A warm hand rested on Eigetsu's shoulder, and he glanced up to see Shuurei smiling down at him sympathetically.
"You should sleep now, Eigetsu-kun. We'll stay with Kourin. If anything changes, I'll fetch you right away," she assured him.
He smiled softly, sadly, but hesitated, turning to look at his wife, who now slept quietly. Too quietly, he thought and swallowed the tightness in his throat.
"Eigetsu, you're no good to her exhausted," Ensei added and lifted the green-haired young man up from his bedside chair by his elbow. "I can make you go to sleep if I have to, so no arguments."
"Ensei-san!" Eigetsu exclaimed in a soft, but urgent voice. He looked again at Kourin, then back at Ensei's deadly serious eyes.
"You have to be strong for her," Seiran added with a gentle smile.
"All right. You're right," he sighed. "Please check for fever every 15 minutes, and if she wakes, call me right away. When Dr. You arrives, will you wake me then also?"
"Of course, Eigetsu-kun. Right away. I promise," Shuurei replied urgently and squeezed his hand for reassurance.
"Thank you. All of you. Thank you for being here. I'm sorry…this was supposed to be a happy reunion," he smiled again.
"It will be, Eigetsu-kun. I know it will be," Shuurei answered.
Eigetsu turned back to Kourin and watched her placid face, as if memorizing every curve. His fingers trailed over her hand lying still at her side. It felt so warm, as if she might wrap her fingers around his at any second. She always surprised him when she did that, and his heart always fluttered at her touch. She had had a hard life without much affection, so it was a rare moment when she would hold his hand, or stroke his hair, or touch his cheek. However, the rarity of those moments made them all the more intense and humbling. He knew her reluctance was not because she didn't care for him, but because she was never sure her touch was welcomed, no matter how many times he reassured her. She simply couldn't believe she was so loved, and he loved her more than he knew was possible.
He lifted his hand and rested his fingertips atop the crest of her belly, high and round and firm. A little girl, he smiled, if the old wives' tale spoke truth. And very soon. He felt a hard shove against his fingers from inside Kourin's belly, and he smiled through his tears. She would be a fighter, just like her mother.
Fight, Kourin! Fight for our little family, he prayed silently and tears rained from his eyes splattering her lifeless hand. Shuurei drew Eigetsu into her embrace and Ensei rested a rough hand on his head.
"Let's go, Eigetsu," Ensei dropped his hand to the smaller man's shoulder and guided him toward the door, not allowing him to look back. If he had, he would have seen Shuurei dissolving in tears in Seiran's arms, and Ensei knew better than to let him see.
They walked silently, side by side, down the hallway, Eigetsu still wiping his eyes on his sleeve. He pulled in a ragged breath and tried to steady his nerves. Just standing next to Ensei always made him feel stronger, as though the big guy crowded out any room for hopelessness or fear that might be lurking. Somehow, though, this time, Eigetsu's despair loomed even larger than Ensei.
"Eigetsu, do you believe in luck or fate?" Ensei asked.
He opened his eyes wide and stared at Ensei for a few minutes, surprised by the question.
"Oh...well…as a man of science, I don't believe in either, I suppose, though I have my doubts," he answered with a strained but congenial smile. "Why do you ask, Ensei-san?"
"Eh…it's just that I think you walk under a lucky star, kid," the tall man smiled down at him. "It won't let you down."
Taken aback by Ensei's comment, Eigetsu considered the observation, at first thinking it was a kind remark simply meant to show support. However, Ensei generally told it straight—just what he thought, whether the timing was right or not. As usual, he was also right on the money.
Eigetsu had been lucky all his life. The simple fact that he still existed was testament to that. His lucky star was, in fact, a moon—Yougetsu—the white moon. Despite his rough demeanor, his other self, Yougetsu, had given to Eigetsu continuously almost his entire life. He had protected him and those he loved, spared his life, and buried himself in a death-like sleep, so that Eigetsu might have a normal life. He asked nothing in return, and, like Kourin, could not comprehend that he was loved.
Eigetsu bid Ensei good night at the door to his chambers with fresh instructions to rouse him at the least sign of any change, which Ensei promised with a crushing squeeze to the smaller man's thin shoulder.
Alone in his chamber, he slumped on his bed—their bed—the bed he shared with his wife. She had been moved to a lower room with better access to the kitchen for preparing medicines, and so he had not slept beside her for the two weeks she had been in a coma. He missed her. He missed the sound of her voice, even when she was angry. He missed her cooking. He missed the fierce green eyes that watched and fretted over him. He missed the way she made him feel like her protector, like the man he'd always wanted to be. He felt so terribly, terribly alone without her.
Because he was one half of a shared soul, he had never really felt alone before. Even after Yougetsu locked himself in a deep sleep, Eigetsu had Kourin to fill the empty part of him. Now, he had neither of them. In the end, he was surprised he was a pitiful coward after all.
Because of his diminutive size and strength, he had learned to be a man of great courage, facing challenges and perils regardless of their enormity. Yet now, the near certainty of losing not only his unborn child, but the true second half of his soul, Kourin, left him crushed and devastated beyond any hope of recovery. Without her to shield with his back, without her to show off for, without her to push him forward, he might as well be dead.
"Yougetsu-sama!" Eigetsu shouted at the top of his lungs and broke down in tears. "You gave me back to her," he muttered bitterly to the part of himself he no longer felt inside him. "You gave me a long life. Thank you. Thank you. But…if I lose her…if I lose her…"
He crumpled down onto the bed and wept copiously into the lovely, delicate quilt Kourin had made with her own two hands for their wedding night. It was fine and strong, just like her, and he gathered it against his chest, breathing in the scent of lavender that always announced her arrival and lingered after her departure. How long would it linger if she never returned? He sobbed bitterly, staining the soft fabric of the quilt with his tears, until exhaustion swept him into a fitful sleep.
His disjointed dreams were filled with images of his life, all smiling and happy, of Doushu, of Shuurei, of Ryuuren and most of all, of Kourin. Strangely absent, though, was any sense of Yougetsu. When Eigetsu realized this, his dreaming self awoke in a black forest of leafless trees. The only light came from a large and bright full moon, shining its ethereal light on the desolate forest.
"Why are you here?" an angry voice snapped at him. The voice was familiar. Eigetsu gasped and spun left and right, looking for the source of the voice. "Answer me! Why are you here?"
"I'm looking for you!" Eigetsu replied in an urgent voice and clapped his hands over his mouth. Why had he answered thus?
"I don't exist. That's how you wanted it," the voice came again. Eigetsu began to walk forward through the stark trees, his pace increasing as his heart rate increased.
"No…well…I just wanted all the time I could have with her," he replied apologetically, his breath short and tight in his chest as he ran forward. "I was…I was selfish."
"Tch, humans are selfish. You think there's nothing but yourselves in all existence," the voice answered. "I gave you what you wanted. Now get out of here! I want to sleep!"
"No!" Eigetsu yelled and burst through the tree line to come upon a wide lake that reflected the giant moon, whose image rippled unsteadily on the lake's surface. On a rock beside the lake, Eigetsu saw himself sitting—or actually, his other self.
"Yougetsu-sama!" he ran up to the rock.
"I told you to get out of here!" Yougetsu demanded and jumped to his feet so he towered over Eigetsu. "LEAVE, or I'll take back what's mine!"
"Yougetsu…Yougetsu…" Eigetsu began to cry and jumped up on the rock to throw his arms around his other half. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
"What the hell?! Get off me! You pathetic, sniveling weakling! Is this what you've become with the life I gave you?"
"Yes…I'm weak…love has made me like this," he muttered bitterly. "I don't want it. I've come to give you back this life. Thank you, but I'm not strong enough for it."
Yougetsu's angry eyes widened into shock, and he glanced uncomfortably at the green-haired waif blubbering on his shoulder.
"What about your precious hellcat?" he asked sarcastically. "Wasn't all this for her?"
"She's…she's dying," he answered.
"So?"
Eigetsu drew back and stared into Yougetsu's unsympathetic eyes.
"So?" Eigetsu blinked twice. His forehead crumpled and his eyebrows drew down. "What do you mean 'so'? That's my wife! The other part of me!" His fingers bit sharply into Yougetsu's shoulders.
Stern eyes narrowed on each other.
"Isn't that part of you interchangeable?" Yougetsu asked bitterly. "Just get a replacement, just like you replaced me." He shrugged off the tight grip and sat back down on the boulder. "Now, get out. You disgust me."
In a flash, Eigetsu leaped on top of Yougetsu and struck him across the face with his fist. He grappled the shocked being by his shirt and drew him up to strike him again. Blood smeared across Yougetsu's face, his own from a split lip and Eigetsu's blood from a split knuckle.
Instantly rallying his senses, Yougetsu shoved the other man off him, tossing him to the ground. He jumped down on top of him from the boulder, landing a knee across Eigetsu's chest. Even with the tremendous force of Yougetsu's supernatural strength, Eigetsu hesitated not one second and rolled Yougetsu over to punch him again and again and again.
His fingers clutched Yougetsu's throat, and the "enlightened one" stared up at him, shocked at the force of his strength.
"What…w-what the…fuck…is this?" he ground out the words though the air had been cut off from his lungs. The fingers pinched in tighter, and Eigetsu looked exactly like Yougetsu, his hair flowing wildly, his pupils narrowed to cat-like slits. Behind his violet eyes, no soul existed.
"Eigetsu! Ei-Eig-getsu!" Yougetsu grunted, both his hands fiercely grappling Eigetsu's wrist that bore down his body weight on Yougetsu's throat. "I-if you…k-k-kill m-me…here…we b-both…aaah…th-this ish…nnnot a…dream."
Nothing seemed to reach Eigetsu. In fact, he gripped Yougetsu's throat with both hands, applying even stronger pressure. Pinpricks of light stabbed behind Yougetsu's eyes and the edges of his vision had begun to dim. Eigetsu's body was like a ton of rock and no matter how hard he pushed, he couldn't budge him. They were going to die.
Suddenly, something wet splattered his cheek. He looked up and saw Eigetsu's eyes, still just as fierce and full of murder, also filled with tears. The tears began to rain down on Yougetsu, hitting his cheek and chin, spilling onto his lip so he tasted the acrid salt of bitterness. He realized then that Eigetsu truly wanted to die. He was trying to kill them both.
Love. Love had done this to him. Destroyed him. It made this gentle, caring being into a murderous beast. Just like him. Heartless. He looked up at the pathetic face, fighting to die, crying out the last of its hunger to live. Eigetsu had always wanted to live. Always. Even as a tiny child, his will to live overpowered Yougetsu, just as his will to die was doing now. Why? What had changed?
Love. Love was this powerful. To have it and to lose it could do this, even to a man like Eigetsu. He couldn't comprehend it, but it lured him like a firefly to a flame. Always, always Yougetsu had chased after love, studied humans because of their capacity for it, and found the one being in humanity so filled with love he had enough to share with him.
Until he found another to replace him.
Now, Yougetsu's eyes welled up. Eh, it was the lack of air…nothing else, he surmised and squirmed again to try to escape. He couldn't care less if Eigetsu was so stupid that he wanted that hellcat more than him. Even if she looked at him that way. Even if her touch felt like sunshine. So what if her hair glimmered like a jewel? So what if her temper sparked a fire inside him? So what if she breathed life and heat into his cold and formless existence? What if he loved her? What if he had gone to sleep because he loved them both?
A great gasp of air forced its way into Yougetsu's lungs. He wanted to live, and he would make Eigetsu want it too. Suddenly, he grasped Eigetsu's shoulders and pulled him down against his chest, instantly relieving the pressure on his throat. He drank in air and wrapped his arms tightly around his other self, to keep him from attacking him again. As he held the sobbing boy against him, warmth began to penetrate his soul. It hurt. It burned. It gave off energy. It created life. It was love.
Yougetsu gasped and his arms tightened, his fingers clenching into fists in Eigetsu's shirt. It hurt to hold him. It would hurt to let him go.
"Eigetsu," Yougetsu muttered against the other's wet cheek. "Eigetsu…go to your wife."
Eigetsu's sobs lessened after a moment, and he leaned up to gaze in confusion at the softened features of his other self.
"Your wife needs you and you're here blubbering like a baby," Yougetsu sniped, but his hands tightened on Eigetsu's arms. "Tch, I pity your child to have such a father. But she'll be a hellcat like her mother, so perhaps I should take your life and spare you their wrath."
"Yougetsu…" Eigetsu mumbled softly and his face was normal again, gentle, loving—the face Yougetsu loved.
"The hellcat's calling for you, so you'd better go," he stated evenly. "You know what she's like when she gets impatient."
Eigetsu laughed through his tears and jerked Yougetsu up off the ground into a tight embrace. "I love you. I love you, my brother. My self. I'll never leave you alone again."
"Who needs you? Get out, so I can rest. You wear me out! You and your precious little family," Yougetsu shoved Eigetsu away, but he wore a begrudging grin on his face.
"Our family, Yougetsu," Eigetsu beamed. "Our precious family."
Because he took off running toward the forest, he didn't see Yougetsu's eyes widen at his words. He didn't see his hand cover his face. He didn't see the way his shoulders trembled. He didn't hear him whisper the words, "Love hurts."
At the edge of the forest, Eigetsu stopped. He didn't turn around. Somehow, he knew Yougetsu didn't want him to.
"Yougetsu!" Eigetsu called.
"Haven't you gone yet?!" Yougetsu hollered back.
"Our daughter…you'll come and see her soon?"
Yougetsu's turned in shock at the words and stared at Eigetsu strong back and squared shoulders. He knew what he meant when he said "our daughter." His daughter. His child.
"I'm going to name her Tsuki," Eigetsu smiled warmly to himself and his half of the shared soul poured out enough love and light to fill the other half. "Tsuki…for the moon," he added and sped off toward Shuurei's voice calling for him, calling him to their precious family.