11.5.2008
Reposted 20.9.2008. Beta by me.
Disclaimer: I tried to sneak the copyright papers from Aoki Takao, only to realise it was just the sketch for the 4th season. Darn.
Thanks to MiDemoni for brewing up the scene with the coachman. And thanks to Little Myy for giving me some advise on the tumour thingy.
"Man can live about forty days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air, but only for one second without hope."
Be My Companion
Chapter nine: Take me with you!
by rebecca85
Maybe it was good to end things here and now before anyone else got hurt.
The rest of the way went by in silence. Rei couldn't think of anything to talk about without sounding like they were his last words to Kai. But the Hiwatari heir didn't see particularly talkative either, so they stayed silent and only watched the scenery go by.
As Rei started to recognise more and more of the surroundings, he grew more anxious. Even if he had been disappointed with Kai's reaction of letting him go home, it was pushed at the back of his mind when he thought about the joy of seeing his mother and brothers again. Memories pushed their way to his thoughts and he imagined how they all were doing and how surprised they would be to see him again. He couldn't help it; he was eager to get home.
As the carriage finally stopped before the large gates of the Kon Mansion and the coachman went to open the iron wrought entrance, Rei was almost jumping in his seat to get home. But then he remembered that it would probably be the last time he would see Kai in a while. They might meet at the Princess' birthday party (which Rei doubted very much) but for the time being, this was very possibly the last time they would see each other.
"Kai…" he started, but didn't know what to say. The slate-haired young man turned to Rei with an expressionless look upon his face, and the fiery red eyes took a good look at his short-term companion. Then he wordlessly took a hold of Rei's fingers and pressed his lips against the back of the hand. For some reason, the neko-jin felt his breath get caught in his throat and his heart skipped a beat.
"Rei," Kai said with a deep voice. "It has been a pleasure." Then the carriage jerked back to movement and before Rei noticed, they were by the front steps of his home. He was torn between going and staying, to say something to Kai. He really did feel that this could be it, but he was at a loss of words. Rei looked back at Kai who nodded towards the house. "Go."
Without another word, Rei tore the door open and ran the stairs to his home. He didn't look back, because he wasn't sure if he wanted to see what he was leaving behind. When he got inside the house, he headed straight to the sunroom, where his mother would normally be at that time, probably slowly eating her way through her breakfast. But when he arrived to the sunlit parlour, there was no one there.
Frowning a bit in at this unexpected turn of events, he started looking for his mother. He went to her room that was eerily quiet and just as empty as the sunroom. Things were starting to strike as odd to Rei. His pace quickened as he went trough the library, glanced at the garden, searched from the lounge and finally even stopped by in his own room. Now he was feeling the gnawing sensation of fear building in the pit of his stomach: the house was empty.
But just as he was starting to panic in the vast house, a voice interrupted him.
"Rei? What are you doing here?" Immediately he spun around and came face to face with his oldest brother, Hong-Xian. He sighed in relief for finally seeing a familiar face and without a word he ran to him for a hug.
As expected, he got one in return, but then Hong-Xian looked intently at his face from an arm's length and asked again what he was doing there.
"I came to see mother," Rei explained. "Do you know where she is? And are the others home? I would like to see everyone." His oldest brother looked a little uncomfortable and he seemed troubled.
"Rei-chan…" he started, worrying his lip a bit which was his habit when he didn't know how to tell someone bad news. "Mother isn't here anymore," he finally said. Rei felt the floor disappear beneath him and all colour escaped from his face.
"…what?" he managed to whisper in terror. But he couldn't believe it-- wouldn't believe it! His mother… and he hadn't been here with her…
Hong-Xian finally read the horror on his brother's face and understood what he had implied. "No! Rei! Calm down, mother is just fine!" he hurried to reassure him. Rei felt how he could suddenly breathe again and he staggered as the relief flooded over him like a wave of warm breaker. Hong-Xian took Rei back into a big hug and gave him a crushing squeeze to compensate for the tread he knew he had just caused.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way. I just meant that mother isn't here, in this house, anymore," he explained, then held Rei an arm's length again to look him in the eyes as he told this. "She went to China, to get treatment for her illness, Rei, and to be near father."
"What? There… is a treatment to her illness?" he asked, dumbfounded. This was the first time he had heard about it, but from the look of things Hong-Xian had been informed of this much earlier. His big brother looked slightly frustrated when he tried to search for the right words.
"I…" he started, but then gave up and changed his mind. "She was worried of you, Rei. You've always been sick and we've all doted on you, I admit. But because of that, she didn't want to leave you alone in here but we also didn't know if you could make the trip with her. The journey to China is a long one and the doctors were concerned if your body could hold up against such physical and mental strain."
"But isn't the journey dangerous to her wellbeing as well then?" Rei asked quickly.
"Of course it is. But as she's going there to be probably saved, the advantages overcome the disadvantages this time," Hong-Xian told him. The young neko-jin felt like someone had pulled the carped from under his feet. There was a moment of disbelief when he realised that he had been a burden to his mother, an obstacle on her way to recovery. It was a hit below the belt, to put it lightly. In order to distract himself from this revelation, he decided to concentrate on something else.
"So… where are the others? I looked everywhere and there's no one here."
"Ah, yes, you're right. Kuai went with mother to learn more about political relations with father, and mother wouldn't even hear of Qian staying at home alone. Tianbao went to see her fiancée and they're finally planning on getting married this fall, and An-Wen went to Kuznetsov's Institute of Law and Justice to take his pre-law exam so that he can apply to the Institute as a student for the next semester," he told Rei. "There's only Chen here and he's somewhere with his mystery-lover, so I don't see him much at home, and I'm here filling father's duties while he's away."
Rei took a little time to digest it all, while he slowly nodded to his brother as a sign of understanding. "I see… And all of this because I left home?" he asked to be sure.
"Well, when you put it that way, I guess you're right. You've always been the centre of this family, Rei, and when you're not here, we all just… went to our own ways, I guess. But what are you doing here? Weren't you supposed to be Hiwatari Kai's companion until you turn eighteen?" Hong-Xian asked, confused. Then Rei realised what he needed to do, and what he wanted to do.
He smiled at his brother and told him what he was there for.
Kai looked after the disappearing form of Rei, as the neko-jin vanished through the doors of the big house. Then he slumped back in his seat and sighed. He raked his hands through his hair when he thought what he had just done. He had let him go. He had let Rei go.
Somehow, it felt incredibly good. The euphoria of knowing how happy he had made the little neko-jin was incredible. He had never felt this good about something that made himself sad. Because sad he was. He had just gotten to know the boy… Well, as good as the circumstances would allow, but now he was gone. And they would probably never see each other again. Or if they would, they would probably have nothing to say and would only nod their heads and move on.
Kai barked out a humourless laugh. Why would Rei want to talk to him? He had took the boy as his companion on a whim (which he would never tell anyone), ripped him out of his home, forced him to stay in a cold and empty castle, gotten him involved in a real soap-opera with his acquaintances which had resulted him being near his deathbed, and not even informing his parents what had happened. For all he had done, he would be glad if Rei would deign to even recognise him.
Shit, he had ruined things well. And it was just as he had started to feel… something. He didn't know what it was, but Rei still intrigued him. Even more so than at the ball. He made his heart beat a little faster and he felt like it was his born duty to protect him of all evil. That he should just take that hand to his own and never let go.
He feared and revered this feeling, but he wanted to know more. He wanted to know anything and everything about Rei, to talk to him again, to sit with him again, to hold his hand again. He wanted to figure out why he felt so anxious around him, and why he was so disappointed in himself right now but at the same time had never felt such contentment.
Kai shook his head in defeat. He would never figure out these things, not without Rei. But that wasn't an option anymore. He had gotten cold feet again and had told the boy to go home. He was too afraid to keep him close by force. He didn't want to be hated by him, but now there would be nothing between them, and that made his mood gloomy. Finally he sighed, and then squared his shoulders.
"Let's go. Back to the Hiwatari Castle," he ordered.
"But isn't that boy coming with us, Hiwatari-sama?" the coachman asked, politely puzzled. Kai took a last long look at the mansion and answered almost forlornly.
"No, he isn't."
The coachman acknowledged the answer, gathered the reins and lashed the whip on the air. The carriage jerked onwards and Kai turned away from the house, determined to leave it behind himself and to look only forward. But as the brougham exited the yard and turned to the road leading back to the city, Kai heard a voice calling his name. First he didn't realise that he wasn't hearing things, but after he did, he quickly poked his head from the window and looked behind.
Rei was running the driveway, calling them to stop the carriage.
"STOP!" Kai ordered with a roar. The coachman made a hasty stop as his master's voice had sounded so urgent. Kai stepped out of the brougham and ran back to Rei.
"Rei? What is it?" he asked worriedly. The neko-jin was out of breath, probably because he was still recovering and he had made a huge spurt to reach them.
"Don't go," Rei said as he took huge gulps of air into his lungs. He grabbed Kai's sleeve and repeated, "Don't go."
"What?" the slate-haired man asked, but a ray of hope was already shining through his gloom. Rei had finally calmed his breath down enough to stand properly and speak in longer sentences.
"Take me with you, Kai," he told the other man. "My position is still open, right?" he confirmed smiling.
"Yes, of course," Kai answered before he could even think about what it meant. But when Rei jumped to his neck to give him a big hug and he realised that their time of separation had just been postponed, he squeezed his companion tightly as if afraid of losing him again soon.
"Thank you, Kai," Rei whispered quietly to his ear, but when Kai wanted to release his hold on Rei to ask him why he was being thanked for, the Chinese boy wouldn't let go. They stayed that way for a while, the Hiwatari heir content to just hold him, but getting the feeling that Rei didn't want to show his face right now.
After a while, someone cleared their throat. The two of them released their hold on each other as the coachman waited his passengers to get in so that they could get a move on. Kai thought he saw Rei quickly brush tears from his eyes, but it could've been just the dust from the road after running behind a carriage making his eyes water, so he let it be. Why would Rei be crying anyway?
They went back to the horse and carriage, and continued their way back to the Hiwatari Castle, their current home. On the way, Rei kept a hold on Kai's hand, squeezing it tightly. The heir had thought about it before but it still struck him as odd that the neko-jin almost craved for physical contact so much. He's only (and best) guess was that Rei had been used to such things at home and didn't know otherwise. Kai just shrugged it off and decided to leave things as they were. Actually he was secretly pleased that he knew something Rei didn't, and he wasn't even going to tell it to him!
But back to reality.
"So, how is your mother doing?" Kai asked casually.
"Oh, she's in China," Rei answered happily. The slate-haired man blinked, puzzled of his companions enthusiasm.
"In… China?" he spluttered, not knowing what he was supposed to say.
"Yeah, she went there to get treatment," the young man explained. Rei seemed so oddly happy about this that Kai decided to go with a topic that had been bothering him for quite some time now. He thought it to be a safe subject and one that might help him find out why the raven-haired youth was acting so funny.
"May I ask what she is getting treated for?" he asked gently (his political side immediately affecting his speech when he was asking something). Rei suddenly became more serious and he looked out the window but his hand squeezed Kai's a little tighter.
"She's got abnormal swelling in her stomach," he said in monotone. "I know it's painful, even though she's tried to hide it, and the pain makes her lose her appetite and most of her sleep. She also can't have any more children," Rei told Kai, but then smiled a little and gave a small laugh. "Have I told you why I dressed up as a girl at your ball, Kai?"
The Hiwatari heir was bewildered by this sudden change of topic, but only slowly shook his head in negative. "No, you haven't."
"You see, my mother has always wanted a girl. She's never said it, but we all knew it. She's always wanted to have a little princess that she could dote on. Buy clothes to her, do her hair, all that kind of girly stuff. Instead, she got seven sons: the irony of life, right? So when she found out that I had taken the dare to go to the ball dressed as a woman, she was thrilled," Rei told him, now grinning from ear to ear, lost in the story. "I hadn't realised it before --but An-Wen knew, I'm sure of it—but I'm the prettiest one from our family. You know, the one that would pass easiest for a girl. So, mother was ecstatic when she got to play with my hair and try different hair-dos, and to pick out my dress and the jewellery to go with it… You should have seen her. She was almost glowing with happiness. Now that I think about it, that dare was the best thing that could've happened to her, I'm sure of it," Rei ended contently.
Kai looked at his companion's honestly joyful expression. The lengths this boy would go for his loved ones… It was incredible. It actually made him feel a little jealous. But as he recognised that it was so called 'good jealousy' he let himself be just as envious as he could be. There was nothing else he would rather be jealous of. To Rei, his family really meat everything, and right now, Kai was his family, so he would have to try to live up to that.
"I'm sure An-Wen isn't the only one that has noticed," Kai said cryptically while smiling a little. Rei just looked at him a little confused as they just passed the gates to the Hiwatari Castle.
"What do you mean?" the Chinese boy asked and they stepped out of the carriage. Kai just gave him a secretive smile that irked Rei's pride a little. Was he laughing at him for dressing up in drag now?
"Rei!" a new voice called suddenly, and the two males turned to see who was talking. A blue-haired boy dressed like a samurai jogged towards them, couple of people walking behind him at a more leisure pace. The neko-jin stared at this young man and felt like he had seen him before. The hair and the swords were a hint, he knew it. But who would… And then he remembered. His eyes widened at he recognised the Japanese man in front of him.
"Takao?!"
Ha haa! I'm finally getting the last of my characters in! … Well, actually not quite yet. Half-way there, though.
