Fields of Gold
Chapter 4: You Can't Always Be the One
By miakatama86
Author's Note: I can't believe I already have a new idea right after I finished the last chapter! This is more than I could ever wish for. I never thought that I would be able to write this naturally... I'm just so happy, and I can't believe how full my heart feels at the moment, finding out that I can do this! Writing really is the thing I love most. I hope you feel that this chapter is as good as I feel it will be. I haven't even started writing it yet, but I just know that it will be great! Please read and review!
Disclaimer: Can't I just skip this? I'm not making any money off of this, I promise, and someone would be stupid to actually pay me for it! I don't own Fushigi Yuugi, either, although I wish I did. That would be fun, wouldn't it? Then, I wouldn't have to waste my time writing these idiotic disclaimers so I won't get sued! Please don't sue me! You wouldn't get anything, anyway, and you can't have my scholarship money, so there! On with the story!
As I slept, I had disturbing dreams, dreams that kept me in nothing more than a fitful state of unconsciousness. The very last was the only one I could remember, but I knew that it carried the same message as the others: Taka was not Tamahome. He would never be the man with whom I had fallen in love, never, no matter how hard he tried. He would never fulfill my desires, and I would never be able to love him like I do Tamahome. Never. Those were the dreams that haunted me all night...and when I woke up the next morning from a restless slumber, I had already begun to believe them.
When my eyes opened, I saw the person I now wasn't sure that I could love sleeping soundly, one hand still stroking my auburn strands, the other maintaining a gentle grip on my hand. And was he snoring...? Well, at least he's not as bad as Keisuke. Keisuke! That's right! I wanna see him... Didn't he promise that he would take me to him soon?
"Tama—I mean, Taka!" He didn't stir in the slightest, so I resorted to shaking him a little, to which he did respond and woke with a start. His gaze was bewildered and appeared to be exhausted, and as soon as he had opened those mystical orbs, I smiled at him nervously and played with his hand that continued to hold mine. The smile he gave back to me was so disarming and warm that if I had been standing, my legs would surely have turned to jelly. But it was somehow...different from Tamahome's.
And that was why I let go of his hand, averting my eyes from his. Taka easily figured out that something was deeply amiss. "Miaka...? What's wrong? Are you okay? Do you need something? I mean, I can get you anything... If you want it, just tell me...and I'll get it..." he stammered, very unsure of himself. It seemed very much like he was out of his place, his comfort zone... But wasn't he? Wasn't he trying to be someone he could never, ever be?
"Just listen for a second, would you...?!" I demanded, raising my voice. Taka was taken aback, and his expression more than gave it away, along with another emotion that I wasn't sure I could place. Was it anger...or sadness? I soon found out it was a great deal of both as he looked down for a moment, his shoulders visibly shaking with the conflicting feelings with which he was struggling, and when he finally spoke, it was with a quavering voice.
"Miaka...I'm listening now...so, um...just say what you want to say, and I'll get out of your hair. But don't think I'll give up that easily. You've made it pretty clear you don't want me here now...but I'm coming back, and it'll be sooner than you think...because I love you, Miaka! I will NOT let you slip through my fingers like you did so many times before!" All I could think when he finished his tirade was how Tamahome would never have retaliated so quickly after I'd lashed out at him. This reincarnation was much bolder than the volatile seventeen year-old boy I had known in The Universe of the Four Gods. Tamahome would have allowed himself to wallow in self-pity before he'd have the sense to do the right thing and confront me about what was bothering him. I couldn't shake however, the nagging thought in my mind that maybe I was wrong, that perhaps this boy was more like Tamahome than I gave him credit. Taka did remember at least a little about the book world, obviously. How else could he have known about all the times that I'd run away from him during his past life as Tamahome?
After several awkward seconds, I realized that I was supposed to say something to him. "Please, just...take me to my brother. I want to see Keisuke...now!" It seemed to take nearly a minute for what I said to register to him, and I felt impatience building up inside me. Why was he being so hesitant? Didn't he know how badly I needed to see my brother and find out for myself whether he was all right or not?
He hung his head, unable to meet my gaze, and replied, "Okay... I will do that, but your mother will have to bring you back here. She stayed here all night, too, and she only decided to watch your brother after I told her that I would stay with you. I guess she trusts me because she thinks I'm the reason her son is still alive. I'll be back sometime later... I haven't decided when. I know something's wrong, but now's not the time to ask what." He paused for some reason, and after a few seconds, I was starting to get annoyed. It turned out that he was the one waiting on me. "Well, are you ready to go now?" Taka asked in a very curt manner as he turned away, fetching a wheelchair from the wall near the bed.
"As a matter of fact, I am," I answered, attempting to make my voice sound more certain, less like the raging war of emotions being waged inside me. After the chair was placed in front of me, I sat up, turning myself around so that my feet were pointing towards the ground, and I attempted to stand, a bit unsure of whether I actually had the ability right then. When I released the railing that supported me, I felt my legs give out from under me, sending me hurtling forward into strong, able arms that felt all-too-familiar. The security I felt in his arms was exactly like what I received from Tamahome when he'd held me. It was so confusing... In some ways he was so different...but in other, more important ways, he was exactly the same...
Taka smirked, closing his eyes to inhale the sweet scent of lilacs from my hair as he spoke. "On second thought, maybe I shouldn't leave you here alone... You're still really weak... Someone's gonna have to make sure you eat today. Keisuke said you started skipping meals after you and Tamahome were separated and that you were hospitalized... He said you still don't eat enough to keep a bird alive. I wanted to say, 'Look who's talking? How do you think YOU got into the hospital?' But that would have been really rude of me... It seems he was too preoccupied worrying about you to take care of himself, you know?" With that, he chuckled and placed me gingerly into the wheelchair and took me down to the second floor where ICU and Keisuke were.
When we reached the door leading into intensive care, Taka pressed the red button for service, and a woman said through the intercom, "State the last name of the patient you wish to see. Please understand that only two visitors are allowed at once."
"Yuuki, and there are only two of us," he coolly replied, and the doors opened before us, allowing us access into a room filled with a cacophony of the beeping of vital monitors, and the voices of nurses, doctors, patients, and visitors. Taka had clearly already been down here and easily bypassed the other patients, and we found my brother asleep with my mother sitting by him in the third room on the right. "Mrs. Yuuki...?"
My mother turned around, a tired expression on her face, and let out a pent-up yawn. Her makeup had long since worn off, and I spotted tearstains on her cheeks, along with puffy, dark circles of fatigue and weeping under her eyes. She smiled at us and stood, running towards us and encircling me in a tight, loving hug. "Oh, Miaka...! I was so worried about both of you! I don't know what I would have done if I lost either one of you! I'm so glad Taka was here to save my precious little boy...! And you don't know how happy I am that he was there to watch you, baby girl...! You have no idea how relieved seeing you both okay makes me feel...!" She then met eyes with our savior, Taka, and said, "Thank you so much... How can I ever repay you?"
"It was nothing, Mrs. Yuuki, really. But maybe you and I should step out and give Miaka and Keisuke some time alone because it really hit her pretty hard, you know?" Taka said, easily shrugging off the compliment and clearing the room of himself and my mother more quickly than I ever thought possible. He was good; he had gotten into my mother's good graces and had her wrapped around his little finger in less than forty-eight hours flat.
"Dang, he's smooth... Tamahome would have...fumbled that up really badly..." Keisuke whispered, showing off that adorable, very sleepy grin of his and coughing weakly between his painfully short phrases. He was still so pale, nearly as white as the sheet on his bed, and his normally full cheeks were deeply sunken in, along with his dark blue eyes. My heart crumbled to see my usually strong and stable brother like this. He was so frail and defenseless, lying in that bed and hooked up to machines that monitored his condition, gave him medication, fluids, and the nutrients his body had lacked for so long. He would die if they were suddenly disconnected. "Gomen ne, Miaka-chan... I didn't mean to make you worry like this... Taka told me you didn't...take it so well... I should have realized...I would be no good to you if...I let myself get sick worrying all the time...over you, Sis." His scrawny hand brushed wayward bangs from my eyes, tucking them behind my ears in a protective, big-brotherly fashion.
"Why did you let this go so far, Nii-chan...? I mean, you could've died if Taka hadn't come and given you rescue breathing... Neither of us knew what to do besides call an ambulance... You wouldn't be here anymore because...you weren't breathing after you passed out, Keisuke...!" Suddenly, he brought my upper body down with his arm, letting my head rest on his chest so he could stroke my hair again. He'd really taken a liking to that, hadn't he? He'd been doing it all the time lately. "You don't know how worried...I was about you... You look really sick...and you gotta take care of yourself...!"
Coughing, he nodded his head, covering his mouth with his fist as he agreed with me and smiled. "...Yeah, let's keep each other in check...'kay? You're not looking so good yourself...you know?" my big brother said, half joking and half serious as he made a deal with me. I squeezed his hand gently, signaling my consent and closing my eyes as I drifted into a more peaceful slumber. How could Keisuke's presence make me feel so...calm? Since I'd been an infant, he alone could pacify me when I was especially upset, when Mother could do nothing for me at all. "Anyway, why don't we go back to that field when we get out of this god-forsaken place...? What do you...think, Miaka...?" he inquired, looking at me when I didn't respond. "Jeez...you're so hopeless...!"
This small exclamation was soon followed by a fit of hacking coughs that sent Mrs. Yuuki, followed by Taka, flying into the room. As soon as Keisuke had removed his tightly curled fist from his mouth, he gazed at the frightening sight of small spatters of crimson adorning his starched white sheets. "Oh...no...! Get Miaka out of...here, Taka...! Please...don't tell her what happened...! It'll only...make her worse... I couldn't take it if...something else happened...to her!"
Taka nodded and gently took the very light body of the one he loved in his arms, disregarding the wheelchair because he knew that it would be returned to its rightful location: Miaka's hospital room. But before he left with his precious cargo, he stated in a quiet voice to Keisuke, "You have no idea, Keisuke, no idea at all... If anything happens to her now, it'll be your fault. She's not stupid; she'll find out soon enough what's going on. And when she does, I'll have to watch her deteriorate, just like you did. It isn't fair to your mother or me that we have to see you two like this... I hope you feel better soon, Keisuke-san." With that, he left two bewildered members of the Yuuki family in the intensive care unit, carrying the last one in his sure grip as she slept soundly.
It wasn't long before I stirred in his powerful arms, yawning deeply and stretching out comfortably as I opened my large hazel eyes, blinking in surprise at the figure I saw. "Taka...? What are you doing here? I thought you...were leaving after taking me to Keisuke... And why am I not with him...?" Wasn't I just sleeping in my big brother's arms? He needed me there beside him after his terrifying ordeal. And I wasn't there. Instead, I had been sleeping in the arms of my beloved...Tamahome. Wait a second! How could I even think that he was the boy with whom I'd fallen in love in The Universe of the Four Gods?! Taka is very different from Tamahome in a number of ways!
"But his touch, his warm embrace, his voice...they're all the same," another voice deep inside me supplied, breaking the certainty I had developed in my mind that this boy who looked so much like my beloved could never be the person that I truly loved. "He has the iron will that Tamahome possessed. He looks exactly the same as he did, and he even has his ring. Doesn't that mean that this is Tamahome himself, reincarnated in your world so that you two can be together at last? You should be thanking Suzaku Sei-kun for the miracle that he has wrought for the both of you, Miaka, not doubting the work of his hand!" I was at a loss. Whom should I believe? Should I doubt my visions from the previous night and listen to the voice of what could possibly be my heart...? How in the world was I supposed to decide in a baffling situation like this?! It was too much...! I buried my face in the fabric of Taka's shirt and bawled into his strong, comforting chest, feeling his hand automatically settle on my bony back, traveling back and forth slowly, soothingly, like his soft, quiet whispers in my ear.
"It'll be okay, Miaka...don't worry about a thing... I know it's hard for you right now. You loved my past form so much, and I can't expect you to readily accept me as Tamahome. And it doesn't help that you and your brother are both in the hospital, too weak and fragile to even walk... How about we start out as just good friends, ne...? We can worry about falling in love as we go... How about that?" he reassured me, smiling a little nervously, hoping that I'd accept the offer. He was just so precious, looking at me with boyish fear, naïve happiness, absolute sincerity and boundless love all blended together in one, tiny gesture. If he weren't dressed in a wrinkled navy button-down with his shirttail hanging out of his dark blue jeans instead of colorful Ancient Chinese garb, I wouldn't have second-guessed his identity as Tamahome.
After a few seconds of the rhythmic drumming of his shoes on the hospital's tile as we walked through several corridors, I placed my hand on his cheek and smiled, showing my acceptance of his proposal. He then grinned broadly at me, stopped, and spun around quickly as both us laughed giddily together, soon becoming very dizzy. Learning to love this even sillier version of Tamahome was going to be easier than I thought.