[Breathing – Chapter 10]
[Warnings: Beware of shounen ai, series spoilers, and goopy, dripping sap.]
~*~
How much time had passed? How long had he been lying here, staring up into the streaks of blue and white and listening to the thudding of his own heartbeat in his ears? A few seconds, he reasoned, mostly from the fact that nothing had happened yet, and to his best recollection of such situations, something was generally expected to happen after a near-death experience in front of friends. Yet, despite the fact that he knew it had been only a few moments since he'd felt the life trickling back into his body, since he'd left the warming arms of Suzaku and returned here, it seemed so much longer. Days. Months. Years. An eternity, perhaps. For a moment, he wasn't sure why that was, but then the memories began to trickle into his mind, and he remembered. There had been a moment, as he'd drifted back towards the earth, that he'd seen--flashing before his eyes like a movie on super fast-forward--all that he was and had been, in this life and the last, all in the same instant.
He'd seen from the moment of his birth in the last life to the moment of his death, all of it, even those small moments that he'd failed to remember after that first near-death revelation--he'd seen his mother, his father, his bedroom, Kourin's birth, Kourin smiling at him, so much Kourin, everything Kourin, Kourin's dresses, Kourin's hair, Kourin's smell--like vanilla and lilacs--Kourin at the shop, Kourin in her room, Kourin outside picking flowers... Kourin running. Kourin bleeding. Kourin dying. Kourin's resurrection by his own hand, the death of Ryuuen, and the miraculous length of time that it had stayed that way.
And for the first time, he understood.
It was meant to be. All of it. It was meant to be. How many men could've done that? How many had the features for it, or the voice for it, or... I was made for a purpose, by the hand of a god who knew what was going to be coming for me. And I fulfilled that purpose.
It was a chilling thought, at first, to think that perhaps he was as he was because it had been in preparation for the death of his beloved little sister. And yet, as he thought about it, he couldn't help but think that--without that defining moment in his life--he would never have grown into the woman--and the man--he had eventually become. Without Kourin's identity, he'd have never found his way to the Imperial Palace, and would never have been on hand to dig Miaka and Tamahome out of that rubble. For that matter, without the freeing mindset of thinking of himself as a female, he doubted he'd have been able to look at Hotohori-sama and see--not just another man--but someone worthy of love, someone who deserved to be loved.
He was speaking even before he realized what he was doing, and although his eyes never left the gold-flecked clouds above, he was sure that the man kneeling beside him knew to whom he spoke.
"I remember the first time...I knew," he murmured.
There was the violent rustle of many pieces of cloth moving against on another immediately after he spoke, as well as a few yelps of astonishment, but he paid them no attention. His gaze was far in the past, fixed on the crouched form of a man with long, beautiful chestnut hair and bronze-skinned features twisted in anguish.
Instinctively, he felt himself reaching out for that agonized figure, clinging as it was to the trunk of a willow with grief-clenched fingers, and a moment later was aware of something warm sliding over his hand that was very definitely not of the past.
Ignoring even this, he swallowed and continued.
"It was...the
summer...that your mother died, Hotohori-sama." His voice seemed barely a whisper, and yet there was an echo to
his words, as of another voice--the same, but somehow different--speaking them
at the same moment. "I found you
in the gardens, just after dusk. You
were...you were crying." He felt
the tears pooling in his eyes, blinked until they slipped past his eyelashes
and trickled down his cheeks. "And
even though it was after curfue, I wanted...so badly...to go to you, and to try
to comfort you, but...but I couldn't.
But, after that..." He
shook his head. "After that, I
always walked through the gardens at night, because if you ever needed to cry
again, then at least...I could be there, to comfort you if you needed it. That was when I knew."
If I was meant to do what I did, then I was meant to love you, wasn't I, Hotohori-sama? Wasn't I? And even if it took you an entire lifetime to figure it out...you were meant to love me, too. Weren't you?
He was aware of a choked sound just beside him, as of someone trying to push back a sob, and turned towards it. Only his head moved, just a few inches, but that tiny movement changed everything. One moment, there was the sky above him and the grass pillowing his body and the vague sounds of life around him...and now, suddenly, there was Sai. There was Miaka. There was Taka, Juan, Doukun, Genrou, Houjun...his friends. All of them were there, just as he'd seen them from above, and there was something new about the way they sat--something new about the way they looked at him, and the way they looked at each other.
They know. They...they remember.
Miaka was smiling at him through her tears, leaning on Taka's shoulder as if unable to keep herself upright any other way. Genrou was grinning at him through a mist of his own tears, while Houjun patted him gently on the shoulder, as he might a younger brother. Juan held Doukun in his big arms, the boy's tiny arms wrapped around his father's neck, his eyes wide and bright with the intelligence both lives had granted him. And...
"Sai," he whispered.
Saihitei sat just beside him, knees folded underneath him and arms hanging limply from his sides, his eyes red and tear-filled, his lips pursed together as if trying to hold something back. The chestnut strands of his hair had slipped free of their ties and hung in moistened strands around his face, some sticking to his cheeks, some dangling down past his shoulders, and now that he looked closely, he could see the imprint of Saihitei's ring on his cheek, from where the taller man's hands had pressed.
I caused this. It was because of me. Because of me that he felt like this. Because of me that he's crying right now. It's all my fault.
And, yet...
He smiled. And yet, even knowing this--even knowing that he had caused this, that it was all because of him that Saihitei was upset and crying--he felt nothing but peace, nothing but warmth. The painful, suffocating guilt that usually assailed him simply wasn't there. Or it was, perhaps, but he understood it, now. He understood, and because he understood, he could deal with it.
He's crying because he loves me. He's crying because he loves me and he doesn't want me to die. It -is- my fault, but it's okay. It's okay, because I love him, too, and if I thought I was going to lose him, I'd be crying, too.
It's okay. It's okay, because we love each other.
Slowly, carefully, he got his hands beneath him and pushed himself up into a sitting position. None of his friends had moved yet, too caught up in shock and relief and their new memories to do much more than just sit there, staring at him. He was also aware, now, of the fact that he and his friends were not alone, that there was a fairly large crowd circling them, staring at them. He noticed, but found that he couldn't force himself to care. Smiling through a sudden mist of tears, he slid forward and let himself fall into Saihitei's arms, and suddenly, everything was right again.
---
Even with Ryuuen in his arms again, alive and well and smiling, the pain of the last few moments still lingered inside of him. He had thought the pain would never end. Ryuuen, lying there lifeless in front of him, dying for the second time with no one to help him...no one to save him.
If I'd been there...
But, it just wouldn't have been right, to leave the country on its own, to usurp his duty as emperor for purely personal reasons. He'd wanted to go. He'd wanted to go so badly that he'd nearly asked Chichiri to stand in for him again, but of course that wouldn't have been fair or right, and probably would have endangered the lives of everyone. Chichiri, after all, was so much wiser than he, and a great deal more able to handle whatever problems might arise during the journey. But, he'd wanted so badly to go...and for more than one reason.
Nuriko.
I wasn't...in love with you, not then. Even if you were a woman in my eyes first, you were a man, and so I didn't even think of seeing you in any way other than a brother warrior and a friend. But, Suzaku, you were such a friend to me. You were always there, even when everyone else had gone. When I was lonely or hurting or missing Miaka, you were always there to keep me company or make me laugh. You always had a smile, even when hearing my grief over Miaka must have been tearing you apart inside, and anything I asked of you, even if I couldn't find the words to ask, you did--and more. Maybe I didn't love you then, not like this. Maybe all it was was that you were my best friend, and losing you was like losing a part of myself, but when I lost you... When I lost you, Nuriko...
The guilt had hurt the most. And as he'd laid there in the garden, collapsed in the grass beneath the willow with grief running in streams down his cheeks, the words running through his mind had not been kind. If I'd been there. Gods, if I'd been there, I might've made the difference. If I'd just come along, I might've been able to stop it, or to protect you, or, at the very least, to die with you, so you wouldn't have to be alone. Gods, Nuriko...Nuriko...you never liked to be alone. You hated being alone--you stayed away from your room until it was time to go to sleep, talking to me or the Harem women or the servants or the guards or whoever would talk to you... Oh, gods, why did you have to die alone?
But, it was all right now. It was all right, because he wasn't alone, and he wasn't going to die. Not now. Not this time. Struggling to control the tears that didn't seem to want to stop coming, Saihitei lifted his arms from where they'd been dangling, tugged them upwards, and managed to wrap them around Ryuuen's shoulders. The smaller man was warm against him, the comforting thud of his heartbeat a little faster than normal, but still there. Still there. Smiling through his tears, he pressed his cheek to Ryuuen's, hugging him closer, and exulted for a moment in the fact that their breathing had slowed into the same rhythm, that even their hearts seemed to be beating as one.
A terrible pop-song cliché, he thought with a slight smile, sniffling and getting a whiff of the spicy/flowery fragrance of Ryuuen's hair as a result, but a true one. Sometimes, it feels like we're two halves of the same person... No. No, it's more than that. It's so much more.
Squeezing his eyes shut tightly, he clutched Ryuuen closer, so close that it seemed as if they might meld into one just by sitting there. "Thank you," he murmured.
He felt the older man shift
slightly against him, relaxing into his embrace, breathing in slow, sweet
breaths that tickled against his ear.
"Hmm? For what?"
Carefully, he disentangled himself from Ryuuen's arms and, as those wide violet eyes stared up at him quizzically, brought his palms to the smaller man's cheeks. The salt of tears still on his lips, he bent forward and kissed Ryuuen softly on the mouth, then tucked the man's head down to kiss him on the forehead. "For breathing," he whispered.
~*~
End Part One.
Notes:
Readers: *stare at screen, blinking* End part one? Whaaaaaaazzzzzat mean? o.O;;
Ryuen: Ahhhhem. Well. Part One is focused mainly on Ryuuen's "medical problems," and what becomes of them, as you've no doubt noticed. Now, however, that they've been dealt with, the course of the plot is going to be taking a much different turn, and thus...part two! *nod* Comprende?
Readers: Hai!
Ryuen: Great. *thumbs up*
