This as Rice Paper 12
By Nix Winter
Disclaimer: I don't own WK, or Youji Kudou or Aya. I'm just loafing today because I don't have to get any thing else written and I've forgotten how to do anything, but write.
Any one out there around today might want to play Aya and Youji with me?
Oh
And if I'm off chapters. Sorry! I've been kinda caught up in the release of my new series The Pet, (www(dot)venuspress(dot)com), work, life, the staggering responsibility of learning to be myself and be okay with that.
Chapter Twelve
It was the kind of day that Youji really wished would just start over. He pulled a strand of dirty blond hair behind one ear and watched his new doctor friend lean over and talk to a little kid. They were in some place lower than a garage, a laundry, a boiler room, something like that. The elevator was tilted inside the shaft, two small bodies covered with paint drops. Death.
The ground tilted under Youji, and he felt the weight on his back of someone, and he was holding them, arms out wide, holding them for dear life as if he might lose them. He closed his eyes as that would keep the memory away. It didn't make sense. He couldn't have been holding onto someone with his arms spread wide. He really wasn't sure he wanted to know whatever the hell he'd been doing.
And then the doctor had him by the front of the shirt, holding him as his knees went out from under him. "When we get out of here," she snapped, a fiery optimism given her works strength. "You're going to come see me. I can help you."
"No one can help me."
"Depression is a terrible disease. It is both of the mind and body. Just like shock and infections can lead to problems with the body, grief and emotional trauma can cause an infection of the soul. I can help you. I'm a psychologist specializing grief and dying. Believe me that I can help you because I need your help now."
"Kimberly," he said just an echo of the seduction he used to get up, and he wanted, quiet suddenly to tell her. "I'm in love with Aya. Even if he doesn't do anything more than just be in the same room with me, I crave him." And then there was a big hole. He couldn't remember why he couldn't be near Aya. "I'm a bad man."
She rocked onto the balls of her feet, where she squatted, and he could feel her assessing him. As a woman, as a doctor, as some kind of disaster spawned predator, and he got the distinct impression that the Hippocratic Oath only went so far if he was a risk to the kids she as protecting. Americans were so independent, so lawless. But then. That could have been just his own take on it. "Are you a bad man? I don't think so. You're going to help me find the way back up."
A child cried and another made mothering sounds at it. Youji didn't know anything about children, and he didn't think he'd ever been one. Maybe he was some Oni thrown up out of the Christian hell.
The aftershock started so small, like the first rumbles of a car when it starts, hinting at the power within, but then the ground was rolling again. Childish found some reserve of parental instinct in Youji that had been smothered by something darker in his life. Little arms went around his neck and he held on, an other arm around a bigger boy, holding him close too. There was no protection from the building gone tilted around them, but they held to him as if he could save them. Strength he hadn't had even moments before now rose for him. Comforting words found their way out of his mouth and he rocked them, these children clinging to him. "I will protect you. We will be okay."
oooOOOOOooo
Aya caught himself against a street light as the aftershock came again. The world was cracking and falling apart. Trust was there, with Omi and Ken, that they would take care of his sister.
School, honor, even wishing for his parent's forgiveness didn't matter now. Only Youji mattered. "Youji!"
In his mind he could see Youji so clearly, golden hair, lazy smile, those secret holding green eyes. Youji had a kind of power to him, a lanky lion, and Aya needed to be near him, needed to know; that he was okay.
And that' when he heard the child crying. Through the grate, from somewhere below the street… Aya knelt, slender fingers reaching toward the bent metal, and he knew where Youji had gone. What he didn't know was why Youji hadn't come back out, or why the child was till crying. A moment later Aya had followed Youji's most likely path. He would find his lazy lion.