don't, then we're in real trouble."

"I thought you knew everything, Hokuto-chan," the man chuckled.

"But, Sei-chan, surely you know about life and death. After all, you're experience is so much more recent."

Seishirou smiled. "What do you say we pay Subaru-kun a visit? I think it's high time."

"Yes… My brother has been alone far too long."