Chapter two: Recovery.
T: Chaos Dragon…I have no idea how I manage to addict you every time, perhaps its just that I choose the right stories! If you really want to Beta then give me you e-mail and I'll start sending chapters your way, though you have to promise to keep reviewing! And yay! A new reviewer, thank you Amy and hope to keep you intrigued.
This chapter, as the last, is a developmental one so bare with me…oh and I apologise in advance for the cliffy, it seemed the most appropriate place to leave this particular chapter.
Nope still not a member of Clamp!
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He had been conscious a week.
It was apparently not the longest he had stayed in the real world, but it was clearly a positive thing judging by Fuuma's ever increasing smile.
He had gained back his voice slowly and though he could now ask the questions burning at the back of his mind he found he did not wish to.
Found that he was afraid.
Instead he listened to the small snippets of information that Satsuki gave him whenever she came to administer his medication.
As with Fuuma the girl was actually considerably older than she had been within hid dream, yet there were elements still of the board little girl to her, enough to almost completely overshadow the retracted, nervous nature that this Satsuki possessed.
She had told him eventually that this skittish, under confident, behaviour had developed because of her previous husband.
The man had supposedly found power in abusing her and it had only been through the aid of her then friend and now husband Yuuto, that she had found both escape and shelter from him.
Found back a little of whom she used to be.
She had also told him a little of her employer, this information being given again only after much pleading.
Fuuma, it seemed, was a man dedicated to his work and who wished desperately to cure all of his patients. However, he was a kind hearted man and he also tried to respect the wishes of his patients loved ones.
"He is always trying to do the best by everyone." She had explained
He supposed this was why, in his dream, the boy had had the power to be what each person wished the most and also the power to grant wishes.
He'd also come to the conclusion that his wish to die had been forged by the continued guilt of his mother's death and that in wishing to free him of his comatose state Fuuma and Satsuki had become the 'bad guy's' in his elaborate fantasy.
Which had made his wonder about the 'leader' of the 'good guys' in that world.
"Do I know a Kamui Shirou, Satsuki-kun?" He'd enquired as she'd settled next to him.
She'd smiled at that and replied,
"You known Kamui-kun, yes, but he's not a 'Shirou'."
"To what family does he belong, then?"
"I think I shall leave that as a surprise, especially as she's coming to see you today."
"Then she is alive in this world?"
"Yes." There was a secret smile on her lips as she said that and he found that he little liked being outside of the joke,
"Don't look at me like that, Sakurazuka-san, it wouldn't be any fun if I told you who she is and I doubt that you would believe me, anyway." Satsuki stated after the silence had drawn on too long.
Fuuma arrived not long after that and as always the girl left the two of them alone, unlike before Fuuma did not close the door behind him as he entered the room and Seishrio knew then that his visitor was here.
"Good afternoon, Sakurazuka-san. I've been pleased with how you've progressed and I decided to give you someone other than Satsuki to reminisce with.
Another figure stepped into the room then and as Seishrio took in her familiar face he felt a little of his secret fear fade.
For there before him with Hokuto Sumeragi, older than he recalled her, indeed older than she would have been in this year had she lived within his fantasy world. Despite this difference in age she looked almost precisely as he recalled her and smiling he breathed out her name.
"I am glad that you still recognise me, Seishrio-kun." She remarked as she came to sit at his side.
"How could I forget you, Hokuto-chan?"
"The last that you came back you had forgotten me, but then your Hokuto had been dead for a while then, so it is excusable."
"Will you tell me of this Hokuto?"
"We met when I was twenty seven and you were sixteen, your mother and I had known each other for only a few years at that time but after my husband died she became my truest friend.
"I had been married for nine years by the time we met. My husband and I met when I was sixteen and he turned my world around enough so that two years later I was his wife." This seemed to be all the information she was willing to give freely and so he enquired,
"That would make you forty two, yes?"
"You know it's rude to ask a lady her age!" She admonished.
He knew that he had been right in the guess, but aware that there were certain rules of etiquette to obey in this world he said,
"You do not look a day over twenty."
"Flatterer."
A beet and he knows he can not stall any longer, that he has to know whether his heart has been given over to a fiction.
"How is your brother?"
"I do not have a brother, Seishrio-kun." She replied.
The world wavered and Hokuto ceased onto his arm,
"Stay with me, Seishrio-kun, please stay with me."
He knows that he can not now do anything other than that request, for he has died within his dream world and thus it now provides him no escape.
Can no longer run from this hurt.
"Hokuto-chan, I am okay…"
"Seishrio-kun, I have known you a very long time and that is the very first that you have lied to me.
"Monou- san said there might be another reason why you kept going back to that reality and you've talked a little in your sleep of late, enough so that I know there was someone there you loved very much.
"Was that someone as a brother to me?"
"Yes…in fact he was your twin."
"My twin…" She trailed and a bright smile blossomed onto her face.
"So we do change a little once you put us in that other world." She remarked after a moment.
"Hokuto-chan?"
"It is just a thought, Seishrio-kun, one that I shall have to discuss with Monou-kun before I broach it you."
He was little in the mood for her company after that and they talked only a little before he asked that she allow him to get some sleep.
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She looked more her age when she settled down at the other side of his desk and yet he supposed that was the worry showing its face."
"He is sleeping normally, Sumeragi-san."
"Good, by the way he responded earlier I thought he might have gone back to that other world."
"What caused such a reaction, Sumeragi-san?"
"He asked again about my brother and I had to again tell him that there was no such person. Unlike the last time he posed that question he seemed to believe my answer and he wavered."
"It seems that that individual is very important to Sakurazuka-san and the thought that he does not exist in this world might be a blow to him."
"I do not know if we are right in assuming that person does not exist in this world, Monou-kun.
"You told me once that Seishrio-san takes those he knows in this life and changes them to fit his purposes in that fantasy world.
"Perhaps this 'brother' is actually another figure in his life that he changed into a brother for me."
"You have an idea who this person might be, don't you?"
"I do but I wanted to ask you if it was alright to bring him."
"If he is someone Sakurazuka-san knew in this life then I can see no true objection."
"I can think of one."
"Which is?"
"Kamui-kun will insist on coming with him and you know how my son feels about Sakurazuka-san."
"Indeed I do."
"I also know how you feel about Kamui-kun, Monou-san."
He felt himself blush and she transforms almost immediately back into the seemingly youthful individual he had become friends with.
"Oh ho, Monou-san I knew you liked him! I may just have to used you as a distraction."
He is used to her teasing now and yet it is better that she covers over her worry with this light banter than with anything else.
After all her happiness is what makes her who she is…
What makes her one of his patient's only true hopes.
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T: Well there is chapter two…it only gets weirder I warn you! R+R as it cheers me up.