7. Stirring.
T: He he! Rather than spoil things into disclaimer I go! Not mine and yes the warnings remain the same!
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His sister is curled up on a chair at the side of the bed when he stirs and though he wishes to allow her to sleep he knows she would not forgive him for waking without alerting her.
Thus he pulls himself into a sitting position and, once the room has stopped spinning, calls her name.
She stirs almost instantly and blinking once she brings him into a rib crushing hug.
"You had me so scared, Subaru…scared that I would never see you again…scared that…scared…"
"That I might end up like Kakyo?"
She starts and he sets a comforting hand into her hair before murmuring,
"Its okay, neesan, its okay…I'm not angry that you didn't tell me, I understand why." She settles then and kisses his forehead in a form of thanks before she enquires,
"Did he come to you while you were sleeping?"
"Yes."
"And you talked of his condition, of what he is and what his family force him to do everyday even though it …" She hesitates then and he can see the threat of tears in her eyes.
"Neesan, don't cry…not when I swore to make sure that he will break free from his prison…not when your tears hurt him more than anything else ever could."
"You did talk a lot, didn't you?" She enquires a faint smile clear now on her lips.
"Yes, but not simply about you."
"Did you ask him about Sei-chan?"
"I asked if he could tell me if Seishiro-san loved me and he told me that he couldn't…not certainly.
"Instead he let me see one of Seishiro-san's dreams and I now understand why he could not give me a clear answer."
The smile deepens and smoothing a hand through his hair she enquires,
"The symbols he sees in his dreams are very confusing, aren't they?"
"He saw you die beneath the sakura that day."
"He told me in a hope of dissuading my actions and yet I did not care about my life…
"I cared only that you would come back to yourself and live your life again."
"I do not think I could forgive him if he had killed you, neesan."
"Could you forgive him now, Subaru?"
"I do not know…I do not believe that I can forget what he said and did at the end of the Bet and yet…"
"You still love him."
"Yes."
She turns from him and fixates on a spot on the wall to his left before she enquires,
"Subaru…you are an Onmyoji and thus you and those you love are exposed, is that not true?"
"In a way, yes."
"Yet you do not fear to love because of that, do you?"
"No. I am aware always of how my profession puts you in danger and yet I could ask for nothing more that your support always at my side."
"I see."
"Neesan, why are you asking such an odd question?"
"Sei-chan came to see you a week ago."
He feels a wild and most likely irrational hope fly at him and he has to breathe deep to curb the excitement that that hope brings before he enquires,
"How is he?"
"The spell seems to have worked for he seems…emotional…yet he has no comprehension of what these emotions are and that confusion seems to unbalance him."
"Is he hurting?"
"No, or at least not in the way you mean. I believe his heart is aching for guilt and that that ache feels all the worse for never before experiencing it…yet as to physical pain…
"I believe the only way anyone could hurt Sei-chan would be to hurt you…that is, he implied as such when he was here."
"Then it was Seishiro-san who was talking of love being dangerous in our profession?"
"He did not care for the word 'love'…he said rather that 'to care, even a little, for one person in my line of work is to make them a target'."
"Do you think he was right, neesan?"
"As you said there is risk to being one loved by an Onmyoji…perhaps, even more so for one loved by Sakurazukamori and yet it would hurt more if I could not be at your side…could not know, always, that you were safe."
"Seishiro-san does not trust that I care enough for him for it to be as such for me."
"That is not true, Subaru…I think it is rather that Sei-chan fears still his heart, believes still that his love will lead to his death."
"Neesan…do you think that he will realise that that belief is wrong?"
"Perhaps." She replies as she turns to face him at last.
There is fear in her eyes and for the first time in a long time he truly smiles before he tells her,
"Do not worry, neesan, even if he does not come back for me I will stay here with you…all that matters to me is, after all, that he is happy."
…………………………………………………………………………………
The tree is, predictably, hungry and he sates its want before he finds out a little back water bar and orders the most extravagant cocktail on the list.
The clientele look of the unusual sort found in this type of bar and he amuses himself for a few moments by guessing sexual preference, gender and perversion before he bores of that game and decides to play another.
There is a particularly attractive woman in one corner, the deep red of her nails and her lips almost the shade of blood. With his mind still pacing down from the kill he finds this as a pull to him.
An odd allure.
He buys her a drink and they begin to talk about polite, empty things, which little interested him yet seem to amuse her greatly…though perhaps this is as a part of her act.
He had known her for a whore the moment he had set his eyes on her and thus he is little surprised when she presses herself close to him and suggests they go 'elsewhere'.
There is a temptation to do as such…to drown the cacophony of emotions within his heart with something mindless and yet…
Deep within his mind a pair of glass green eyes stair out at him with a childlike wonder and he knows that this, at least, he can not do.
Knows that there shall never be anyone other than Subaru who he will allow that close again.
Thus he buys her another drink and explains, as politely as he can, that he is not interested in what she is offering him…
That he wished only for a friendly ear.
Despite the politeness he still receives almost the entire contents of the glass on his shirt and to maintain his charade he berates her for staining the fine silk.
She screams at him then and the bartended asks them both to leave in that oh so polite yet threatening manner that bar tenders have long since perfected.
A random man steals the whore away from him and she utters one last parting remark before he is alone on the street.
He lights a cigarette and as he inhales the smoke he finds that, at last, calm has settled into his heart.
'You love him' Hokuto-chan's voice echoes through the calm and he breaths deeply in an attempt to maintain the serene state that he had fallen into.
It seemed he could no longer run from this.
Wrapping an illusion about himself he returns back to the hospital and calculating which window belonged to Subaru's room he leaps.
Subaru is awake and Seishiro feels a little of the odd ache fade at this realisation, however…
However looking at Subaru's waking eyes he can at last see what Hokuto had meant what she had told him 'that physical change is nothing compared to the change of the soul that he has gone through'.
Before Subaru's eyes had been as glass with the bright purity of his spirit shinning through for all to perceive, now…
Now his eyes were as the ones that Seishiro saw always in the mirror.
"Subaru…what have I done?" He enquires as he sets a hand against the misted glass of the window.
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T: Yep things are progressing nicely aren't they? R+R as I need my fix as much as you need yours!
