Nearsighted

Rating: K+

Summery: As much as Ran and Gingetsu, and even Kazuhiko, try to deny it, Ran is still aging. Kazuhiko is forcibly reminded of this but that doesn't mean any of them have to like it.

Characters/Pairings: Kazuhiko, Ran/Gingetsu implied

Comments: Tokyopop translations spellings and mostly blatant speculation. I tried to write a Clover style fanfic for Clover and ended up with just a Clover fanfic. So it's a little wordier than you usually get in Clover. Oh well, I still like it. Read and review please.

Spoilers: Volumes 1-4

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It was Kazuhiko who noticed it, perhaps because he had the advantage of an outsider's perspective, or perhaps because Ran took such pains to hide it, or perhaps because Gingetsu simply chose not to see it at all.

Ran was starting to age again.

They had all thought, Kazuhiko included once he demanded the truth from Gingetsu after Sue, that Ran's aging had almost stopped. After all, he hadn't changed very much physically for some months, aside from a little filling out. Compared to his previous lightning fast growth from a child to young man this further aging was practically a snail's crawl.

Kazuhiko knew that Ran at least had held the hope that he would live out the remainder of his short time as he was now and Kazuhiko suspected it was this hope that was slowing his aging.

But he was not as optimistic as the other two in thinking that Ran's accelerated aging had stopped completely. Then again, he was rarely optimistic about anything now, after Sue.

Which might have been why he noticed it in the first place.

He'd been standing in the kitchen of Gingetsu's house talking with Ran while the three leaf clover made tea. In the weeks after he was released from the hospital he'd become a regular visitor as he tried to deal with what had happened dilapidated the Fairy Park.

Gingetsu wasn't there at the moment, but he was expected back from work, the dull daily sort, not a Council commissioned mission, any moment so Kazuhiko was keeping Ran company while they waited for the water to boil.

In a lull in their conversation, which was, for the most part about the newest modification Ran was able to make to the transport module that he thought might improve its transport speed, and Kazuhiko's eyes had wandered to the row of tins on the counter that held a variety of tea leaves and bags.

Only then did he notice the marks on each tin's lid. They weren't large, but each had the look of being added recently, some were a simple scribble of marking fluid, some were piece of colored reflective tape pasted to the metal, some were a small stickers. The only thing they had in common was the fact that they were all different colors, bright ones at that, and no two tins were marked with the same color.

A creeping suspicion, and the memory that the tea tins had not been so marked a few weeks ago, made him pick up one at random.

"Hey, Ran," he held up the tin, label out, fingers casually covering the marking on the lid, "…what kind of tea is this?"

Ran held out his hand, walking toward him. "Let me see it,"

But Kazuhiko took a step back and didn't give it to him. "Can't you read the label? It's right here." He lifted the tin for better viewing purposes but did not move his fingers from blocking the mark on the top.

"Why don't you read it and tell me what sort of tea it is yourself, since you won't let me see it." Ran replied and Kazuhiko could see him looking for the marking on the lid, perhaps squinting just a little.

Lowering the tin Kazuhiko decided against the stealthy course. "Can you read this from over there?"

He caught the slight flicker across Ran's face and minuscule tensing of his shoulders. "You can't can you?" he said. Not as a question, simply as a statement. "You never had bad vision before. Wait a moment… that means…" Kazuhiko trailed off as his mind flew over the implications faster than his mouth could keep up.

If Ran's near sight had faded, that meant his eyes were changing and that meant… that meant he was aging again.

The three leaf's hands clasped around his suddenly, he hadn't noticed the other approaching while his mind wandered. "Please, don't tell Gingetsu." Ran said and there was something like pleading in his eyes.

Kazuhiko was confused. "Why not, he needs to know. He should know if you're aging again. Maybe he can—"

"No." Ran shook his head. "Gingetsu can't find this, he can't fix this, he can't even fight this, so why torture him with that he can't do?"

"You shouldn't keep something like this a secret. He'd want to know."

"I don't want him to know. We've been… content," Ran had looked like he was going to say happy, but had changed his mind. "I don't want to ruin that. And, it's not that bad,"

"'Not that bad'?" echoed Kazuhiko incredulously. "Ran, you can't read a label on a tea tin. That's not good. You can't see. This isn't something that you can just ignore."

"I know that!" Kazuhiko had never heard Ran raise his voice and he looked as though he would have said more, his eyes certainly flashed with enough anger but the kettle on the heating unit began to shriek, breaking the moment. Ran turned and snapped a finger at it, but the three leaf clover must have truly been upset, because the kettle did not merely slide off the heating unit but crash off and smash into the wall. It fell on its side and the lid came off, spilling boiling water in a steaming wave over the counter and onto the floor.

With a sigh Ran turned away to pick up a cloth and begin to carefully mop up the mess.

Kazuhiko would have normally moved to help him, but he was rooted to the spot by what he had seen, just for a moment in Ran's eyes. An anger yes, but beneath that a sadness, a hopelessness, a loneliness that ate at you until you couldn't stand it anymore and would do anything to escape.

And it reminded him of a similar emotion he'd seen in Sue's eyes, in the Fairy Park, toward the end.

Before she'd killed herself to escape it.

"Please," Ran said, in a small voice, from where he stood at the counter, he wasn't looking at him but down at the counter. "Don't tell Gingetsu about this. I know I don't have much time left. He knows I don't have much time left. It would be cruel to remind him of that unnecessarily. I don't want too— I can't— Gingetsu would—" Picking up the kettle Ran gave him an approximation of a smile. "It wouldn't do any good. I'm happy with things as they are. I'd be content with dying with things as they are. And I will, soon, I know that. So... please?"

Though he didn't want to, though it felt like it was going against his old friend, Kazuhiko said, "Fine, we won't tell Gingetsu, either of us."

"Won't tell me what?" said a voice from the doorway. Gingetsu's form in the doorway to the kitchen cast a long shadow across the door. His head turned slowly as he took in Kazuhiko, still holding the tea tin, Ran, frozen in place, and the steaming water now dripping onto the floor. "What happened?" he asked, his tone not giving anything away about his thoughts on finding such a scene.

"T-the water spilled," Ran explained, somewhat vaguely and Kazuhiko knew he was wondering the same thing that he was. How much had he heard?

"Won't tell me what?" Gingetsu repeated his original inquiry.

And Kazuhiko came to Ran's rescue and lied to his old friend. He glanced down and read the label aloud. "Chamomile tea. I, um, haven't been sleeping well, I was just asking Ran if we couldn't make some chamomile tea to help things along. But he argued that if he made a pot of it all three of us would have to drink it and you would probably complain over having to drink something that would make you drowsy."

"So you weren't going to tell me about the choice… in tea?" One pale brow lifted just enough that they could see it over Gingetsu visor.

"That's it," said Kazuhiko, wondering how much Gingetsu believed the cobbled together tale, the visor alway made it difficult to read his emotions off his face but Kazuhiko was fairly sure he was skeptical. "But since you know now it doesn't matter anyway."

"Yes." Gingetsu said, but he wasn't looking at him when he said it, he was looking at Ran. "I do know. I don't care. It doesn't change anything, but do as you want." He turned and left as quietly as he had arrived.

"What was that supposed to mean?" Ran said, after a moment. "What does 'changing anything' have to do with tea?"

Kazuhiko frowned at him, saw how he was standing, cloth still in hand, looking after Gingetsu with confusion, and realized that he didn't understand.

Gingetsu already knew Ran was aging again.

And he'd just said he didn't care.

In more ways than one, Ran was nearsighted.

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End.