==========
A Sister's Pain
A Tokyo Babylon one-shot Fic
By Sefilin
==========
It was night time and the overcast skies above Tokyo were
glowing orange, sending a dim light into a small apartment where
Sumeragi Subaru lay sleeping restlessly. The orange light touched
his skin making it seem more sallow than ever, making him look as
bad as Hokuto knew he felt. She stood looking down at him and
sighed softly, pain filling her eyes. She brushed Subaru's bangs
off his flushed face and ran her finger gently down his cheek.
Subaru groaned quietly, his face contracting in pain and he curled
reflexively into a foetal position.
Hokuto knelt and placed her arms around her brother,
cradling him to her, tears gathering in her eyes.
"Subaru... oh Subaru, I'm so sorry. So sorry." She
whispered quietly into his ear, her tears sliding silently down
her face and mingling with the already damp strands of Subaru's
dark hair.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have let Sei-ch... Seishirou into
your life. I shouldn't have kept pushing you together...
Subaru... It was my job to protect you, my brother, and I failed."
Hokuto quickly broke off and choked back a sob.
"Subaru..." She laid her head against Subaru's pillow and
let the tears fall as she watched over her brother.
"Seishi... rou-san... " Subaru whispered fitfully his eyes
flickering beneath their lids. He tried to turn his head to the
side and Hokuto moved so he could. She hated seeing her brother
like this. Hated it, *hated* it. She closed her eyes and drew in
a deep breath to stop herself from screaming.
Somehow, someway, she had to make it up to him. It was all
her fault. She had to do something. Her heart felt like it
wanted to explode in anger, in *pain*, the emotions roiling within
her, threatening to destroy her as they had her brother.
There would be no peace, not when her brother was hurting so
much and Sakurazukamori was out there somewhere probably planning
on when to kill her Subaru. She couldn't let that happen. Subaru
deserved to live. He was the best person she knew and he
*wouldn't* die. Hokuto lay on the hardwood floor and curled
herself into a ball.
"He will not die." Hokuto whispered fiercely and
reluctantly allowed sleep to claim her, the smothering darkness
washing over her in waves, choking her and forcing her into a
void.
Rain thundering against the windows woke her the next
morning and she rolled onto her back and stretched as much as she
could. Pushing herself into a sitting position she watched
streaks of colourless rain running down the glass, obscuring the
grey city outside. Kneeling she turned to the bed and moved her
eyes to Subaru's face. He was lying, unmoving, staring at the
ceiling. His green eyes, darker now than they had been, were
blank, seeing nothing.
Hokuto knew he was trying to shut himself off from the
world, trying to stop the pain of betrayal. His bandaged arm lay
limp against the stark white sheet, a finger occasionally
twitching.
Hokuto bent over Subaru and kissed him lightly on the brow,
"Hello, Subaru."
There was no answer and Hokuto sighed as she stood.
Closing the door of Subaru's apartment she walked across the
hall to her own and let herself in. Shutting the door with a
click she locked the door and went into the bathroom.
Salty tears joined the warm water that fell around her and
she stood in the shower for long minutes trying not to think. She
remembered a conversation she had had with Subaru in a past life.
"Subaru," she had said softly, "please, stop trying to be
sorry for others. If you do, you can't be sorry for yourself. The
point of living is not living it for others; you live it for
yourself. Stop trying to swallow the tears of others, Subaru. Or
you won't have room for your own."
She wished she had been wrong, she wished so much that she
could go back and cry all those tears for him so he could have
some now. Subaru.
Hokuto moved back across to Subaru's apartment and went into
his room. He hadn't moved. She coaxed him into getting out of
bed, and taking a change of clothing she had pulled from his
closet, guided him gently across the floor to the bathroom.
Turning on the shower faucet she waited until the water was warm
enough and began unbuttoning his shirt.
"Subaru, you have to have a shower okay?"
Subaru said nothing.
"Come on Subaru, please. Have a shower and get dressed then
come out to the kitchen for breakfast, okay?" She waved her hand
in front of his eyes, "Subaru?"
His eyes regained some of their focus and he nodded briefly
his hands going to his pyjama pants. Hokuto turned and shut the
door behind her. She leant her head briefly against the wood.
"Get better, Subaru, please get better."
Straightening, Hokuto went into the kitchen and scooped some
rice into a bowl. She put it in the microwave and turned away to
watch the rain once more, listening to it's gentle cadence mixing
with the harsher sound of the shower on the other side of the
wall.
By the time Subaru appeared in his bedroom door, Hokuto had
breakfast sitting ready on the table. She gestured Subaru across
and he moved apathetically towards the table. He folded himself
into a chair and Hokuto set a bowl before him. She handed him
some chopsticks and watched to make sure he ate.
Once breakfast was over, Hokuto guided Subaru to the chair
in his bedroom where he had been sitting for the past two days,
his back to the window.
Hokuto cleaned up and sat at the table again. She rested
her arms across its surface and rested her head on it. The
ticking of the clock was loud and reverberated through her body,
sounding out two words over and over. Now what... tick... tock...
Now what...
She drew in a deep breath and let it out in a rush, slumping
even further into the chair. It was a relevant question.
"Now what?"
Sakurazukamori was going to try to kill her brother and she
couldn't let that happen. How was she going to make sure it
didn't? She drew in another breath, letting out slowly this time.
Sakurazukamori... Subaru... Sakurazukamori... Subaru....
"How?"
Hokuto lifted her head and wearily hoisted herself to her
feet. She wished there was something she could do with her
fingers while she was thinking, but the only thing she could think
of to do was sew. But the thought of the half-finished outfits
sitting in her apartment was not appealing. They belonged to a
different life, a different person. They belonged to the Hokuto
who had existed three days ago. *Three days*. It seemed like a
lifetime and Hokuto reflected on the few seconds that it took to
destroy a life. So long to build them, and one single moment to
bring it all tumbling down. Maybe Sakurazukamori had the right of
it, not letting yourself care about anything enough that it could
destroy you. And yet there was so much of life that was worth
*living*. And Hokuto knew Sakurazukamori did not *live*, he
merely existed.
She walked around the apartment, picking up a magazine that
was lying on the coffee table and arranging it neatly with the
others in a wire rack. She found a cloth and dusted all the flat
surfaces she could find then went to check on Subaru.
She panicked when she didn't see him and looked around
wildly. Her heart began to return to normal when she saw Subaru
standing out on the balcony. Sighing in worried exasperation she
noted the still-open door and spreading pool of water drifting
across the floor.
"Subaru! Come inside. You're getting everything wet."
Subaru looked back over his shoulder and Hokuto gasped at
what she saw in his eyes.
"Hokuto-chan." His voice was hoarse from lack of use. "Why
did this happen?" He sounded infinitely bewildered. "Why
couldn't he love me?" He stared into her eyes, so similar to
hers, and she saw an ocean of pain. "Why couldn't he love me?"
Subaru whispered again then trailed off, turning back to look out
over the city, ignoring the rain.
Hokuto let out the breath she had been holding and held back
the tears that threatened, again, to fall. She put her arms
around Subaru and leant her head on his shoulder blade, the wet
material of his shirt clinging to her cheek.
"I don't know, Subaru, I just don't know. I don't think he
was capable of loving anyone."
"Then why... why did I fall in love with him?" His voice
was broken.
"Subaru. Subaru, I'm sorry... I'm sorry." There was
nothing else she could say.
Hokuto sat cross legged on Subaru's bed trying to read
without much success. She flipped over another page and realised
she hadn't taken in a word. With an irritated scowl she closed
the book and flung it onto another part of the bed. She couldn't
concentrate on anything, not when she still didn't know what to
do. She leaned back against the wall and let her eyes drift shut,
listening to Subaru's quiet breathing from the chair. His eyes
had gone back to being blank and the emptiness she saw there was
frightening. It was so different to what she was used to. And
now she knew that the wall that held back the pain and despair was
so fragile. She was terrified that he would do Sakurazukamori's
job for him. Terrified that the betrayal would be too much for
him to handle and he would take another walk onto, then off the
balcony.
Hokuto opened her eyes as though she thought Subaru was now
getting up to do just that. But he was still sitting stationary
in the chair. Hokuto moved her head to look around Subaru's room
and her eyes lit on his desk. Catching sight of a photograph that
sat there, Hokuto threw herself off the bed and snatched it up.
It was a picture of Subaru and her at age seven when they still
wore identical clothing. A slow smile appeared on Hokuto's face.
Identical clothing. Now she had a way to save Subaru.
A tear fell onto the picture and Hokuto almost laughed. She
didn't though, knowing that it would be hysteria and was
dangerous. If she began laughing she knew she wouldn't be able to
stop for a long time. So she took a few deep breaths until the
urge passed.
Looking over at Subaru she smiled a watery smile and
whispered, "Everything's going to be fine now, Subaru. Just
fine."
That evening, Hokuto left Subaru's apartment taking with her
his shikifuku, packing it carefully and heading for Ueno park and
the Cherry tree that she knew Sakurazukamori would guard.
==========
Subaru stared at the ceiling, seeing things no one else
could see. A flash of gold in smiling brown eyes cold enough to
freeze. Subaru was thankful for the numbing properties of that
gaze as Seishirou's words began their merciless dissection of his
heart. And all the time he watched the man's eyes.
Warm and laughing with him, light glinting off the glasses
that covered them. And again, watching him with an intensity he
hadn't understiid, hadn't wanted to understand... the feelings it
evoked were too strong, too frightening for him to face. And
again, laughing again, smiling, cute and then cold, cruel,
indifferent. Seishirou-san's eyes were no longer his, they were
Sakurazukamori's, then they were Seishirou-san's again. Cold,
warm, cold, warm and in the background words that turned his life,
which had been a dream, into a nightmare.
Then something sliced through everything, cutting straight
to Subaru's frozen heart.
"Subaru! Su... ba... ru..."
His eyes widening in shock, Subaru saw something new. It
was an image of Hokuto falling... falling and there behind her was
the assassin Sakurazukamori, still smiling that same smile.
Feeling Subaru's mental presence, Sakurazukamori lifted Hokuto
into his arms, blood soaking into his clothes and dripping onto
his trousers. He held her body out towards Subaru and let her
dissolve into Sakura petals, binding her soul to his cherry tree.
"Hokuto-chan!" Subaru's voice cracked as he stretched his
vocal chords in horror. Throwing himself out of the bed and
towards the vision, he yelled again.
"Hokuto-chan... Hokuto-chan..."
The image faded and Subaru found himself stretching towards
the window, and beyond that, to Ueno Park. Subaru fell to his
knees, not noticing his grandmother on the floor next to him, her
arms holding him desperately, and whispered.
"...Hokuto-chan..."
===Owari===
http:www.geocities.com/sefilin/index.html
sefilin@yahoo.com
A Sister's Pain
A Tokyo Babylon one-shot Fic
By Sefilin
==========
It was night time and the overcast skies above Tokyo were
glowing orange, sending a dim light into a small apartment where
Sumeragi Subaru lay sleeping restlessly. The orange light touched
his skin making it seem more sallow than ever, making him look as
bad as Hokuto knew he felt. She stood looking down at him and
sighed softly, pain filling her eyes. She brushed Subaru's bangs
off his flushed face and ran her finger gently down his cheek.
Subaru groaned quietly, his face contracting in pain and he curled
reflexively into a foetal position.
Hokuto knelt and placed her arms around her brother,
cradling him to her, tears gathering in her eyes.
"Subaru... oh Subaru, I'm so sorry. So sorry." She
whispered quietly into his ear, her tears sliding silently down
her face and mingling with the already damp strands of Subaru's
dark hair.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have let Sei-ch... Seishirou into
your life. I shouldn't have kept pushing you together...
Subaru... It was my job to protect you, my brother, and I failed."
Hokuto quickly broke off and choked back a sob.
"Subaru..." She laid her head against Subaru's pillow and
let the tears fall as she watched over her brother.
"Seishi... rou-san... " Subaru whispered fitfully his eyes
flickering beneath their lids. He tried to turn his head to the
side and Hokuto moved so he could. She hated seeing her brother
like this. Hated it, *hated* it. She closed her eyes and drew in
a deep breath to stop herself from screaming.
Somehow, someway, she had to make it up to him. It was all
her fault. She had to do something. Her heart felt like it
wanted to explode in anger, in *pain*, the emotions roiling within
her, threatening to destroy her as they had her brother.
There would be no peace, not when her brother was hurting so
much and Sakurazukamori was out there somewhere probably planning
on when to kill her Subaru. She couldn't let that happen. Subaru
deserved to live. He was the best person she knew and he
*wouldn't* die. Hokuto lay on the hardwood floor and curled
herself into a ball.
"He will not die." Hokuto whispered fiercely and
reluctantly allowed sleep to claim her, the smothering darkness
washing over her in waves, choking her and forcing her into a
void.
Rain thundering against the windows woke her the next
morning and she rolled onto her back and stretched as much as she
could. Pushing herself into a sitting position she watched
streaks of colourless rain running down the glass, obscuring the
grey city outside. Kneeling she turned to the bed and moved her
eyes to Subaru's face. He was lying, unmoving, staring at the
ceiling. His green eyes, darker now than they had been, were
blank, seeing nothing.
Hokuto knew he was trying to shut himself off from the
world, trying to stop the pain of betrayal. His bandaged arm lay
limp against the stark white sheet, a finger occasionally
twitching.
Hokuto bent over Subaru and kissed him lightly on the brow,
"Hello, Subaru."
There was no answer and Hokuto sighed as she stood.
Closing the door of Subaru's apartment she walked across the
hall to her own and let herself in. Shutting the door with a
click she locked the door and went into the bathroom.
Salty tears joined the warm water that fell around her and
she stood in the shower for long minutes trying not to think. She
remembered a conversation she had had with Subaru in a past life.
"Subaru," she had said softly, "please, stop trying to be
sorry for others. If you do, you can't be sorry for yourself. The
point of living is not living it for others; you live it for
yourself. Stop trying to swallow the tears of others, Subaru. Or
you won't have room for your own."
She wished she had been wrong, she wished so much that she
could go back and cry all those tears for him so he could have
some now. Subaru.
Hokuto moved back across to Subaru's apartment and went into
his room. He hadn't moved. She coaxed him into getting out of
bed, and taking a change of clothing she had pulled from his
closet, guided him gently across the floor to the bathroom.
Turning on the shower faucet she waited until the water was warm
enough and began unbuttoning his shirt.
"Subaru, you have to have a shower okay?"
Subaru said nothing.
"Come on Subaru, please. Have a shower and get dressed then
come out to the kitchen for breakfast, okay?" She waved her hand
in front of his eyes, "Subaru?"
His eyes regained some of their focus and he nodded briefly
his hands going to his pyjama pants. Hokuto turned and shut the
door behind her. She leant her head briefly against the wood.
"Get better, Subaru, please get better."
Straightening, Hokuto went into the kitchen and scooped some
rice into a bowl. She put it in the microwave and turned away to
watch the rain once more, listening to it's gentle cadence mixing
with the harsher sound of the shower on the other side of the
wall.
By the time Subaru appeared in his bedroom door, Hokuto had
breakfast sitting ready on the table. She gestured Subaru across
and he moved apathetically towards the table. He folded himself
into a chair and Hokuto set a bowl before him. She handed him
some chopsticks and watched to make sure he ate.
Once breakfast was over, Hokuto guided Subaru to the chair
in his bedroom where he had been sitting for the past two days,
his back to the window.
Hokuto cleaned up and sat at the table again. She rested
her arms across its surface and rested her head on it. The
ticking of the clock was loud and reverberated through her body,
sounding out two words over and over. Now what... tick... tock...
Now what...
She drew in a deep breath and let it out in a rush, slumping
even further into the chair. It was a relevant question.
"Now what?"
Sakurazukamori was going to try to kill her brother and she
couldn't let that happen. How was she going to make sure it
didn't? She drew in another breath, letting out slowly this time.
Sakurazukamori... Subaru... Sakurazukamori... Subaru....
"How?"
Hokuto lifted her head and wearily hoisted herself to her
feet. She wished there was something she could do with her
fingers while she was thinking, but the only thing she could think
of to do was sew. But the thought of the half-finished outfits
sitting in her apartment was not appealing. They belonged to a
different life, a different person. They belonged to the Hokuto
who had existed three days ago. *Three days*. It seemed like a
lifetime and Hokuto reflected on the few seconds that it took to
destroy a life. So long to build them, and one single moment to
bring it all tumbling down. Maybe Sakurazukamori had the right of
it, not letting yourself care about anything enough that it could
destroy you. And yet there was so much of life that was worth
*living*. And Hokuto knew Sakurazukamori did not *live*, he
merely existed.
She walked around the apartment, picking up a magazine that
was lying on the coffee table and arranging it neatly with the
others in a wire rack. She found a cloth and dusted all the flat
surfaces she could find then went to check on Subaru.
She panicked when she didn't see him and looked around
wildly. Her heart began to return to normal when she saw Subaru
standing out on the balcony. Sighing in worried exasperation she
noted the still-open door and spreading pool of water drifting
across the floor.
"Subaru! Come inside. You're getting everything wet."
Subaru looked back over his shoulder and Hokuto gasped at
what she saw in his eyes.
"Hokuto-chan." His voice was hoarse from lack of use. "Why
did this happen?" He sounded infinitely bewildered. "Why
couldn't he love me?" He stared into her eyes, so similar to
hers, and she saw an ocean of pain. "Why couldn't he love me?"
Subaru whispered again then trailed off, turning back to look out
over the city, ignoring the rain.
Hokuto let out the breath she had been holding and held back
the tears that threatened, again, to fall. She put her arms
around Subaru and leant her head on his shoulder blade, the wet
material of his shirt clinging to her cheek.
"I don't know, Subaru, I just don't know. I don't think he
was capable of loving anyone."
"Then why... why did I fall in love with him?" His voice
was broken.
"Subaru. Subaru, I'm sorry... I'm sorry." There was
nothing else she could say.
Hokuto sat cross legged on Subaru's bed trying to read
without much success. She flipped over another page and realised
she hadn't taken in a word. With an irritated scowl she closed
the book and flung it onto another part of the bed. She couldn't
concentrate on anything, not when she still didn't know what to
do. She leaned back against the wall and let her eyes drift shut,
listening to Subaru's quiet breathing from the chair. His eyes
had gone back to being blank and the emptiness she saw there was
frightening. It was so different to what she was used to. And
now she knew that the wall that held back the pain and despair was
so fragile. She was terrified that he would do Sakurazukamori's
job for him. Terrified that the betrayal would be too much for
him to handle and he would take another walk onto, then off the
balcony.
Hokuto opened her eyes as though she thought Subaru was now
getting up to do just that. But he was still sitting stationary
in the chair. Hokuto moved her head to look around Subaru's room
and her eyes lit on his desk. Catching sight of a photograph that
sat there, Hokuto threw herself off the bed and snatched it up.
It was a picture of Subaru and her at age seven when they still
wore identical clothing. A slow smile appeared on Hokuto's face.
Identical clothing. Now she had a way to save Subaru.
A tear fell onto the picture and Hokuto almost laughed. She
didn't though, knowing that it would be hysteria and was
dangerous. If she began laughing she knew she wouldn't be able to
stop for a long time. So she took a few deep breaths until the
urge passed.
Looking over at Subaru she smiled a watery smile and
whispered, "Everything's going to be fine now, Subaru. Just
fine."
That evening, Hokuto left Subaru's apartment taking with her
his shikifuku, packing it carefully and heading for Ueno park and
the Cherry tree that she knew Sakurazukamori would guard.
==========
Subaru stared at the ceiling, seeing things no one else
could see. A flash of gold in smiling brown eyes cold enough to
freeze. Subaru was thankful for the numbing properties of that
gaze as Seishirou's words began their merciless dissection of his
heart. And all the time he watched the man's eyes.
Warm and laughing with him, light glinting off the glasses
that covered them. And again, watching him with an intensity he
hadn't understiid, hadn't wanted to understand... the feelings it
evoked were too strong, too frightening for him to face. And
again, laughing again, smiling, cute and then cold, cruel,
indifferent. Seishirou-san's eyes were no longer his, they were
Sakurazukamori's, then they were Seishirou-san's again. Cold,
warm, cold, warm and in the background words that turned his life,
which had been a dream, into a nightmare.
Then something sliced through everything, cutting straight
to Subaru's frozen heart.
"Subaru! Su... ba... ru..."
His eyes widening in shock, Subaru saw something new. It
was an image of Hokuto falling... falling and there behind her was
the assassin Sakurazukamori, still smiling that same smile.
Feeling Subaru's mental presence, Sakurazukamori lifted Hokuto
into his arms, blood soaking into his clothes and dripping onto
his trousers. He held her body out towards Subaru and let her
dissolve into Sakura petals, binding her soul to his cherry tree.
"Hokuto-chan!" Subaru's voice cracked as he stretched his
vocal chords in horror. Throwing himself out of the bed and
towards the vision, he yelled again.
"Hokuto-chan... Hokuto-chan..."
The image faded and Subaru found himself stretching towards
the window, and beyond that, to Ueno Park. Subaru fell to his
knees, not noticing his grandmother on the floor next to him, her
arms holding him desperately, and whispered.
"...Hokuto-chan..."
===Owari===
http:www.geocities.com/sefilin/index.html
sefilin@yahoo.com