Death Brings To Light
By MM
There wasn't much of a reason why he'd gone looking for Akira. Akira was Yukisato's son and therefore would lead to Yukisato at one point in time or another. Maybe he had just wanted to see the little boy whom he'd brought under his wing and taught basketball. He just really wanted to see someone who wasn't consciously aware of all the things that had happened. He couldn't even really remember, but he knew one thing.
Everyone tip toed around him. Tatsuki, Yuuto, Mio…as if he was extra fragile, and extra sharp. It was like they were tensing themselves for something to break when it wasn't meant to. And it wasn't meant to. Not until he found out Akira had moved back in town. It was an almost urgency to see Akira, like the little boy had all his answers to the time lapse the week he was supposed to be in New York.
Around one last corner, towards the coral blue house set back from the street. There was Akira, in front of the house where he and his father had last lived. He was sitting at the top uppermost step, his head between his knees and a basketball at his feet. He wasn't moving at all.
"Akira?" Kotarou approached the boy cautiously. Maybe he was wrong. This wasn't the little boy he'd remembered. This kid looked to be about as old as him, and certainly as tall. But, as Kotarou stepped closer, the kid lifted his head and he could see that, indeed, it was Akira…with tears racing down his cheeks and slime beneath his nose.
"Akira! Why are you crying?" Kotarou knelt down. The boy was somehow not there. Like his soul had jumped into some sort of time continuum. His eyes were nothing more than glass pools of misery. "What's wrong?" Akira shook his head vigorously. "Where's your father?" This time Akira screwed up his face and let a low keening escape his throat. Whatever was wrong he wasn't going to say.
There was only one thing for him to do. Kotarou stepped past Akira, and ascended to the veranda. The door was already ajar, and by the empty feeling, it was as if the resident had recently vacated it. Kotarou knew what he was going to find before he stepped through the door. Maybe he should call the police…or maybe not. Maybe it was just a dead animal and Akira had been horrified by it although even that excuse sounded weak. Still, Kotarou circumnavigated the first floor, and then moved towards the stairs.
The second floor was much like the first. There was no one else, living or dead, located on the second. But, Kotarou was sure to ask Akira about the house in general. Every room seemed to be furnished in an impersonal way. Kotarou was sure not to miss a single detail or leave a single door unopened.
Bounding down the stairs with great news, Kotarou noticed an entryway he had overlooked.
It was a small thing, nestled behind the door to the out side like it was hiding from prying entrees. Through the door, Kotarou could see Mr. Yukisato petrified in his red leather chair. He was seated behind his desk, one hand poised over his throat in a vain attempt to keep the blood from running out over his collar and onto his coat front. Mr. Yukisato's jugular had been sliced clean through the vein.
"His watch…"
Kotarou's heart lodged in his throat. For a moment, he couldn't speak. What was there to say? He could see the shiny timepiece peeking from under Mr. Yukisato's sleeve. He stiffly crossed the threshold to stand next to Mr. Yukisato.
Mr. Yukisato's eyes held a calm, controlled expression, even in death. They stared through Kotarou and spoke phantom words that said, even in death, everything became a part of his plan. When Kotarou finally reached the corpse he reached to unstrap the gaudy timepiece; uncharacteristically bejeweled for a man like Yukisato. It was when he'd lifted it from Yukisato's wrist that the world went vertigo. The sensations started at his eyes, and proceeded to twist his stomach into a nauseas fury knot. his eyes felt as if they were being sucked into his brain. The last thing he saw down the dark tunnel was Akira's face, twisted in agony.
Rapid footsteps down the hall, and the impending storm of two boys who yet aren't allowed to see their friend.
"No one can see the patient!"
Hustlers and aides step in the way. They might be clouds of mist hanging low to the ground. Only obstacles; no-faces is what Tatsuki sees. Yuuto trails behind, trying to consol each of the victims of Tatsuki's Wrecking Run.
Then, the trail stops. Because Tatsuki has stopped. He standing there, facing Kotarou's mother. But she doesn't feel tense. More like resigned to the fact that force will overtake the weak, yet, Tatsuki doesn't move. She has something to say first. "When you go in there don't talk in loud voices. Don't try cry. Just…just. You know; be strong for him, 'cus that's what he needs from us."
It's like access granted to a VIP room, only it was in the hospital's ICU. Although Tatsuki was ahead of him, Yuuto could see clean over Tatsuki's shoulder, and boy was it a sight. It wasn't like anything cocked up to look like this. Not a heart attack, a stroke, not an explosion or even a nuclear bomb for that matter. It was disgusting and pitiful to look at the once beautiful boy. His eye lids were drawn all the way back and his eyes were pushed forward to bulging. His face was a mess of raw skin that was in the process of peeling. The rest of Kotarou's body was hidden under the blanket, but bulges here and there gave away the fact that his body was no better than his face.
"What happened?" Yuuto gasped. Kotarou's grotesque and oversized lips flexed and open to form what supposed to be words. Yuuto and Tatsuki made a beeline for the bed. Tatsuki won first place. He stationed his ear a hair's breath away from Kotarou's lips, listening intently to every word his cousin had to say. When he turned towards Yuuto, his face was set. He left the room like that.
Time Lapse
"What a shame."
"Kotarou!"
"Don't touch him."
"Why not?!"
There's footsteps and rustling, then the painful sensation of being born upwards.
"Wh-what are you doing?"
"Wait! Where are you taking them?!"
"You better leave before someone sees you here."
"What happened to them?! Hey! Say something!"
"Urushiyama. Forget the things you saw here today."
Time Cap
A sigh exhales from the bottom of his toes. Travelling higher and higher through his knees, up his thighs, past his hips…until it is finally expelled through the tiny holes of his nose. He recognizes the course sheets before he even opens his eyes. The sterile smell of the hospital tickles his senses. For the first of many times to come, Kotarou wonders why the event at Mr. Yukisato's wasn't the first time anything weird happened to him. Kotarou blinked open a sore eye to descover a nurse staring down at him with great attention.
"Ms. Nurse."
"Poor, baby...!" the nurse from a year ago begins to gush nonsense about him looking horrid and the doctor not knowing what to do until his mother came and said it was ok to take him to surgery to fix him and how it was so successful the hospital threw a party for the doctor and the doctor got so drunk he jumped on the table and started to dance to do a striptease… At this point, Kotarou tuned out her banter, not recognizing anything useful.
"…after all, your cousin and his lackey stalked out of here like bad boys on a mission."
"Tatsuki?" Kotarou raised himself up onto his elbow, "my cousin was here?"