"Tsukasa! Can you try to keep it down!" Akira whispered fiercely

"Yeah, you have no idea how much it just cost us to bribe that guard." Soujiro groused moodily.

"What, your dignity?" Tsukasa sneered, "Do you really have to hit on anything that moves?"

"Would you rather we hadn't managed to get permission to see him?" Soujiro shot back, rather crossly.

"Would you two please be quiet!" Akira tried once more, "If you don't shut up, someone with actual authority here might get suspicious. You want to get kicked out before we even see him?"

"No." Tsukasa subsided with one final growl. None of this sneaking around and bribery and flirtation would be necessary if that fucking bitch hadn't spazzed out on them all. He had thought she actually might care about them. But after that trick she pulled, he knew he'd been wrong to trust her. You couldn't trust shrinks, even the unorthodox ones. He wouldn't make that mistake again.

"Ah! Here we are." Soujiro peered at the room-number for a second, then, with fingers that trembled only slightly, slid the lock back and opened the door.

"Rui." Akira called out to the man seated on the bed.

Rui looked up, his face frozen into a mask of nonchalance. He nodded briefly in acknowledgement, then went back to staring off into nothing. He wouldn't give them the satisfaction--- the comfort-- of a positive response. The sooner they left him be, the sooner he could get back to the business of dying.

"Rui." Tsukasa called out more fiercely, "Did you know that that psycho bitch of a doctor actually forbid us to see you? Fucking control-freak, thought we'd be bad influences. But we knew better. You need us! So we came anyway."

Rui continued to stare at a blank point on the wall before him, as if he didn't hear a word that was said. Tsukasa wanted to go up and shake him to elicit any sign of life from the emaciated man, but he refrained, afraid of damaging his fragile-appearing friend. The three men standing in the doorway blinked at each other in confusion, at a loss as to what to do. Shouldn't Rui be glad to see them? Shouldn't they have something to say to each other after so long? In all their fantasies about a reunion, they'd never imagined this-- this chilling disregard emanating from the haunted man they once counted as their brother.

Finally, Rui deigned to speak, answering Tsukasa's rant as if there hadn't just been a two minute lull in the so-called conversation. "Really? I should thank her for her efforts."

"You don't want to see us?" Tsukasa didn't even try to conceal the hurt in his voice.

"Of course not," Rui replied calmly. "Would I have left if I wanted to see you?"

"But we're your family!" Tsukasa protested loudly. Well, the closest thing any of the men had to a family, since they'd been disowned by their own.

"Yes." Rui sighed heavily, and for the first time, turned to look directly at his three old friends. Letting them see, reflected in his eyes, the cold nothingness that surrounded his soul. His voce was scornful, reflecting all their cares, their concern, their tacit pleading need right back in their faces, "You are all fools. Did you really think that finding me would help you find your own salvation. We are, each one of us, alone. I realized that truth. I left, because there was no point in perpetuating a myth. I cannot save you. You cannot save yourselves. We cannot save each other. The best we can do, is drag each other down. . .

"I found my out. I was strong enough to chose my own path to salvation. My own road to destruction. I was content with it. But you had to interfere. Don't you understand how much better it would have been to have let me be." Finished, he turned back to the wall, as if trying to pretend that his visitors had left.

"Better? How could it be better?" Akira demanded, "You were dying in that alley, starving, cold, and suffering withdrawal, because you couldn't even afford your next hit. You call that better?"

"Yes."

Again the three turned to look at each other. This was not going as planned. Akira could tell, Tsukasa was getting antsy, looking like he desperately needed a drink, Soujiro was quivering slightly, almost leaning on Akira for support. And Akira, the strongest of the bunch, felt like weeping in frustration. There had to be something they could say, something they could do, to break through to Rui, to communicate with the soft- spoken, thoughtful man they had once known. But he didn't have any bright ideas, none, at least beyond the one that Soujiro had had, back at the hotel. . . And speaking of which,. . .

"Soujiro?" Akira prompted, looking pointedly at the large bag Soujiro had been carrying; a parcel which Soujiro had seemed to have forgotten about almost completely in the interim.

"Oh!" Soujiro recollected his scattered wits. "Rui, we brought you a present. The nurse up front said it was ok." Carefully he laid the package down in front of Rui. "We've been toting this around for a long time, hoping that you'd want it back. . ."

Rui knew a sinking dread, as he regarded the familiar shape of the poorly wrapped package in front of him. His fingers itched with long-forgotten and half-remembered rhythms. No! . . . They couldn't have, they wouldn't have, brought him the one thing he'd never been able to resist.

But they had. With shaky fingers, Rui unwrapped the gift, his fingers skimming gently along the outside of the battered case, finding the latch with practiced ease, popping the lid open to reveal a slightly battered, but painfully familiar instrument.

"What, not the guitar?" Rui asked, the emptiness in his voice belying the turmoil inside, as his eyes caressed the familiar curves of his favorite instrument, the one he'd trained on since childhood before switching to the bass guitar; that is, his ancient violin.

"Well, " Soujiro started apologetically, "This was more transportable. We can get the guitar if you want? We've still got it somewhere, I'm sure." He sounded hopeful, even eager, as if responding to a positivity Rui had yet to evince.

"No" Rui snapped the case shut with an air of finality. He refused to let himself be sucked in by temptation. He would not yield.. "Take it back."

"No." Tsukasa spoke sharply, almost as if he'd seen Rui start to waver. Or perhaps he merely recognized that which called to Rui. For years, music had been the glue which held them all together, kept their fragile souls from fragmenting into a million bloody pieces. So was it any wonder, that even in the depths of his self-absorbed despair, Rui heard the siren song of his violin calling to him, tempting him to lose himself in its dulcet tones, in the haunting melodies that only he knew how to coax from its tensed strings and mellowed wood?

"I don't want it." Rui tried to sound determined, but even to him it was a hollow effort. Even his dispassionate demeanor couldn't hide the desire, the temptation, strumming along his jagged nerves-- the urge to play it again, just one more time; to le his soul soar free on wings of sound, instead of upon the illusory updrafts that drugs provided him. . .

Still, despite all his protests, Rui found, long after the other three had finally left, he was still in possession of the instrument. The violin that seemed to alternately taunt him for his weakness, and call to him; an inescapable summons, telling him to surrender, to touch, to caress the crafted wood, to free the notes that lurked within his long-frozen heart.

With an almost primal scream, Rui lunged at he violin, wrenching it from its case, and raising it high above his head, as if to smash it upon the cold hard floor.

One swift strike, and it would be done; the instrument destroyed, its siren call silenced forever. But he couldn't do it, couldn't bring himself to fracture such a beautiful thing. His downward strike halted abruptly, mere inches from the floor,

Rui watched, almost as if horrified by his own actions, as his trembling fingers stroked the instrument tenderly, an unconscious imitation of a lover's caress. Shaking hands that knew just what to do, exploring the wood, as if experiencing it for the first time. And then, the worst part of it all. . .

Rui raised the violin, took up the bow, and began to play.

For the first time in years, music poured from his fingers, like the slow hot tears that poured like molten lava down the cool slopes of his cheeks.

The one thing that could reach him, the only thing that could touch his frozen heart. . .

Rui wept, knowing that he'd lost this battle. . . and to such a simple trick besides. He'd thought himself stronger than temptation, above such petty concerns, But now, he found himself succumbing; vitality seeping into his limbs with each note he played. . .

Damn them. Damn them all. .. Why couldn't they have just left well enough alone?

And yet, despite this silent protest, despite the cold fury that burned within, the music still poured forth, its melancholy melody soothing his irritated soul, bringing with it a kind of peace, as if its harmony could do more good for him than all the shrinks and drugs on the planet. . . .

Outside, in the hall beyond his cell, doctors, nurses and visitors all paused in their travels, almost hypnotized by the powerful spell being spun by the ethereal sound of Rui's violin.

Even Doctor Tsukushi Makino, stealing a few moments to come and see her favorite lost-cause, stopped on hearing the haunting melody. Leaning back against the featureless corridor wall, Tsukushi felt almost overcome by the intensity of the sound, the purity of desolation echoing in each note, the love affair with despair that carried the haunting melody. Almost she felt she understood what motivated the man she'd come to see, almost she felt his pain. . .And almost, she felt she understood the betrayal he felt; the rage of a captured animal; locked away in a padded cell, unable to act, unable to free himself from the agonizing torture that his life had become. . . But not quite-- For to truly understand all that, she would have had to unlock to doors to a place in her heart she'd long since shut away-- shut away and refused to acknowledge the very existence of. . .

To be continued.

~~sorry if therez typos and shit. I'm kinda running a fever tonight but I wanted to post anyway, and I'm too fried to spellcheck.~~~