"Hanabusa-kun!" Ichigo Amano called out as she rushed into the hospital and went down the hallway towards the south. He was sitting alone in one of the chairs lined up against the wall opposite from the door to one of the hospital rooms. The brunette ran over to him and panted, "What's going on? Why did you call me all of the sudden, Hanabusa-kun? Also, have you seen Kaede-chan? She didn't come back last night…"
Satsuki Hanabusa didn't answer, not even looking up at his friend. His gaze was directed towards the floor, his dark expression unable to be seen. Ichigo blinked rapidly, confused, then lightly patted the boy's shoulder, "Hanabusa-kun? What happened?"
"Kaede…" he muttered.
"Kaede?" she asked, tilting her head.
"Kaede… is dead… she's gone."
Ichigo froze in place, her eyes widening in shock. She took a step back, not believing her ears, "E-eh?"
Henri gazed out of the window of the taxi that was heading for the closest airport. He was going to take the plane back to Paris.
Henri Lucas sighed, tightening his white woolen scarf around his neck. He rubbed his nose against it, remembering the time when Kaede had given it to him as a present. "I wonder what she is doing right now…" he wondered.
Suddenly, his phone started to ring, and he retrieved it, then pressed it to his ear, "Hello?"
"Henri…Henri-sensei!" Ichigo's high pitched voice cried out.
"Ichigo? What's wrong?"
"It's Kaede!"
Henri froze at the sound of his ex-girlfriend's name, unable to speak, for a moment, and he stammered, "K-Kaede?"
"Henri-sensei! You have to come to the hospital! Kaede-chan… Kaede-chan has passed away!"
The patissier's phone dropped to the floor of the taxi with a soft thump, while its owner made no effort to pick it up. Henri clenched his fists, not believing his ears, "Kaede… Kaede… is dead? How…?"
He looked up at the taxi driver and exclaimed, "Please! Turn the car around! I have to go to the hospital!"
Ichigo and Hanabusa walked into the hospital room Kaede was in, watching the shaking figure of her twin brother, Kyo, who was sitting next to the bed. Many tubes were stuck in the red haired girl's body, but her face didn't seem like she was a patient who needed care. Kaede's face was peaceful and without worry, as if she was having a happy dream in her sleep. Hanabusa and Ichigo stood off to the side, not knowing what to say to cheer the boy up. They didn't even know how to properly react to this kind of situation. Tears started to fall down Ichigo's cheeks, but she hurriedly wiped them away, trying to hold them back, but they would not stop. She looked over at Hanabusa, whose facial expression was still frozen and blank.
Suddenly, the door opened and Aiko Takeda, accompanied by an older woman, stepped in. Kyo Takeda turned his crying face to them, and said, "Aunt Mina… Aiko…"
Aunt Mina, took one look at Kaede's dead face and her lips drew back in disgust. She remembered all those years she spent beating Kaede's studies and knowledge into that girl and she still despised her. Aunt Mina muttered, "Another heir gone… I knew she wouldn't have been able to live long with that stupidity."
Aiko walked over to Kyo and asked, "Is she really gone? Is she really dead?"
Kyo didn't answer and turned back to his sister again, resting his head on the bed, "Go away… what are you doing here?"
"Answer my question! Is she really dead? Did she really leave me behind, just like that?" Aiko yelled.
"Go away…" Kyo growled, his eyes growing cold and dark, "Go away… I hate you."
"How dare she! Does she think this is all a joke? Being trained for more than two years, raising our hopes, making me try so hard to become heiress, and she just LEFT?"
Kyo glared at his cousin and yelled back, "Is that seriously all you have to say? Treating her badly all this time, and you are still power hungry? What is wrong with you?"
"Why, you-"
"Shut up," a soft voice cut them off, and the two of them looked over at Hanabusa, who had just spoken.
"H-Hanabusa-kun…" Ichigo stuttered, suddenly becoming afraid of him. His face expressed irritation, sorrow, anger, and frustration. He didn't even try to hold back his feelings.
Just then, a doctor entered the room, clearing the tense atmosphere. He looked over at Aunt Mina and asked, "Excuse me, are you the guardian taking care of this child?"
"No… I'm just her aunt. I couldn't bear even a second treating her as one of my own," she replied in a cold voice, "How did she die?"
The doctor blinked rapidly in surprise at the older woman's reaction, then cleared his throat, "Well… she is brain dead. We figure that it was caused by the accident a few years ago. The wound had damaged the blood vessels inside the brain and it was slowly bleeding from inside. This led to brain death, which took approximately two years to develop. I'm sorry… she refused to take any tests before her brother became healthy, so we didn't know until now about what had happened to her…. There is no cure for brain death… I'm very sorry…"
"I know.. what brain death is," Aunt Mina said, her eyes and face showing no emotion, "Organ transplants are able to take place, am I correct?"
"Well, uh.. yes…"
"Then transplant that girl's heart into Kyo Takeda's body…. As soon as possible."
Ichigo, Hanabusa, Aiko, and Kyo froze in shock as they gazed at the crazy old woman.
"Ah, yes… we are able to start on it soon because Kyo is the only patient in the hospitals around here that desperately needs a heart transplant… but…" the doctor trailed off.
"I give permission, as the supposed guardian of that girl. I can't have another member of the Takeda family dying," Aunt Mina ordered.
"Yes… but first, you will need to fill out a form… this way, please," the doctor stammered as he walked out of the room. The old woman started to follow when Kyo spoke up.
"I don't want to…"
"What?" Aunt Mina snapped, turning around to glare at the boy.
"I don't want to! I don't want Kaede-nee's heart! That would mean that I accepted her death! I don't want to do that!" Kyo screamed at the top of his lungs, throwing his arms around his motionless twin sister, "I DON'T WANT TO! LEAVE HER ALONE! Haven't you done enough, making her life miserable after our parents died! You have no right to do that! I don't care if you are my aunt or not! I don't care if you are part of my family! The only family I ever had after that accident a few years ago was Kaede-nee! If I take her heart… If I take her heart, she really will be dead!"
"Kyo-kun, please calm down…" Ichigo pleaded, stepping towards him.
Aunt Mina clenched her fists, her eyes bulging with rage. She turned to Hanabusa and Ichigo, "What are you two still doing here? Get out! This is no place for you, outsiders! Get out!"
During the chaos, while Kyo was hugging Kaede, the shifting of the bed sheets allowed a crumpled piece of paper to fall out of the brain dead patient's pocket. It dropped to the floor and lied there for only a few seconds before Kyo picked it up. He slowly flattened the piece of paper, reading what it said, and his eyes widened with shock, then relaxed as he turned to the others. Kyo walked over to the doctor and handed him the form, his eyes directed towards the floor the whole time. The doctor took the paper from the boy and went through it quickly, his face turning grim.
"Um…" the doctor started to speak.
"Yes..!" Aunt Mina replied sharply.
The doctor gave her a weird look before answering, "Actually, we already have the brain dead patient's permission to do a heart transplant…. She wrote in this form that when she dies, she wishes to be an organ donor for her twin brother, Kyo."
"Well, then," he continued when there was no response, "If I could speak with you, Ma'am…" he said to Aunt Mina, and the two of them left the room.
A few minutes later, Aiko also evacuated the room when someone else barged in. It was Henri Lucas.
"Kaede?" he called out, looking around desperately, "Kaede!"
Henri rushed to her side and grabbed the girl's hand tightly, "How… she's not dead! I can still feel her pulse… what's going on? She's alive, right? She'll wake up again, right?"
"She's as good as dead…. Her brain stopped working.. Kaede-nee…" Kyo sniffed and started to cry again, "Kaede-nee will never open her eyes again!"
"No way…" Henri muttered, tears welling up in his eyes, "There's no way… she talked to me only yesterday… how…" he clenched his teeth, pressing Kaede's hand against his cheek, "Wake up… wake up… Kaede…"
Hanabusa, who had been quietly standing only a meter so away from them, turned and headed out of the room, not saying a single word. Ichigo followed him, her own eyes red and filled with tears, "Hanabusa-kun!"
"Hanabusa-kun! Hanabusa-kun!" Ichigo called out to him as she trailed behind the boy. He stopped just outside the doors of the hospital, and the brunette finally caught up to him.
Tears slowly started to fall from Hanabusa's eyes as he stared out into nothing. His body shook as he let the tears fall rapidly, his heart aching of grief and sorrow. "Kaede…" Hanabusa breathed, whispering the name of the girl that had stolen his heart.
Two weeks later, a few days after Kyo had his heart transplant, Kaede Takeda's funeral took place. Not many words were exchanged, and shortly after the ceremony ended, Henri took a long walk to St. Marie Academy.
It was raining that day. Rain poured down on Henri Lucas's umbrella, pounding against the thin barrier, as if the skies were weeping because of Kaede's death. He stopped in front of the gates, peering inside as he remembered his ex-girlfriend's face, smile, anger, guilt… everything. He stood there quietly for a few minutes when a soft mew sounded from beside him. Henri looked down to see wide, green eyes staring up at him. They were the eyes of a kitten with bright red fur. The kitten's eyes were slightly slanted, as if they were glaring up at the human, and its hackles rose up in alarm when Henri bent down towards it.
Henri smiled, slowly reaching his hand out to the kitten, and muttered, "That flame-like color… it's just like Kaede's hair…"
The kitten swiped its paw at the man's hand, scratching it, and retreated backwards, glaring at Henri with wary eyes.
He chuckled, "And your reactions are just like hers too…" Henri sighed, pulling his hand away from the kitten as he continued to smile, "I'm an in idiot, aren't I, talking to some cat I think looks like a dead person…"
The kitten mewed, as if to agree with him.
"Haha… but she's gone now… she's gone…." He said, his face falling as he said those words. Suddenly, he jumped up to his feet, "No! I won't let Kaede worry! I will continue on with my life!"
The small animal tilted its head and mewed once more, as if to say, Really?
"Really…." Henri smiled again, "I'll be fine… don't worry…" his face fell again and he groaned, covering his eyes, "I'm talking to a cat again, thinking that it's Kaede…" Henri looked up to face the kitten, but it was gone. He looked around to see where it had run off to, but he had no luck. Henri sighed and walked away, "I'd better go home…"
From afar, the same red kitten watched the man as he left, and it turned and left, disappearing into the spirit world.
Goodbye, Henri… Kaede's voice whispered in the wind.
60 years later...
"Wow, Henri-kun is so amazing!"
"He's like the resurrection of the late Henri Lucas!"
"His sweets are amazing!"
A teenaged boy with bright, yellow hair marched out of the cooking class with a smile frozen on his face, careful not to let his ager out on anyone. He sped up until he reached the statue of the Queen of the Sweets Spirits in front of St. Marie Acadamy. He sighed, leaning against the old statue.
"Really, all they talk about is how much I'm like my grandfather who's dead... idiots... I only have the same name as him... Henri Lucas..." the boy muttered, pulling on the collar of his school uniform. It's so suffocating in there... they all want me to be just like that dead man... Henri this, Henri that... I mean, come on! Their expectations...
"... Are so abnormal!" A voice finished for him. Henri Lucas the second slowly turned to see a young girl with red hair the colour of flames on the opposite side of the statue. Her back was turned to him.
"I mean, it's Kaede this, Kaede that... why don't they shut up already?" The girl huffed, "I can understand why gramps gave me that name, 'cause she was his twin sister, but, really?" Kaede Takeda the second continued, "I bet the late Kaede Takeda was an egotistical idiot! Henri Lucas the first, too! Egotistical idiots are meant for each other anyways! He's the one who fell in love with-"
Soft giggles sounded from behind her, and she quickly turned around to see the blond boy laughing his head off. Suddenly feeling a twinge of annoyance, Kaede growled, "What... the hell?"
Henri Lucas stopped laughing, and smiled, "Really, elementary kids like you shouldn't speak like that... especially little girls... you'll scare all the boys away," he chuckled as he looked down at Kaede Takeda, who looked around 12 years old.
"Oi... and who are you to talk?" Kaede growled.
"Oh, sorry... I'm Henri Lucas the second... and I bet you're Kaede Takeda... also second... Nice meeting you," Henri greeted, before turning away.
Kaede's face paled as she watched the older boy's departing figure. She broke into a run, chasing after him, "Hey wait! D-Don't tell anyone I said that! It's supposed to be secret!"
"Secret? Hm... maybe..."
"If you do tell anyone, I'll spread word about what you said!"
"You little vixen!"
The two of them laughed as they walked off, and the red string of love that had once been broken mended itself.
Yeah, this is the end of Delinquent and Rose! :) Sry for the slow update... I had to redo this chapter like five times because I didn't know how to successfully end it... TT^TT I'm not that great with shoujo fanfiction...
Anyways, thnx for reading until the end, and I hope to see you soon! :)