Thin as Rice Paper 5
By Nix Winter
Disclaimer: I don't own WK. I do own this story and it's rather personal and important.
Youji rolled over on the bed, right into the sunlight pouring in through the hospital window. Only hospital windows had that completely harsh light, as if it were meant to kill any small living thing. He felt so hollow, like a little blond mouse left in the wall. The tube in his nose promised he wasn't hollow though. He guessed the hospital hadn't approved of his suicide plans. The very edge of his mouth lifted. Next time, he'd try with a sword, be more traditional about it.
He wished Asuka would come talk to him again, or that he was a spirit. He could imagine her spooking him and he'd stagger away from the bed, fall out the window. He'd scream. She'd wave. In his imagination, the story was much more exciting than just what it was. He must have imagined her, holding him, after he'd passed out. She couldn't come back, after all. He'd strangled her.
He closed his eyes and struggled to clear his mind. The flash back, muted and warped, came back to him and Omi was down, poisoned, dying. He loved Omi, his sweet friend, so smiling and accepting and he couldn't let Omi die. The fear rose in him now, so long after it happened, and Asuka, his love, best friend, she was on his back, his wires tightening on her throat, his arms straining to pull to, to chock and he could see her in his mind, a blue summer dress, spaghetti straps, tears on her face, fingers clawing at his wires as his arms pulled tighter.
The liquid food they'd shoved down his nose with tubes wanted to come back up and he clawed at the sheet, at the bed to push himself up before he strangled himself with his own nightmares. By the time he was sitting up, his stomach had rolled back down into the bit of his belly, and his mind had pushed the nightmare farther away. He was insane. Maybe killing people you love did that to you.
What was there, except death?
It wasn't a story book where someone was going to show up and love him.
Though
Most times
When there's no way out, the door is already open.
"Youji?" A soft spoken voice, male, maybe accented with a few too many English books read.
A sense of complete dread filled Youji as he turned to look at the red head in the door way. Not like it could really have gotten any worse, but he wanted the front he had with Aya, wanted the polished clothes and the perfect hair, and a snotty little smirk, and what he had was a hospital gown with blue strips and thinning cotton that left him open down the back, hair flat as yellow rain, eyes a lovely matching red, and all that in a hospital bed with a tube in his nose. Embarrassment that bad should be lethal. Youji just looked at Aya.
The man in the door held his book a little closer, both arms over it.
Tears rose up hot in Youji's eyes, bending the room and Aya. He'd lost, Youji really understood it then. In a way even suicide was a way to keep from being in this place, of being there with nothing left to hide or defend, no hope left, and it was over. Youji leaned forward, knees bent, forehead to the starched cotton sheet.
He heard the book slide onto the table next to his bed, heavy book, cheap plastic, but he didn't expect the hand that settled on his shoulder, warm and solid, not some ghostly old friend.
"I'm glad."
"Excuse me," Youji turned and glared, red wet eyes narrow, and that just made the red head smile.
"I'm glad you're alive. I hadn't prayed since I feared my parents were dead, and then, I just felt you were gone. I'm not who I was. Maybe we can be friends."
"Who are you?" Youji sat up, tried to wipe the back of his hand over his nose, dragged the tube, ground his teeth. "What are you doing here, Aya?"
"I came looking for you," he said, head tilting slightly. "I'm Ran. Aya is my sister. Or you. Did you know you're checked in under the name, Fujimiya Aya?"
"I am?"
"Nurse said you gave that name," Ran said softly. "We need to talk."
A nasty echo washed back in his soul, of Asuka's pity, of her kindness like she'd been the one committing some kind of sin by making him face his own homosexuality. Aya's kiss was still holding him, making him remember hoping for life and as he sat there in that bed, filthy, chest hair charred from being forced back into his body, eyes like wounds into his soul, and he couldn't face Aya, Ran, or whoever he was. "Leave me alone."
"But Youji," Ran protested, fingers reaching for Youji's limp hair. "I didn't mean to hurt you."
Anger flashed bright and Youji scrambled off the bed, on the other side, pulling the sheet with him and nearly falling. "What makes you think you could?"
Coldness rose to meet Youji's fire, violet eyes darkening, flashing with a deeper kind of fire than anything that Ran had in his currently life. His eyes roamed up and down Youji, making it very obvious that he was doing it. "Why are you like this? Do you like making me angry?"
"I bet you don't get angry at all in your new little life, do you? How many times in your life did you really feel something that wasn't pity or responsibility? I don't need either from you, 'Ran'."
Responsibility called from his pocket though and Ran pulled it out, flipped it open and turned his back on Youji, just to get a moment of space. The Youji affect, even bedraggled and half destroyed, moved through Ran's blood like the moon pulling tides, drawing him to the man even as he shoved back with all his power. It shouldn't have been so strong. The feeling should have faded, but was as sharp as it always had been. "Fujimiya."
"Ran," Aya-chan cried, "There was a woman watching me from across the street. I'm sure she's watching me. One moment she's there, then she's gone. It's very odd. Did you find Youji?"
Why did they both have to be just like each other? Talk non stop. "Aya-chan," he started, the Abyssinian part of his mind processing what she'd said. "I found him in a hospital. Are you alone? The door is locked?"
"Yes, the door is locked.," Aya said. "How is Youji? Why is he in the hospital?"
Ran turned back to Youji, that anger still boiling in his blood and matched just as much with the taller blond. "He's in the hospital because he's stupid," Aya snarled, forgetting he was Ran again, and surprised by the hiss in his sister's breath. "Wait for me. I'm coming."
"Is she okay," Youji asked, one hand holding the hospital gown together in the back.
Ran flicked his phone off, then back into his pocket. "She's nervous. Someone was watching her apartment. You should get yourself together," Ran said, all business now, ignoring the questions he didn't have answers to. Ran swept out without meeting Youji's eyes, forgetting his book, leaving a more open wound between them than there had been.
The anger in Youji though nurtured embers of something alive, the same something that had woken in Youji with that kiss. He was too angry at Aya to die now, craving another argument too much. That's all. He just wanted to finish this with Aya, he told himself firmly, but underneath, he knew he really wanted to start something instead.
At the Konekeo.....
Ken felt slightly badly about the way he'd spoken to Aya. Not very badly, but slightly. Really, he reasoned, Aya had moved on without them and he really suspected something had happened with Youji and Aya, and it was Aya's fault.
He was pacing rather viciously, a ball of pent up energy that was probably more dangerous to the flower's chi than helpful for it.
It was just... something in the air. When the phone ran, he about jumped out of shoes. "Flower Shop," he answered, basic, with all the customer service of a milk carton.
"Leave Tokyo," a female voice said, familiar in a poisonous kind of way, like a nightmare shadowing the afternoon. "Leave now."
"Who is this?" Ken gripped the phone like he could reach through and beat the person. The line went dead, but the hair was still standing up on the back of Ken's neck. "Christ! I am not up for this!"