Written by: Jeldi
2008.12.15
Series: Tokyo Babylon
Spoilers: none
Disclaimer: Tokyo Babylon and the characters therefrom belong to CLAMP. Kiyoshi and Harumi, however, are of my own creation. This fic was not written for profit so please do not sue. I assure you, my assets aren't worth it unless you want a great start on a TB/X collection.
SenbazuruLight reflected off the walls and tiles with a sterile gleam in the synthetic lighting. Even the border of multi-colored stars that traversed the length of the hall did not take away from the sanitary feel of the children's wing of the hospital. The antiseptic smell and beeping of heart monitors added to the stiff environment. As he passed by the nurses' station, Subaru could hear whispering from the staff. One nurse stepped forward as if to offer assistance, but the Sumeragi's stride did not break until he came to a door several down the hall from the desk.
He paused in front of a door that was slightly ajar, comparing the small note he held to the nameplate beside the doorframe: 464, Kazurayama Kiyoshi. The room beyond was darkened; only a slight illumination from the setting sun filtered its way through the window drapes. The murmuring from the desk had increased, no doubt because of the unexpected visitor to that room near the end of visiting hours.
Subaru raised his hand and knocked against the door's wooden surface, "Excuse me, may I come in, Kazurayama-kun?" He stepped further into the darkened room, seeing the figure of a young boy sitting up, silhouetted against the light coming in from the window.
"Hello," the young boy, no more than ten years old, said meekly as he nodded, watching Subaru come into the room, "Who are you?"
Subaru closed the door and walked over to the chair beside the bed. "I'm Sumeragi Subaru. Your family said that I should come to visit, Kazurayama-kun," he stated as he sat down, bringing him to the same eye level as the young boy.
"Sumeragi-san...," he said hesitantly, not used to the unusual name, "you can call me Kiyoshi." He smiled shyly at his visitor then, appearing sincerely as if he appreciated the company of a perfect stranger. It was a happy expression, as if he had made a new friend.
"Well, Kiyoshi-kun it is then," Subaru smiled at the boy, amazed that a child that was so sick and weak could be so happy, "Do you know why you are still here?"
"I was sick for a long time," the boy replied, swinging his legs at the edge of the bed, not tall enough yet for his feet to touch the ground. He reached up to rest his right hand over his heart, "The doctors and my parents used big words that I didn't understand, but I know it was here. It always hurt here."
"But not anymore, Kiyoshi-kun?" Subaru asked, and received a nod as an answer.
Then the onmyouji noticed several small boxes off to the side of the boy's nightstand. "Do you mind if I look at these?" he asked, indicating the small objects within the boxes.
Kiyoshi followed his line of sight and replied, "Sure, you can look at them. My sister and I made them out of all sorts of different papers." Subaru pulled out one of the origami cranes from the box, seeing the paper's pattern weave in and out of the folds.
"We learned about it in school," Kiyoshi continued, "how you can have one wish granted if you fold one thousand perfect cranes. I showed my sister how to make one, and then it was her idea to fold them all so that I could make a wish to get better."
"Ne oniichan, is it true that if you make one thousand of these," Harumi pointed at the folded birds, "that you get one wish?" Her pixyish face belied that she didn't entirely believe the myth.
"That is what we were told," Kiyoshi replied, dropping a newly-finished bright metallic red one on top of his small pile of paper cranes. "But you have to be careful. Every single one has to be folded just right."
Harumi giggled and looked at the small wastebasket by the bed, full to the brim with discarded half- finished cranes. Her face lit suddenly and she looked at her brother happily. "I'm going to bring you lots and lots of paper so you can make them all!" Her smile softened as she added, "And then you'll be able to come home."
Kiyoshi leaned over and ruffled his sister's long hair and grinned, "You do that and we'll decorate the entire room with them."
"My sister was there when I was about to finish making them," the boy looked down at his hands, which were gripping the edge of the hospital blanket. "I had made nine hundred and ninety nine of them...just one more," he paused as he closed his eyes, the happiness from earlier falling to a sad expression, "but I never got to finish the last one."
Subaru listened quietly, not wanting to break the stillness that the boy's recollections created in the room. "I had an attack and they rushed me to the ER," he said, tears brimming at the edges of his eyes. He started sobbing and wiped at his face with the cuffs of his pajamas.
"And you didn't come back," Subaru finished for him. The boy's head bobbed in agreement and the onmyouji looked at the paper cranes thoughtfully. Tsuyoi kokoro ga aru da ga yowai shinzo mo atte, hidoi tsugimasu, Kiyoshi-kun.
Subaru rose from the chair and sat on the edge of the bed, the action causing the boy to look up at him. "Kiyoshi-kun, you can't stay here forever. You can't change what happened; that's the balance of nature. Why is it that you chose to stay here?" He taxed the boy with an understanding, yet serious look.
"I love my sister and I wanted to make sure she was all right," he replied, still wiping at his phantom tears.
"My family will probably be here to pick everything up tomorrow morning. I wanted to give a letter to my sister when I finished making the cranes," he said somewhat sadly. He indicted the box that contained the ordinate unfolded origami paper. Then he looked at Subaru timidly and continued, "If you wouldn't mind, could you make sure she finds it?"
Subaru nodded slightly before the boy continued, "It's at the bottom tucked under the cardboard. I didn't want her to see it before I finished."
Smiling at the youth, Subaru reached over into the box and found the letter, "I promise she'll find it." Then he looked at the boy seriously again, "Will you be ready to move on now?" The gaze that met the onmyouji's startled him for a moment. Never had he seen such a serious expression from a child, free from pain and fear. He didn't need to finish that last one…
Lacing his fingers into a mudra, and began to intone a chant, "On bazara daruma kiri sowaka, on bazara daruma kiri sowaka…" The child continued to look straight at him, a small, gentle smile on his lips.
As he came into the focused portion of his spell-working, the onmyouji closed his eyes. "Rin - pyou - tou - sha - kai - chin - retsu - zai - zen," Subaru continued to chant as the boy's form became incorporeal, "On bazara daruma kiri…sowaka."
And as the ten-year-old presence faded from the room Subaru felt more than heard, Thank you, Sumeragi-san…
Subaru opened his eyes to a room that was undisturbed save for the boxes of colorful paper cranes on the nightstand. He looked down at the note he had dropped to his lap and smiled softly. Picking up the letter and rising from his seat on the edge of the bed, he placed the envelope on very top of the pile of paper cranes.
Pulling a single ofuda from his jacket, Subaru brought it to his lips and spoke a few clipped syllables over the rice paper. Focusing his intent on the form, the paper coalesced into a form similar in many ways to his shikigami but with none of the life of his servant birds.
He left the room, depositing the final crane at the crest of the entire pile, its white body covered in brush-stroked calligraphy. Like a sentinel it stood out against the myriad shades and textures of paper.
As the onmyouji reached the door he turned back to the room, "You're welcome Kiyoshi-kun…" Then he opened the door and stepped back out of the timelessness of the room thinking, It looks like your wish to be free was granted anyway…
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Author's Note: Kiyoshi suffered from Aortic Dissection, which is a genetic condition that causes a tear in the aorta. The death rate is high and surgery survival is minimal.
I used Japanese on this line, because English just wasn't working with the way I wanted the line to be written. Below is the translation of: Tsuyoi kokoro ga aru da ga yowai shinzo mo atte, hidoi tsugimasu, Kiyoshi-kun..
Kiyoshi-kun, it is too cruel [for you] to have such a strong heart (feelings), and yet also weak heart (physical).