"Towards You"

"Does it hurt?"

The doushi winced, his face screwing up in pain. Fugen Shinjin carefully dabbed the powder onto the weeping wound, blowing away the excess that landed around the edge of the flayed skin. Gyokutei Shinjin hovered behind, his face anxious.

"Can you get the poison out?" Gyokutei could not keep still. "Are you alright, Youzen?" He wanted to help, but felt so inadequate there and then. Youzen gave his teacher a painful grin and nodded his head slowly.

Fugen brought out a bottle of pale green liquid from the cloth pouch on the rocky ground. He opened the bottle. A faint smell of mint pervaded the air. The sennin glanced at Youzen. A bead of sweat rolled down the doushi's forehead. Fugen patted the droplet away with the end of his sleeve.

"This is going to hurt. Bad." The sennin warned. Youzen nodded and gritted his teeth. Worried, Gyokutei knelt down behind Youzen and gripped his disciple's shoulders.

Fugen dripped the liquid onto the wound. Youzen had to clamp his hand over his mouth to keep from shrieking. The sennin held his hand to Youzen's thigh, his knuckles whitening as his fingers tightened over the bunched muscles, pushing the blood flow out of the wounded area.

"Breath!" Fugen ordered, dripping more of the liquid into the wound. His fingers continued to clamp strongly on Youzen's thigh. "If you don't breath, you are going to force the poison back into your bloodstream again. Now start breathing!"

Fugen's blue violet eyes stared hard at Youzen, bright and commanding. The doushi's own gaze wavered and he let out a popping gasp of pain and started drawing in deep breaths. Blood gushed from the open wound, mixed with the greeney liquid, and flowed down Youzen's leg and thigh, staining Fugen's hand a bright crimson. The stink of poison was thick. Gyokutei coughed and held his breath, feeling the poison bite into his lungs. Fugen quickly poured water over the wound, wetting the ground and almost all of Youzen's clothes. The poison and blood flowed away with the water. The doushi gasped in relief and slumped backwards against his teacher, his eyes closing tiredly.

Gyokutei looked up at Fugen. The sennin's face was white and he was breathing heavily. Parts of his clothing was stained rusty brown with his disciple's blood. Beads of perspiration trickled down his temples and he paused to slow down his breathing.

"Fugen…" Gyokutei spoke, his voice trembling. "Thank you."

Fugen glanced at Gyokutei, and shook his head slowly.

"This is only as much as I could do…" The sennin gazed at the sleeping doushi. "I will come and see him again at sunset, with some medicine. Keep him covered and warm."

+++

"Shishou….?"

A warm hand gently moved the tendrils of hair from his sweating forehead. His eyes felt as if there were a hundred iron pots sitting on them. He was feeling very hot and his insides were burning. He wanted to fling off the covers and he tried. But a firm hand held the blankets back to him and tucked it tightly around his body.

"It's hot, Shishou!" Youzen complained, trying to yank the blankets away. He was perspiring profusely and his nightclothes were sticking to his skin.

The hand pulled the blankets back resolutely.

"Shishou!" Youzen yelled, twisting out of the blankets and sitting upright, strands of hair plastering his face and neck and a totally drenched back.

Fugen Shinjin smiled at him.

"Fugen Shinjin sama?" Youzen stared at the smiling sennin incredulously. "What are you doing here in my room?"

"Bringing you medicine, Youzen kun." Fugen stood up and brought back a tray. Atop was a small bowl of something dark. "You still need to drink this, everyday. To get that poison totally out."

Youzen put a hand to his forehead and wiped away the gathered sweat. He could barely remember what Fugen did that day on the rock, pushing the poison out from his system. He could remember the horrible pain though.

Whatever made him try to jump into that gorge and get those flowers? He knew his teacher liked those lilies when he casually mentioned it over dinner that week ago. The hazy aftermath of that event returned to him slowly. He was attacked by a beast below and, whatever creature it was, it mauled him badly. The beast's bite carried a strong poison that would have brought a slow death to him if not for this smiling sennin standing in front of him.

He had never seen Fugen Shinjin before that very day he was hauled out of the gorge by the sennin. He heard a lot of this young man who rose so quickly to the rank of sennin, it almost seem impossible, from his teacher. Gyokutei seemed full of admiration for Fugen. Youzen never knew why. All the dinner conversations were usually dominated by Fugen's newest theories and ideas.

His teacher seemed too fond of Fugen.

Youzen grew suspicious and jealous. He wanted to be the only one in his teacher's heart. He wanted that love to belong to him only. He wanted his teacher to talk about him during dinner conversations, not about Fugen Shinjin.

"I don't want it."

Fugen's eyebrow lifted gently. He did not reply and left the tray and the medicine on the table. Pulling up a chair, the sennin sat down, hands on his lap and looked at Youzen. The doushi looked away immediately, pushing a wet strand of hair from his cheek.

"I believe this is the first time we met, Youzen kun." Fugen begin in a pleasant tone, his blue-violet gaze affixed on Youzen's unfriendly pose. "Perhaps you do not trust me enough to want to drink that medicine. I don't blame you. But, Gyokutei wants you to get better. He has told me to try and make you drink it."

Gyokutei

A sneer curled Youzen's mind. He called my teacher by his name! Anger overcame that sneer and his fingers gripped the blankets forcefully. He looked away, staring at the opposite wall of his bed.

Fugen stood up and made his way to the door. The sennin paused and glanced over his shoulder at Youzen. A ghostly smile flitted across Fugen's lips as he walked out of the room.