*AUTHOR'S NOTE: First of all, let me state that my computer is Tenkou incarnate. *growls* I had three pages of this written, was just clicking on the save button...and, suddenly, the screen blanked out, flashed off for a minute, then flashed back on...and guess what? Yup. All my work, gone. Gurgh. Ah, but anyway...I got most of it back, and even improved some of it from how it was before the hideous blank-out...anyway. :) I shook while I was writing much of this...it was a very intense scene to write, and the fact that I was under the effects of a migraine, a great deal of caffeine, and extreme lack of sleep while I was composing it...well, you can draw your own conclusions. :) Anyway...read and review and, as promised, ye shall have my undying love and devotion. *snifflesob* Adieu! ^_^.
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"The Last Wish" - continued from Part IV
~ ~ ~
[seven years earlier...continued...]
Eyes narrowing, Ryuen surveyed his brother's attackers, sizing them up with almost meticulous care and attention. Now that he took a moment to study them, he noticed that there were actually three children standing at the edge of the clearing, all near his age, and all glaring angrily in Rokou's direction. The first, and the one who'd spoken, was indeed a girl. She was tall and gangly-limbed but not at all awkward. She moved with a subtle kind of grace, thin arms often traveling to a restful spot on her hips as she walked, thick chestnut hair hanging in long waves over slim shoulders. He frowned for a moment, then, taking in her simple jean shorts and grey tank top, and found himself thinking with an odd kind of certainty that she should be wearing something different...something more fitting to her graceful, warrior-like movements...
Shaking away the odd thought, the boy turned his attention to girl's two companions. One was a small, almost painfully-cute boy with wide blue eyes and overalls, thick tufts of light-brown hair hanging over his forehead, covering portions of his eyes. He was easily the youngest one of the three, looking only to be around Miaka's age or so...but his eyes were hard, an almost sadistic gleam twisting what should have been just a cute little boy into something right out of the Chucky movies...a half-noticed detail made him frown, then, that same odd familiarity creeping into him... The boy was carrying a yoyo, playing with it absentmindedly as the showdown continued, and even though he knew that it was just a yoyo, that it wasn't going to be hurting anyone...still, he found his eyes following the toy suspiciously, almost as if he expected something terrible to come from it... Again, he shook the odd thought away, forced himself to continue his silent inspection before he was forced to make a move...
The last of the three attackers was a-- He paused, frowning deeply. The last was a...a dog? He looked again, noticed the collar, the leash, the thick, ruffled brown-grey fur, the sharp, glistening, wolf-like teeth...yes, definitely a dog...a large, snarling, frightening beast of a dog...but, still a dog.
Why in the world had he thought it was a person?
Strange.
"What do you want with Rokou?" he called firmly, much like he always did, fisted hands held protectively in front of him. As he stood, he sensed Rokou, Kourin, and Miaka leave the safety of the bush, come up behind him...and felt his lips twist gently upwards into a slight smile. It always felt better, facing these bullies with the strength of others behind him...it hoisted him up, made every burden feel lighter...his smile twisted into a grin.
The girl stepped forward an inch or so, tugging the snarling, growling dog with her. The other boy moved much like a puppy himself, hanging just off her shoulder, an eager, anxious look glistening in the bright blue of his eyes.
The girl smiled slightly. "What do *I* want with Rokou?" Her smile widened. "Nothing at all. But, I know someone here--" She reached down a slim hand, patted the dog's furred neck affectionately. "--who'd love to take a bite out of that brother of yours."
He heard Miaka let out a low squeal behind him. "Doggy!" she cried.
Ryuen rolled his eyes, readjusted his fighting stance. "Look, whatever Rokou did, he didn't mean it...there's no reason to sic your dog on him..."
The girl's lips lifted, again, and a new, icy gleam struck deeply into her eyes. "Oh, this isn't my dog. And, anyway, your brother didn't do anything to him. He did something to his OWNER." Her eyes narrowed. "Ayuru doesn't appreciate it when kids get their noses into things of his...guess your brother just picked the wrong guy to piss off today, huh?"
The boy behind her, the one with the wide blue eyes, let out a slight chuckle, leaned forward as he spoke. "Yeah!" he chimed, smiling wickedly. "Ayuru-sama won't let you get away with this!" The yoyo danced between his small fingers, moving in almost hypnotizing circles from side to side to side...and then, abruptly, the boy's graceful fingers slipped, and the yoyo slid from his hands, lashed out hard to the side...and struck into the dog's furred back with an audible SLAP.
And, that was when everything went to hell.
The wolf-dog let out an ear-splitting, screeching howl of pain and rage and darted forward, dragging the girl forward a few inches before she at last lost grip on the leash and fell to her knees on the ground... "Ashitare!" she shouted, sounding both surprised and angry, waving a frantic hand at the dog as if to urge him back. "Ashitare, get back here! ASHITARE!"
Ryuen felt the blood freeze in his veins, the strength bleed out of his arms and legs...gods. Gods...she'd said...she'd said, "Ashitare..." He whipped his head around to look at Kourin, to see if she'd heard it, too...if she remembered...but, she wasn't looking at him, was staring at something over his shoulder...she looked...she looked scared...
Oh...oh, yeah.
Cursing himself silently, the boy spun on his heel, faced front just in time to see the snarling dog leaping at his throat...things seemed to go in slow motion, then, to tick along frame by frame like on TV...and in that long, stretched out moment of silence and fear and shadow, he noticed with a bit of a frown that the dog had only one good eye...that something had slashed through the other, left a thick, dark scar through his face... But, he had only an instant to muse, because then time flashed back into full-speed, and there were claws and teeth and fur flying towards him, going for his throat, trying to hurt him...trying to kill him...! God, he had to get out of the way!! Almost without thinking, Ryuen dove to the side, heard a swish of air and felt the sting of claws slicing into his shoulder as the dog just barely missed him...
And, then...
He turned, hand automatically clasping onto his wounded shoulder, and felt a chill of horror run through him, opened his mouth as if to protest...no...no...no...
It...it couldn't go like this. Because...because if this happened...if this happened, then that meant it was HIS fault...his fault...it had been a choice, really...stay and die...or move, live...and offer another in his place. Good God, what had he done???
Someone screamed, and slowly, belatedly, he dashed forward, grabbed angrily onto the dog's torso, and hurled it away with all his strength...he knew, though, that it was too late, even as he heard the creature land far away with a yelp of pain, a cry of obvious injury... Good. GOOD. He hoped it died. He hoped it died slowly and painfully...he hoped someone ripped out its throat and fed it to him...because...because...
Ryuen began to shake. His breath came in short, quick gasps, and his eyes were large and pained...he...he couldn't bear to look at this...to see the blood, the thick, deep gashes in her skin...the soft, crimson-stained yellow fabric of that tiny little sundress...but, he couldn't take his eyes away. He couldn't look anywhere else. Suddenly weak, he fell to his knees on the ground, somehow managed to crawl to his sister's side.
"G...God...Kou...rin..."
She lay on her back on the moist forest floor, a shattered porcelain doll, a broken, mangled, bleeding shadow of what she had been only a few moments before...gods...gods...why? Why had he moved? Why hadn't he stayed, let himself be attacked?? It might not have killed him...he was tough, he was older...he could've taken it...maybe he could've fought off the thing, kept both of them alive...but...but...
She was just a kid. Just a little, defenseless kid...and...she'd never had a chance.
He could see it, now, in his mind's eye...the wolf-dog leaping for him, snarling and gnashing and slicing out with those claws...Kourin had crept up behind him, was reaching for him, trying to get him to move out of the way...but, he hadn't seen her, he hadn't known she was there...gods, why hadn't he known? He should've known...but, he didn't...he didn't, so he'd moved...he'd dived out of the way, managed to escape uninjured, mostly untouched...but...
But, Kourin...
Torn. Shattered. Broken. D...dead.
His fingers wrapped around her thin, lifeless arm, clutched onto it so tightly that he felt his fingernails digging into the cooling flesh, the bones of his hand pressing tightly against the tiny bones of that slim little arm...gods...if...if only he hadn't moved...if only he'd stayed there...if only he hadn't moved...if he hadn't, she would still be here...she would still...still be here...instead of...instead of...
"KOURIN!" he screamed, clutching onto those tiny shoulders and shaking her, shaking her hard...he had to wake her up...she had to get up, open her eyes, breathe...live...God, what had he done??? It was all his fault...all his fault...so, she had to get up...she HAD TO GET UP! This...this couldn't be happening...it couldn't be real! They were always together...always...so, if she was dead...then, he must be too, right? Yes...yes, that was it...they were BOTH dead...they were both dead, because he and Kourin...they were always, always together...he couldn't be sitting here, living and breathing without her...it was silly...impossible.
She was always there...always...so, this couldn't be real...it couldn't be! It was stupid. Impossible. Unthinkable! For Kourin to be gone would mean that he would wake up tomorrow morning and not see her perched on the edge of her bed, watching him sleep...it would mean that he would go downstairs to breakfast and mold his waffles into fun shapes and have no one there to giggle at his creations...it would mean that he would walk to school alone...eat lunch alone...walk home alone...play alone...be alone...alone...always alone...because, if Kourin wasn't there, who WAS?
//Why did I move? Why...why did I move?\\
He should be dead. Yes...he should be dead...it should be Kourin who sat here beside HIS bleeding, broken body...Kourin who stared down at him with tears in her eyes...Kourin who lived...Kourin who breathed...Kourin who would wake up tomorrow and live some more...God, this couldn't be happening...what right did he have to be alive when she wasn't? What right did he have to even BREATHE when she couldn't??
"No...no...no...n...no..." Each breath was a sob, a denial...each thought was pain...each emotion was agony...
He felt warm hands press against his shoulders, try to pull him away...but he fought them, shoved them back with all his strength, and lay his head down on Kourin's lifeless chest, hugged her unmoving body tightly and closed his eyes.
It...it wasn't real. Couldn't be. He'd open his eyes in a minute and find himself lying in bed, Kourin sleeping soundly just a few feet away, Rokou's loud snores echoing through the room...Kourin always giggled about that, he remembered...called him the 'buzz saw...' He smiled, bitterly.
It HAD to be a dream...but...but, the dream was not fading. The scent of Kourin's blood, the warmth of it on his hands...it was still there, still real, still fresh and harsh and painful...it was still here. God...it was still here.
"Kourin," he whimpered, squeezing his eyes shut tightly and feeling a stream of hot tears streak down his cheeks. "Kourin...Kourin... KOURIN!!"
He never knew how he got from there to the safety of his father's arms, the warmth of his own bed, but at some point, people came, took him away...took her away... He caught a glimpse of Rokou's face during the blurry interim, saw that it was pale and wan and sick-looking...he glanced around, then, knowing only vaguely that he was being carried away from the bloody spot on the forest floor, being taken to the car...the wolf-dog, the one called Ashitare, was nowhere to be seen, and neither was that girl...but, the blue-eyed boy, the one with the yoyo, sat quietly beneath an oak tree a few feet off the path, staring vacantly into space with a look of horror on his small face...their eyes met, briefly, and Ryuen knew in that moment that it had affected him...that something had changed in that little boy today...
Then, things faded again, and he had the vague impression of being strapped into the backseat of the car, of someone crying nearby, very loudly...choked, high-pitched sobs, harsh with the very depths of agony...and then there was a warm, brotherly hand on his arm, Rokou's soft, pained voice in his ear...
"Don't cry, Ryuen...please...it's all right...don't cry like that, you're scaring Mom...it's okay...please...please, it's okay..."
But...but it wasn't okay. It would never be okay...because, Kourin was gone. Kourin was...gone.
He blanked out again, came back to himself as his father carried him up those familiar wooden stairs, placed him gently beneath the soft, warm blue cotton covers of his bed, tucked him in...he let his head rest against the pillow, closed his eyes...and suddenly felt a horrible pain in his heart, a frantic, intense moment of panic explode within him... He sat up straight in the bed, glanced around the room with terror in his eyes. "Kourin?" he exclaimed, searching...searching...where was she...gods, where was she...WHERE WAS SHE??? "Where are you? Please! Please, Kourin! Kourin! KOURIN!!!"
There were strong arms around him, then, holding him close, comforting him, quieting his frantic cries, soothing his panicked, trembling nerves...
His father released him slowly, carefully, lay him back onto the pillow. "Wait right here, Ryuen," he said softly, soothingly. "I'll be right back...just wait right here...take deep breaths...it'll be all right..."
"K...Kourin," he whispered.
His father nodded slowly, sadly, and then there was the sound of his feet thudding against the floorboards, pattering down the steps...the faucet turned on, and then there was the swish of the refrigerator being tugged open, the low murmur of voices...the quiet whispers of his mother's sobs...then, the thud-thud-thud returned, and his father was once again standing in his doorway, crossing to the bed... A warm arm slipped behind his back, hoisted him up into a semi-sitting position, offered a small pill and a glass of water.
"Here...take this, Ryuen. Come on...swallow it down...there you go...good boy. That'll help you sleep...here, now, lay back...lay back, it's all right...there...that's right. Now, close your eyes...you'll be able to sleep soon."
His eyes were wide and hopeful, a tentative smile creeping onto his lips. "Sleep?" he whispered. "Oh...oh...good... I can...I can go away...I can sleep...and, Kourin can come back..." He nodded, settled deeply into the pillow and closed his eyes. "Kourin can come back...and I'll go away. I'll...I'll go away."
His father could only watch as the violet-haired boy's eyes drifted closed, as his breathing slowed, as he drifted off into a thick sleep... Then, the man rose to his feet, crossed to the door, and stepped out into the hallway, tugging the door quietly closed behind him.
It was only then that he began to cry...only then that he realized the depths of his loss. Not just a daughter, he knew, remembering the pained, haunted look in his youngest son's eyes, the agony of his sobs...no. Not just a daughter.
His son...Ryuen...he was lost, too. Maybe forever.
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"The Last Wish" - continued from Part IV
~ ~ ~
[seven years earlier...continued...]
Eyes narrowing, Ryuen surveyed his brother's attackers, sizing them up with almost meticulous care and attention. Now that he took a moment to study them, he noticed that there were actually three children standing at the edge of the clearing, all near his age, and all glaring angrily in Rokou's direction. The first, and the one who'd spoken, was indeed a girl. She was tall and gangly-limbed but not at all awkward. She moved with a subtle kind of grace, thin arms often traveling to a restful spot on her hips as she walked, thick chestnut hair hanging in long waves over slim shoulders. He frowned for a moment, then, taking in her simple jean shorts and grey tank top, and found himself thinking with an odd kind of certainty that she should be wearing something different...something more fitting to her graceful, warrior-like movements...
Shaking away the odd thought, the boy turned his attention to girl's two companions. One was a small, almost painfully-cute boy with wide blue eyes and overalls, thick tufts of light-brown hair hanging over his forehead, covering portions of his eyes. He was easily the youngest one of the three, looking only to be around Miaka's age or so...but his eyes were hard, an almost sadistic gleam twisting what should have been just a cute little boy into something right out of the Chucky movies...a half-noticed detail made him frown, then, that same odd familiarity creeping into him... The boy was carrying a yoyo, playing with it absentmindedly as the showdown continued, and even though he knew that it was just a yoyo, that it wasn't going to be hurting anyone...still, he found his eyes following the toy suspiciously, almost as if he expected something terrible to come from it... Again, he shook the odd thought away, forced himself to continue his silent inspection before he was forced to make a move...
The last of the three attackers was a-- He paused, frowning deeply. The last was a...a dog? He looked again, noticed the collar, the leash, the thick, ruffled brown-grey fur, the sharp, glistening, wolf-like teeth...yes, definitely a dog...a large, snarling, frightening beast of a dog...but, still a dog.
Why in the world had he thought it was a person?
Strange.
"What do you want with Rokou?" he called firmly, much like he always did, fisted hands held protectively in front of him. As he stood, he sensed Rokou, Kourin, and Miaka leave the safety of the bush, come up behind him...and felt his lips twist gently upwards into a slight smile. It always felt better, facing these bullies with the strength of others behind him...it hoisted him up, made every burden feel lighter...his smile twisted into a grin.
The girl stepped forward an inch or so, tugging the snarling, growling dog with her. The other boy moved much like a puppy himself, hanging just off her shoulder, an eager, anxious look glistening in the bright blue of his eyes.
The girl smiled slightly. "What do *I* want with Rokou?" Her smile widened. "Nothing at all. But, I know someone here--" She reached down a slim hand, patted the dog's furred neck affectionately. "--who'd love to take a bite out of that brother of yours."
He heard Miaka let out a low squeal behind him. "Doggy!" she cried.
Ryuen rolled his eyes, readjusted his fighting stance. "Look, whatever Rokou did, he didn't mean it...there's no reason to sic your dog on him..."
The girl's lips lifted, again, and a new, icy gleam struck deeply into her eyes. "Oh, this isn't my dog. And, anyway, your brother didn't do anything to him. He did something to his OWNER." Her eyes narrowed. "Ayuru doesn't appreciate it when kids get their noses into things of his...guess your brother just picked the wrong guy to piss off today, huh?"
The boy behind her, the one with the wide blue eyes, let out a slight chuckle, leaned forward as he spoke. "Yeah!" he chimed, smiling wickedly. "Ayuru-sama won't let you get away with this!" The yoyo danced between his small fingers, moving in almost hypnotizing circles from side to side to side...and then, abruptly, the boy's graceful fingers slipped, and the yoyo slid from his hands, lashed out hard to the side...and struck into the dog's furred back with an audible SLAP.
And, that was when everything went to hell.
The wolf-dog let out an ear-splitting, screeching howl of pain and rage and darted forward, dragging the girl forward a few inches before she at last lost grip on the leash and fell to her knees on the ground... "Ashitare!" she shouted, sounding both surprised and angry, waving a frantic hand at the dog as if to urge him back. "Ashitare, get back here! ASHITARE!"
Ryuen felt the blood freeze in his veins, the strength bleed out of his arms and legs...gods. Gods...she'd said...she'd said, "Ashitare..." He whipped his head around to look at Kourin, to see if she'd heard it, too...if she remembered...but, she wasn't looking at him, was staring at something over his shoulder...she looked...she looked scared...
Oh...oh, yeah.
Cursing himself silently, the boy spun on his heel, faced front just in time to see the snarling dog leaping at his throat...things seemed to go in slow motion, then, to tick along frame by frame like on TV...and in that long, stretched out moment of silence and fear and shadow, he noticed with a bit of a frown that the dog had only one good eye...that something had slashed through the other, left a thick, dark scar through his face... But, he had only an instant to muse, because then time flashed back into full-speed, and there were claws and teeth and fur flying towards him, going for his throat, trying to hurt him...trying to kill him...! God, he had to get out of the way!! Almost without thinking, Ryuen dove to the side, heard a swish of air and felt the sting of claws slicing into his shoulder as the dog just barely missed him...
And, then...
He turned, hand automatically clasping onto his wounded shoulder, and felt a chill of horror run through him, opened his mouth as if to protest...no...no...no...
It...it couldn't go like this. Because...because if this happened...if this happened, then that meant it was HIS fault...his fault...it had been a choice, really...stay and die...or move, live...and offer another in his place. Good God, what had he done???
Someone screamed, and slowly, belatedly, he dashed forward, grabbed angrily onto the dog's torso, and hurled it away with all his strength...he knew, though, that it was too late, even as he heard the creature land far away with a yelp of pain, a cry of obvious injury... Good. GOOD. He hoped it died. He hoped it died slowly and painfully...he hoped someone ripped out its throat and fed it to him...because...because...
Ryuen began to shake. His breath came in short, quick gasps, and his eyes were large and pained...he...he couldn't bear to look at this...to see the blood, the thick, deep gashes in her skin...the soft, crimson-stained yellow fabric of that tiny little sundress...but, he couldn't take his eyes away. He couldn't look anywhere else. Suddenly weak, he fell to his knees on the ground, somehow managed to crawl to his sister's side.
"G...God...Kou...rin..."
She lay on her back on the moist forest floor, a shattered porcelain doll, a broken, mangled, bleeding shadow of what she had been only a few moments before...gods...gods...why? Why had he moved? Why hadn't he stayed, let himself be attacked?? It might not have killed him...he was tough, he was older...he could've taken it...maybe he could've fought off the thing, kept both of them alive...but...but...
She was just a kid. Just a little, defenseless kid...and...she'd never had a chance.
He could see it, now, in his mind's eye...the wolf-dog leaping for him, snarling and gnashing and slicing out with those claws...Kourin had crept up behind him, was reaching for him, trying to get him to move out of the way...but, he hadn't seen her, he hadn't known she was there...gods, why hadn't he known? He should've known...but, he didn't...he didn't, so he'd moved...he'd dived out of the way, managed to escape uninjured, mostly untouched...but...
But, Kourin...
Torn. Shattered. Broken. D...dead.
His fingers wrapped around her thin, lifeless arm, clutched onto it so tightly that he felt his fingernails digging into the cooling flesh, the bones of his hand pressing tightly against the tiny bones of that slim little arm...gods...if...if only he hadn't moved...if only he'd stayed there...if only he hadn't moved...if he hadn't, she would still be here...she would still...still be here...instead of...instead of...
"KOURIN!" he screamed, clutching onto those tiny shoulders and shaking her, shaking her hard...he had to wake her up...she had to get up, open her eyes, breathe...live...God, what had he done??? It was all his fault...all his fault...so, she had to get up...she HAD TO GET UP! This...this couldn't be happening...it couldn't be real! They were always together...always...so, if she was dead...then, he must be too, right? Yes...yes, that was it...they were BOTH dead...they were both dead, because he and Kourin...they were always, always together...he couldn't be sitting here, living and breathing without her...it was silly...impossible.
She was always there...always...so, this couldn't be real...it couldn't be! It was stupid. Impossible. Unthinkable! For Kourin to be gone would mean that he would wake up tomorrow morning and not see her perched on the edge of her bed, watching him sleep...it would mean that he would go downstairs to breakfast and mold his waffles into fun shapes and have no one there to giggle at his creations...it would mean that he would walk to school alone...eat lunch alone...walk home alone...play alone...be alone...alone...always alone...because, if Kourin wasn't there, who WAS?
//Why did I move? Why...why did I move?\\
He should be dead. Yes...he should be dead...it should be Kourin who sat here beside HIS bleeding, broken body...Kourin who stared down at him with tears in her eyes...Kourin who lived...Kourin who breathed...Kourin who would wake up tomorrow and live some more...God, this couldn't be happening...what right did he have to be alive when she wasn't? What right did he have to even BREATHE when she couldn't??
"No...no...no...n...no..." Each breath was a sob, a denial...each thought was pain...each emotion was agony...
He felt warm hands press against his shoulders, try to pull him away...but he fought them, shoved them back with all his strength, and lay his head down on Kourin's lifeless chest, hugged her unmoving body tightly and closed his eyes.
It...it wasn't real. Couldn't be. He'd open his eyes in a minute and find himself lying in bed, Kourin sleeping soundly just a few feet away, Rokou's loud snores echoing through the room...Kourin always giggled about that, he remembered...called him the 'buzz saw...' He smiled, bitterly.
It HAD to be a dream...but...but, the dream was not fading. The scent of Kourin's blood, the warmth of it on his hands...it was still there, still real, still fresh and harsh and painful...it was still here. God...it was still here.
"Kourin," he whimpered, squeezing his eyes shut tightly and feeling a stream of hot tears streak down his cheeks. "Kourin...Kourin... KOURIN!!"
He never knew how he got from there to the safety of his father's arms, the warmth of his own bed, but at some point, people came, took him away...took her away... He caught a glimpse of Rokou's face during the blurry interim, saw that it was pale and wan and sick-looking...he glanced around, then, knowing only vaguely that he was being carried away from the bloody spot on the forest floor, being taken to the car...the wolf-dog, the one called Ashitare, was nowhere to be seen, and neither was that girl...but, the blue-eyed boy, the one with the yoyo, sat quietly beneath an oak tree a few feet off the path, staring vacantly into space with a look of horror on his small face...their eyes met, briefly, and Ryuen knew in that moment that it had affected him...that something had changed in that little boy today...
Then, things faded again, and he had the vague impression of being strapped into the backseat of the car, of someone crying nearby, very loudly...choked, high-pitched sobs, harsh with the very depths of agony...and then there was a warm, brotherly hand on his arm, Rokou's soft, pained voice in his ear...
"Don't cry, Ryuen...please...it's all right...don't cry like that, you're scaring Mom...it's okay...please...please, it's okay..."
But...but it wasn't okay. It would never be okay...because, Kourin was gone. Kourin was...gone.
He blanked out again, came back to himself as his father carried him up those familiar wooden stairs, placed him gently beneath the soft, warm blue cotton covers of his bed, tucked him in...he let his head rest against the pillow, closed his eyes...and suddenly felt a horrible pain in his heart, a frantic, intense moment of panic explode within him... He sat up straight in the bed, glanced around the room with terror in his eyes. "Kourin?" he exclaimed, searching...searching...where was she...gods, where was she...WHERE WAS SHE??? "Where are you? Please! Please, Kourin! Kourin! KOURIN!!!"
There were strong arms around him, then, holding him close, comforting him, quieting his frantic cries, soothing his panicked, trembling nerves...
His father released him slowly, carefully, lay him back onto the pillow. "Wait right here, Ryuen," he said softly, soothingly. "I'll be right back...just wait right here...take deep breaths...it'll be all right..."
"K...Kourin," he whispered.
His father nodded slowly, sadly, and then there was the sound of his feet thudding against the floorboards, pattering down the steps...the faucet turned on, and then there was the swish of the refrigerator being tugged open, the low murmur of voices...the quiet whispers of his mother's sobs...then, the thud-thud-thud returned, and his father was once again standing in his doorway, crossing to the bed... A warm arm slipped behind his back, hoisted him up into a semi-sitting position, offered a small pill and a glass of water.
"Here...take this, Ryuen. Come on...swallow it down...there you go...good boy. That'll help you sleep...here, now, lay back...lay back, it's all right...there...that's right. Now, close your eyes...you'll be able to sleep soon."
His eyes were wide and hopeful, a tentative smile creeping onto his lips. "Sleep?" he whispered. "Oh...oh...good... I can...I can go away...I can sleep...and, Kourin can come back..." He nodded, settled deeply into the pillow and closed his eyes. "Kourin can come back...and I'll go away. I'll...I'll go away."
His father could only watch as the violet-haired boy's eyes drifted closed, as his breathing slowed, as he drifted off into a thick sleep... Then, the man rose to his feet, crossed to the door, and stepped out into the hallway, tugging the door quietly closed behind him.
It was only then that he began to cry...only then that he realized the depths of his loss. Not just a daughter, he knew, remembering the pained, haunted look in his youngest son's eyes, the agony of his sobs...no. Not just a daughter.
His son...Ryuen...he was lost, too. Maybe forever.
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