Note: Story has been altered somewhat; if you are reading this again, please check out the Robert Frost poem I've put in. Also, I kind of altered the conversation with the Erasers at the end. You also might want to re-read that because there's going to be…something else. That's all I'm going to say!
I got home and for once in my two years of high school, I had little homework over the weekend. THIS IS A RARE AND PRECIOUS GIFT AND I INTEND TO USE IT WISELY.
I made omelettes.
Oh, and not just omelettes; omelettes, egg puffs and cucumber sandwiches.
I think you know you have free time when you can just sit somewhere and drink your tea in peace.
Or you can just stand in front of the stove and cook…
Omelettes.
So, I have no idea about Tsukasa's capabilities so for the sake of…whatever, in this next part, Amou's wings let him fly. Tell me if that's really not true and…I'll see if I can change it.
For all of you who have been almost bored to tears waiting on me, I'm sorry!
There is also a little glimmering of something sneaky in here, concerning Nakaura. Everyone, I don't care if you've reviewed before, review again and tell me if you caught it. If so, tell me if I'm being too secretive about it, or if I need to be subtler. I just put it in at the last minute, so please, do review and tell me! (smile)
Disclaimer: I do not own A Midsummer Night's Dream. Obviously. Gosh, this quote is one of my favourites in the entire play.
Disclaimer: Nor do I own The Minor Bird, by Robert Frost.
Thank you for all the lovely reviews.
I dried my tears & armed my fears,
With ten thousand shields and spears.
-
"…Oh, and Sensei?"
Nakaura shifted the phone slightly. "Yes, Kirihara-san?" Mana Kirihara had called his house today during her school lunch-break and had been asking him sundry questions for fifteen minutes. Now, Nakaura heard the tone of her voice change.
As he suspected, Kirihara finally got to the real reason for her call. "You haven't been to Seika in five days; I'm your mind-breaker, I can sense something wrong. With you and Amou-kun, both."
"No, there's nothing," he lied, his grip on the phone turning his knuckles white.
"Ah, but…could I at least talk to Amou-kun for a little bit?"
Nakaura smothered the sob that rose to his throat and tried to keep his voice flat. "He's gone, Kirihara. Tsukasa, he left."
"Gone?" She was wildly upset. "I thought he might be sick and you were staying at home to take care of him."
Staying at home. "This isn't his home, Kirihara-"
"-Sensei, how can you say that? He thinks of you as a father."
"Yes, a father," Nakaura replied bitterly. How many times had he heard that? "But what if I don't want him as a son?"
"Sensei?"
"I don't want him as a son! " No, this isn't what he wanted to say. Why couldn't he stop the angry words pouring from his mouth? "I wish I had never found him that day! I wish I had passed by; I wish I had never seen him! I'll never forgive him for this; I'll never forgive him for doing this to me! God will never forgive me for loving him!"
There was silence on the other line. "You love him," Kirihara said impassively.
"Yes."
"You hid it from him."
"Yes."
"Do you still love him?"
With every fibre from which God made me. "Yes."
There was a pause again. "Go after him, Nakaura-sensei."
"I- no."
"Why not?" And for the first time since he had known her, he heard a waver of despondency in her tone.
"Kirihara, I think he left because he found out on his own about my feelings- I don't know how- and…he's disgusted with me. That's why he left; it's my fault. I loved him and I know I shouldn't have; it's a sin. Because of my stupid useless soft heart," he began hammering the place where his heart lay beating, trying to bludgeon it. "I fell in love. Who couldn't fall in love with him? I had to be selfish and want more from him than what God wanted me to receive and now I have nothing."
"You have us; we'll come over as soon as we can-
"-No; I have nothing. He…he's everything to me. When he laughed, I smiled too. When he put his hand over his heart, I felt mine twitch."
He heard gentle wonder in Kirihara's voice. "Sensei…"
"He's my world. And now-"
"-You feel alone." Confessing to her was lightening the heavy crushing weight on his chest but it was only a negligible amount. His heart still pained like it was being ripped out. Like he was lying under a pile of stones, a cairn. His grave.
"…" I don't just feel alone; I feel like everything that I lived for, my place in life…it's cast me out.
"Sensei, we'll help you get through this."
"I don't want to get through this."
"He'll come back."
"He won't! This is my punishment from God for sinning!"
She sounded scared. "Stop it, please!"
"I wish I could! I wish I could stop everything!"
"But-
"-Goodbye, Kirhara-san," he said shortly and hung up. His feet knew the familiar way to Amou's room and as he hugged the pillow and smelled the boy's lingering scent in the white cloth, he wished the pillow was warm and had arms and legs and a torso, slender and graceful, and soft blonde hair and beautiful eyes and a mouth that smiled, and wings that unfurled to envelope him in a pure sweet-smelling veil of ivory.
The phone rang again but he ignored it.
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I have wished a bird would fly away,
And not sing by my house all day;
-
Have clapped my hands at him from the door
When it seemed as if I could bear no more.
-
The fault must partly have been in me.
The bird was not to blame for his key.
-
And of course there must be something wrong
In wanting to silence any song.
-
Nakaura wrote the math problem out on the chalkboard. He could feel pairs of eyes boring into the back of his head, following the smooth lines of powder across the black background. He missed the pair of eyes that he no longer felt. Blue-green eyes.
"So you use trigonometry to solve for x, or in this case, angle A. Remembering that the hypotenuse is 5.66 and the-" he paused and looked back to the class and blinked, shaking his head slightly to dispel the queasy vertigo swirling behind his eyes and churning in the pit of his stomach. "-the adjacent side is 3.845, find the cosine of angle A." He set his chalk back with a dull clunk and dusted off his pale fingers. "Keep working; do the problems dealing with tangents in the next part of your textbook," he said and left for the class next door.
He found the classroom door open and called to the teacher. "Watari-san, could you keep an eye on my class for me; I have to leave for a bit."
"Eh?" The woman paused from her lecture and nodded. "Yes, of course, Nakaura-san."
"Thank you."
-
He kneeled over the sink, dry retching and gasping. But there was no food in his stomach for him to vomit up; he never felt like eating anymore. This was the worst he had ever felt in his life and only half of the sickness was physical; most of it was the tasteless odourless, colourless liquid called despair that was slowly poisoning his heart. The tap squeaked as he turned it on.
The cold water slapped his face mercilessly as he splashed it onto his skin over and over again. Cooling his brow, cleansing his soul.
Cleansing.If only that were true. He cut off the water and felt around for his water-speckled glasses and clumsily hooked them around his ears. As he looked up at the mirror, he noticed that the dark smudges underneath his eyes stood out sharply, like freshly dug loam under twin graves. As he dried his face with the paper towel, he breathed deeply. I don't miss him. I don't miss him. I'm not wishing he were here with me right now.
Be careful what you wish for.
And secretly, a small part of me had wished him gone so I could lay my emotions to rest. But just as King Midas's foolish wish had taken from him, his daughter Marigold, Nakaura's had snatched away the person he loved more than anything or anyone in the world. His love, his only. His Tsukasa.
There were more water droplets on his cheeks and spectacles but now they flowed from his eyes. Nakaura grabbed another towel to wipe them away. "I miss you, angel."
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"There have been some rumours of a virus spreading around those with powers; we're going down to look into it. Israfel, are you coming?"
"Amou," the boy whispered, his brows furrowing. "Uh, no; I- I'll just stay here until the others get back."
The other Eraser shrugged, dark hair gleaming in the light. But his hair isn't as dark as Tomonori-san's. Tomonori-san's was almost brown in the sunlight as it came through the windowpanes. And…outside when it was overcast, his hair had blue in it. Blue with a pale moonlit shine.
"Huh?" Amou snapped out of his reverie. "I'm sorry, Erykel. What?"
"I said, suit yourself; just tell someone first before you decide to wander off somewhere and get lost. We don't want to have to search for you again, understand?" His tone was stern and reprimanding.
The boy nodded. "Yes, Erykel."
"Hmph," the other Eraser replied and flew off. Amou sat back onto the belfry floor and hugged his knees to his chest. "I did not get lost," he said stubbornly.
He remembered the incident well; he had been flying out with a group of Erasers when he had spotted a flash of black at the corner of his eye. Black as a priest's robe. Without thinking, he swooped towards it, scanning the streets below him as he hunted for…something. He remembered feeling jubilation yet sorrow. And fear, anxiety. Adrenaline had erased all thoughts in his mind, save one; to find his quarry, the flash of black. Hours later, he had been found sitting on a rooftop, staring aimlessly into the horizon before him.
"Where were you?" the Eraser had demanded angrily.
"It wasn't him," Amou had replied flatly.
"What are you talking about? Why did you break from the group; we spent hours looking for you!"
"I'm sorry."
"I'm sure you are. Don't let it happen again!"
-
The Eraser started abruptly and quickly flew from the belfry, lighting gracefully a few hundred feet away onto the pollution-sullied roof, and not a moment too soon. Behind him, the heavy sweet-tongued bells came to life, pealing richly. Amou lay on his back with his arms folded behind his head, gleaming wings spread across the shingles. He closed his eyes and listened to the thunderous vibrating tintinnabulation as the sun slowly bronzed his pale nose. The warmth made him lethargic and sleepy.
"I won't let it happen again." Today he would go with the Eraser fleet wherever they were flying off to. It didn't matter where. He was leaving.
Tomonori-san, I…I would be fooling myself if I thought that you've put me to the back of your mind. I hope you'll be able to forget me when I leave this city for good. I don't intend on coming back. I just wish I could see you even once before I leave.
And closing his eyes, he slept.
-
Nakaura didn't grade papers at the kitchen table anymore. Now, everything went into his rooms. If he sat in his usual place in the kitchen, his eyes still automatically jerked up now and then out of habit to look at the boy who was no longer there.
No, he couldn't grade papers in the kitchen. Presently, he tapped his red pen against his cheek thoughtfully, contemplating a geometry problem. His fingers flew deftly over the calculator and he paused only once to return his sliding glasses back to the bridge of his nose.
/Tomonori-san/
The man gritted his teeth, working more fervently. It's not real. Happens when I don't get enough sleep. But why do I always have to hallucinate about him?
/Tomonori-san/
No! The calculator buttons clattered as he punched them a little more forcefully than was necessary.
/It's me/
Just don't look up; don't look at him. It will go away eventually. Just finish grading your papers; then you can finally sleep and these phantoms will go away.
Still, he knew it wasn't true; he could never get to sleep, no matter how tired he was. Because Nakaura always dreamt of him.
/Are you ignoring me, Tomonori-san/
The Wiz-dom's fingers slipped and the calculator tumbled to the floor. Usually these false visions never said more than three or four words. Mostly they just called out his name. I should just keep working. But the equation he had been writing out did not make sense to him now. Surely eight plus five did not equal twenty-seven.
/I just wanted to…I'm leaving the city. You won't have to see me again./
What? Nakaura's head rose sharply. "It can't be…" His eyes widened. "You're real!" And the sight that met his eyes was more glorious than the most beautiful sunrise, the most breathtaking garden. The most magnificent vista of all was here before him.
Amou's hair seemed to be made of sunbeams and the white garments he wore seemed grey compared to those stunning wings. The boy's face was somewhat different now; it was leaner than he remembered it and the pale skin had traces of rose and bronze in its tint. His jewel-like eyes glittered less; the pupils seemed to have shadows trapped behind the blue and green and amber.
Nakaura's irregular unsteady paces took him closer and closer to the Eraser. "You're real," he murmured incoherently. "You're here."
/I don't know where I'll end up/ Amou said. /But I'm following the Eraser fleet/
"You're not leaving me, are you?" And Nakaura's heart plummeted. Before, I thought I wanted you gone so I could finally be at peace with myself. But now, I realise that I'm only at peace when I'm with you.
His angel's eyes were sad. /Of course I'm leaving you; I have to leave you. It's the only way-/
"-Tsukasa," Nakaura interrupted him, frowning morosely. Amou closed his eyes for a moment as he heard his name spoken. How many times in the past weeks as he flew in the skies with the other Erasers had he heard the wind carry its phantom voice to whisper in his ear? Tsukasa. Tsukasa. And now, he was hearing it from Nakaura's own lips.
/The fleet will come for me, any time now/
"The Eraser fleet? Is coming here, to my apartment!"
Amou frowned. /What do you mean? They'll be at the church, where I am now/
"Church? Tsukasa, you're here in my room." Nakaura felt his suspicions begin to nag at him but behind the doubt, his heart railed against his mind. Tsukasa was standing in front of him…wasn't he?
Unsure, he advanced even more. His nose didn't detect the familiar fragrance of soap and violets. And as Nakaura stepped closer, the wings surrounding him that fell like curtains didn't scent the air like it always did. Scented with the smell of warm milk and honey.
-
Feeling tears at his eyes, the Wiz-dom brought up a hand to touch the boy's cheek. Five centimetres separated the priest's hand from Amou's face. Pale fingers trembled with dread and apprehension.
/Tomonori-san, I-/
Two and a half centimetres closer. The Eraser blushed but instead of smiling fondly at the reaction, Nakaura shuddered. He felt no heat rising from the rosy skin.
/-last time, I left you while you were asleep and …so now-/ Amou's voice broke.
One centimetre apart. The priest didn't feel the pain in his lower lip, despite the desperate force with which he was biting it.
Amou inhaled deeply and seemed to collect himself. /so now, I've come back to say-/
And then the distance was closed.
Nakaura felt no resistance as his moist shaking fingers passed right through the sun-bronzed face. His heart died instantaneously, a sharp piercing jolt.
His angel looked up at him with eyes feverishly bright. /-Goodbye/ he whispered and his image began fading away.
"No…Tsukasa, Tsukasa, no!" The priest tried to put his arms around the boy to hold him back. He stumbled forward as he embraced only air.
And then the vision was gone.
It was only a vision, after all. But if only it had stayed! Nakaura sank to the floor, tears blurring his sight. He hadn't let himself cry for weeks. Putting his face into his hands, he wept.
-
Amou woke suddenly and sat up, his breath ballooning in and out. The dream; it felt so real. His arms were lying crossed against his chest and he brought them to his shoulders now. Had Nakaura really tried to… He felt the ghost of a hand touch his cheek and shivered with slight deliciousness as he remembered the sensation. Had it been a dream?
Amou had so wanted to see the priest again; was it this wish that had let him invoke the Eraser power coursing in his veins; had it sent his image to Nakaura? Could he even use his powers like that?
He looked over the sprawling pastiche of buildings from his place on the roof. The sunset would come. Rain clouds were amassing from the east; when the dwindling light struck the sky, it would be all fire and flame, grey and purple, palest blue and faintest green and yellow. Suddenly, the foreground would look…almost artificial. The ancient towers and neon-tinted shops would look like cardboard cutouts- a set for a movie- when compared with the swirling colours overhead.
-
'Look, Tsukasa,' Nakaura had said one day when they had been walking back from grocery shopping. Amou had followed the pale pointing finger to the magnificent evening sky they were walking under. 'Look,' Nakaura had commanded, his eyes bright, his cheeks faintly flushed with awe. 'Look at that; what an amazing artist God is.'
'Beautiful,' the Eraser had murmured and Nakaura had agreed.
If the priest had been paying any attention at all, he would have noticed that Amou's eyes had never once glanced up; they never strayed from their focus on him. Not from the time the sun was setting to the time when darkness came and faint stars began to come out.
Unbidden, scraps of words drifted into Amou's mind. His favourite lines from A Midsummer Night's Dream, by Shakespeare. "And-" his voice was hoarse and he cleared it a few times before continuing, whispering the rich words into the air. "-And Helena says to Demetrius, 'Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company, for you in my respect are all the world: then how can it be said I am alone when all the world is here to look on me?'"
And the boy remembered Nakaura looking at him desperate hope and longing. Those dark eyes shining with…something,he wasn't sure what.
But you aren't here to look on me.
And the boy felt his eyes sting but he scrubbed them fiercely with the back of his hand so that he would not cry.
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"It's a Wiz-dom virus?" The Erasers looked interested.
"Yes." The E.G.O put out his cigarette and exhaled a thin stream of smoke. He looked too young, fresh out of high school, but his eyes were old and weary behind their dark glasses. "It's tricky, hard to detect. It could be in the system for years before it get you."
"Years?"
"Yeah; this thing favours dormancy."
"How does it kill you?" Amou asked. The E.G.O looked around to find the speaker then gave up after a long moment.
"It mutates your cells," he answered. "Uses your own powers to fuel it and eats you from the inside out."
"Any chance it will spread from Wiz-dom to any of the other factions?" another voice called out.
"We don't know; it started in Wiz-dom, but we don't know if it will evolve. I wouldn't worry about it, though. It's just a human virus; nothing that you Erasers will be affected with."
The Erasers looked relieved. "Thank you."
"Well, if that's all you need me for." The E.G.O smirked and waved a jaunty goodbye. Amou turned away as he walked past him. As the informant got into his car and started the engine, he glanced through his window at the sky. "What the-
He took off his dark glasses and watched the Eraser fleet fly up like a shooting comet and become faint pinpricks in the afternoon clouds. He was in awe, in spite of himself. Then, his cell phone rang. He flipped it open.
"Yo."
"Where were you?" said a dark angry voice.
"Eraser fleet Fian wanted information about the Wiz-dom virus."
"Hmm," the man on the other end said, and then, "Did you see him?"
"Who, Amou? No, I didn't. We're going to keep looking for him, Kaname, don't doubt me about that."
"I don't doubt you, Naoya."
"I know."
"See you back home."
"Yeah."
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Nakaura picked up the phone on the second ring.
"Sensei?"
"Ah, hello, Itsuki; doing well?"
"Yeah. Kirihara got her first job; has she called to tell you yet?"
"Yes, she seemed very excited."
"Bah, the novelty will wear off after a while." Itsuki's voice was timeworn.
So speaks the one who's kept up multiple jobs during high school, Nakaura thought wryly. "How are the others?"
"Kaname's finishing his master's degree; Shiba is still running his family's conglomerate."
"And you?"
Itsuki laughed. "I get by, Sensei."
He's not going to tell me what he's doing, of course. "I'm glad," was all Nakaura replied.
Itsuki's voice became very gentle. "And what about you- still teaching, huh?"
"Yes." And Nakaura knew that Itsuki was following the steps of a very careful dance, the same dance that everyone fell into when broaching a sensitive subject. The sensitive subject.
"Kids giving you a hard time?"
"After teaching you and your minions, Itsuki, they're seem like no trouble at all."
The young man laughed. "It must get lonely there, with all of us gone," he said thoughtfully.
"Hmm."
Itsuki paused. "Do you still miss him?"
"You know better than to ask that, Itsuki," Nakaura chided, trying to ignore the pang in his heart.
"It's been a while," Itsuki said carefully, as if afraid that the priest would explode if he said one wrong word.
"Time makes no real difference." Contrary to what they say, time doesn't heal all wounds; it just scabs them over and they still fester underneath the surface.
The sharp headache and vertigo were coming again, just as they had so many times before. Nakaura fumbled for some pills from the closet and gulped them down with a glass of water. If nothing else reminded him of Amou, it was this; the violent headaches he got and the cool fingers that soothed them away.
"Every time I answer the phone and every time I hear a knock on the door, I think it might be Tsukasa. Whenever I come home, I look to see if the door to his room is open, if the light is on, if I can hear his tread on the floor. Do you think time can heal that, Itsuki?"
"I don't know, Sensei."
Nakaura smiled humourlessly. "Neither do I." He swallowed. "Say hello to Kusakabe and Shiba for me," he tried to fall back to a light tone.
"I will."
"Goodbye then, Itsuki."
"Goodbye, Sensei."
Sorry if the time progression was a bit confusing. Hopefully some people noticed my magic literary device…
The phone.
Almost every time a scene has to do with a telephone or a cell phone, the time has changed pretty drastically. I was going to have another segment with Nakaura at graduation, but I didn't have any place for it and I'm sure too many references to phones would drive you people crazy!
I love my magic literary device. (pets it fondly)
If you think there's a lot of crying in this chapter, YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHING YET! (Seriously, tell me if the crying is getting to be too much. I don't think so; I think it suits the fic, but hey, don't let me get too arrogant.)
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Okay, review, little angels!