Seto's POV
It was all I could do to stop her from cutting her wrist right then and offering it to my mouth.
"Stop it, Yani. It won't work." Already, red lines on her wrist were forming where she had tried to scratch out the blood minutes ago. I was holding her arms far apart, marveling at the struggle she put up to willingly hurt herself because of me. She wriggled and tugged against my hands but to no avail. I wasn't going to let her hurt herself. I would never let her hurt herself for me again. The bullets were the last time.
"NO!" she screamed, the birds around us shrieking with her. A flock of those birds descended around us, whirling feathers and brushing wings against my body, screeching and cawing in her pain. "You can't be blind. NO!" She arched her throat and wailed a long, melancholy howl into the sky. The birds screeched again and took off. From far away, two wolves answered her call. Around us, the kids running covered their ears and yelped in pain and shock. Even the coach covered his ears and took a few steps back.
"Make it stop!" he yelled, flinching at whatever sound was making him suffer. All of a sudden, I remembered the last time this had happened. On vacation, Mokuba had run in, covering his ears, telling Yani to stop… something. But I couldn't hear it. I could only hear the sobbing howl that seemed to fill every inch of the universe.
"Yani. Yani, shhhhh, it's okay." I slowly felt my way to her face, and stroked her cheek. "Yani, you're hurting everybody." And gradually, she quieted, her wailing howls turning into short, keening barks, and then to silence. Suddenly, she ripped herself away from me.
"What do you mean 'it won't work'?"
I regretted that slight slip in words.
"It's because of me isn't it?" she whispered, guilt etched onto her face. And before I could reply, she was running away. I wasn't sure how I could tell but I think I saw a faint outline of her as she wheeled away, entering the building from the gym entrance.
"Yani! Wait!" I felt my heart thud painfully, unsure whether it was mine or hers. "Yani!" I screamed and lurched after her. I followed that faint trail of gold in my mind and entered the building. Then, I felt like I was going through hell. Crashing into walls and doors and other students, I followed that golden trail in my mind, often calling her name. Slowly getting stronger, the gold mist led me out the front entrance of the school and into the street. Cars screeched to a stop and honked at me as I staggered across the street, not caring if I got hit. Finally, I found myself at a small park, where the strength of her aurora was the strongest.
"YANI! COME BACK HERE!"
There was no response.
"YANI!"
I thought I felt the golden haze twitch slightly to the left, high into the air.
"Listen to me, Yani! You probably think that I think you're not the only thing that could make me give up coffee. That I don't love you. That I don't think you are wonderful and perfect and brilliant and pure in EVERY SINGLE FUCKING WAY! But fine! DON'T BELIEVE ME!"
I felt the golden vapor start to move away.
"I love you. You hear me? I LOVE YOU, YOU WONDERFUL, CRAZY, RADIANT, BEAUTIFUL…"
It stopped moving.
I was crying by now, the drops cascading down my face. The sun that I couldn't see danced on my face but did nothing to soothe my breaking heart or to warm me as I shivered as if it were winter.
"I LOVE YOU!" I screamed again. "WHY WON'T YOU BELIEVE ME?" The golden haze moved directly over me just as tree branches rustled. I assumed she was in a tree branch high up in the air.
"Aphrodite poisoned me. With Eros's lead arrow."
"WHAT?" It was like the explosion of a bomb. Birds started to sing again, breaking out of their silent state.
"Do you know what happened?" I took out a pocket knife and stabbed it into my right hand. Another golden stream, somehow different from Yani's, appeared in my black mind, where my hand should have been. "I fought it off. Because I loved you. I LOVE YOU! I don't care if I ever have to see again. If I have you, that's enough. If I can pick you up while you're sleeping, that's enough. If I can—" All of a sudden, Yani was beside me, licking the wound in the palm of my right hand. I jerked her into a hug, almost crushing her small bones with an embrace that I never wanted to break. As I sobbed into her hair, my heart gradually slowed down and started to beat at a normal tempo.
"…can heal yourself," she was saying. I hadn't heard her.
"What?" I asked, my voiced muffled, unwilling to let go of her.
"You can heal yourself now. Try. Just will your flesh and skin to knit back together again."
Imagining my wound closing, I felt a cool sensation in my wound before my concentration faltered. When I tried again, the pain eased a little bit before my concentration broke again. I couldn't put my mind together. I don't think I had ever been that tired in my whole entire life. Then, I felt myself being lowered to the ground and a hand that I immediately recognized as Yani's on my forehead. Fishing into my pocket, she pulled out my phone and dialed a phone number.
"Yes. Dr. Fujji? Seto collapsed again…"
"Don't you dare leave me, Yani," I mumbled, trying to form my sentences clearly. "We're not done with this talk." As I felt her lips flutter against my throat, I knew she had understood.
The sunlight was so damn annoying. I didn't understand why it couldn't hold off a couple more minutes until I had fully rested. I continued to complain in my head for a couple of minutes when I realized that the rest of the room was pitch dark.
"Mr. Kaiba?" I turned my head to right to where the voice was coming from. If I concentrated hard, I could just make out a very faint magenta aurora of a person.
"Yes?" I answered the doctor in an irritated voice. "Can you tell Yani to come here before I take a knife and carve out my heart?"
"Hey, I'm right here."
Oh. So that's what the gold was.
"Mr. Kaiba, didn't I tell you working too hard would make you short out? Taking a vacation just one week every year isn't going to help much if you work every day of the week. It is probable that your eyesight will return to you slowly. But it will take time. During that time, I need you to rest so you don't permanently lose your eyesight. I prescribed some…"
I was already pulling back the covers and fighting to sit up, realizing I was in my boxers.
"Mr. Kaiba!" came the exasperated voice of the doctor, "Did you hear anything I said?"
"I don't need my eyesight!" I snapped, testing my feet on the floor and standing up to face Yani. She took a step forward and I caught her arm and pulled her to me.
"I just need you."
Her mouth collided with mine, as I pulled her into a searing kiss, my body aching for her, feeling I hadn't kissed her for an eternity. Once again, her strawberries-dipped-in-chocolate taste pervaded my submissive mouth, driving out everything in my head. And it felt perfectly right, her body fitting exactly into every contour of my body, my hand tightening in her sweet-smelling hair as she wrapped her arms around my waist.
When the doctor coughed slightly, she broke the kiss and buried her face in my chest, the heat on her cheeks radiating into my bare skin.
"Well… yes. I'm happy that you're having a healthy relationship, Mr. Kaiba. I assume that you know the birds and the bees talk so I will skip that for now. Your prescription is on the table. I'll… just let myself out."
I had heard what he said but didn't say anything. Right then, I was too preoccupied trying to materialize the jumble of molten gold in my mind to a reasonable figure of Yani.
"What… are you looking at?" Yani said and I could tell she was frowning by her voice.
Slowly, her irises materialized first, pulling together golden dots to make a pure gold pool. But… I knew it wasn't gold. I could sense another color, maybe lavender, for confusion. Not stopping to think over this new piece of information, I broadened my concentration to her face. Piece by piece, her body came together, shining gold. Only her face was vague. With a slight jerk, I understood why Yani hadn't been able to draw my face in that red notebook so long ago. Taking her hand and placing it on my face, I cupped my other hand around her cheek and gently started to outline the features of her face. Her high eyebrows, beautiful nose, frowning mouth, and last of all, her closed eyelids.
"Smile for me," I murmured skimming my mouth over hers. Automatically, the gold figure of Yani intensified in brightness as she smiled with an expression of pure happiness on her face.
"Ohhhhh…" Understanding clicked in her eyes as she figured out what I was doing. She wrapped her hands around my wrist.
"So then… can you see?" she asked, a hopeful light in her eyes that made the gold even more luminous. I took her hands and slipped them around my neck.
"In gold," I answered, wrapping my arms around her waist. "Everything about you is gold. As bright as the sun."
