Alright for first fics. Furuba is love. That is all.
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Three weeks.
Three weeks of 'any day now', three weeks of waking more than once almost every night to tend to him, three weeks of a strange surreal feeling hanging in the air, three weeks of silence.
Hatori felt split in a number of different contradictory pieces, which resulted in a complete refrain from showing much emotion at all. Though he was fairly reserved to begin with, most of the others noticed his apathy these past few weeks. Few commented.
Any day now…
Most of the family knew by this point that Akito had never been closer to death than this, but it was apparent that no one really knew quite how to react. Yuki simply seemed to be ignoring it all, continuing with his life, and avoiding the subject entirely, and this was not to be blamed. Akito was never a subject that Yuki enjoyed talking about. Outwardly, Kyo said nothing but good it would be to be free when he finally reached the end of his pitiful rope, but it was somehow a strangely delicate subject away from the eyes and ears of the others. The whole thing seemed detached from them, and though they all pretended that it didn't matter, in actual fact it mattered a great deal and it was almost always on their minds, for one reason or another.
Every night…
Hatori hadn't slept all that much, both resigned and committed to taking care of Akito as long as it was in his power to do so, and for three weeks it had been nothing but. Akito's condition had started deteriorating notably a few days after his last meeting with Tohru. It was as if her words had broken him somewhere, and he would rather die than admit it, and since then he had barely been well enough to speak, though he said nothing.
It was something almost ethereal…
As though walking through a dream, Hatori continued through it, doing what was needed of him. Cloven so many ways somehow… he couldn't explain it. A part of him wanted desperately for Akito to be better, and even this was split several ways; if Akito were better, Hatori could leave that house… get away from it and its master for a time. But he also wanted Akito better, because he would not stand to see him suffering like this much longer…
Which was part of his other thoughts, and Hatori was deeply ashamed of it; he couldn't help but hope that Akito would die soon. Three weeks of this… and Hatori felt he could do nothing but watch, and wait. From all he had heard of the other Sohma masters, and what he saw of the family head that came before Akito, when the time ultimately came, it was swift, with little to no sign even three days before they would finally die. Hatori felt so detached from the fact that, for the last week, every day he would hope that it was the last of this…
But it continued, and there was a terrible silence that settled around the house, and accompanied the darkness of the room that Death himself stood in, waiting…
Into the fourth week, Hatori sat in that room, slept in it… plagued by the secret fear that someone would get tired of waiting, and also the fear that they never would. Needless perpetual suffering… No matter what the others thought, Akito didn't deserve this.
Let the crime fit the punishment…
Hatori was old enough to have known Akito when he was much younger, and he wasn't always the cruel oppressor that he was often portrayed as in more recent times. He was young when he was told that he was born, with the only purpose of dying. It was a complete and total injustice to him, he had done nothing wrong, nothing to rectify the fact that he would die for them, and so his cruelty was a way to secure in his mind that he did deserve to die… and this was again, something he would not consciously come to terms with. Hatori was likely the only person who had ever gotten close enough to Akito to know him, save perhaps Shigure, but the author tended to take his own selfish wishes to heart, quite often at the expense of understanding.
Before Tohru had met the Sohmas, Hatori sometimes watched Akito when he was alone. It couldn't change anything but he was a very different person when he was completely alone. Hatori remembered first seeing him like that. It was three or four summers ago, and Hatori had prepared himself for a late night of work in his office. He had passed Akito's room and saw that the door was open, though only slightly, and he could see in without the room's occupant noticing.
As usual, it was dark in the room, but Akito sat up in bed with blankets, sheets and kimono all around him, making him look even more slight than he was. He just looked out the window with an expression like he knew that something in him was lost…
That was when Hatori had first realized why Akito didn't seem to be able to take care of himself when he was alone, even if he was well. He was waiting for his own end, just as many of the other Sohmas appeared to hope for it. In company, he had such a violent and bitter disposition, but in private, all he did not show to others he showed to the stars.
The bird sang… and Akito had cried.
The feelings that came to Hatori at that time were similar to the ones that came to him now; the strange surreal feeling that all this wasn't actually happening. Never before then had Hatori seen that side of Akito since his childhood, though almost subconsciously he knew it had to be there, and he wasn't sure how to react now that he was actually seeing it.
Hatori, almost in a daze, put a hand to the door and gently pushed it open. Akito looked up at him then, no sign at all of what Hatori had just seen.
The bird stopped singing.
'What? A checkup this late?' The transition was flawless.
'Just seeing if you were still awake… you shouldn't be up, Akito.'
'I'll decide what I do,' Akito replied, rather sharply. 'Is that all?'
'I suppose it is,' Came the reply after a pause. Hatori, from that day forward, paused whenever he passed Akito's slightly opened door, and listened. It was all that remained… the only proof of what humanity there was in the head of the Sohma family. As long as Hatori watched him in these times, he could know that this part of Akito was still there. He felt like it would vanish completely if he wasn't there to see it.
While it was true that he was terrible to the others under the curse, and to people in general, he was just as much a prisoner of the curse as everyone else. Perhaps more so in that he could never be free to it, to his early death. All of the others, Hatori included, would be free of the curse once Akito let go of his hold on life. He was their sacrifice. He was brought up to think that this is a great honor, as were all of his predecessors, but unlike them, he could not see how this was so… and it drove him through despair and into darkness…
He truly was lost, and for Akito there would be no absolution.