- - - ch 29, v 2,0. all new. As of 5-05. so there. - - - -

Of course, It couldn't last. The moment passed, as they always do, and soon the two were left staring at each other, an awkwardness growing between them.

"Umm. . ." Tsukasa searched his brain for something to say, at a loss already for what their brief argument had been about it. . . She'd said he wasn't a bad person. And that give him something to grasp at. What he remembered, what he could feel inside of him; the aching loss and pain, the loneliness and fury that swept through him with each fragmented memory, these told him that he was a bad person. The looks his friends gave him, the warnings to stay away from Tsukushi, Rui's glares, Makino's pleas, all spoke volumes of injury, of hurt, of damages they'd—he'd? inflicted. How could he not be a bad person? And then a growing fear, deep in the pit of his stomach, almost cramping in its intensity. Maybe the reason he'd forgotten. Maybe, it wasn't this girl next to him, this scrawny little Makino chick with her wide shiny despairing eyes and hopeful smile, that he was trying to forget. Maybe it was himself. He cleared his throat experimentally, spoke aloud as if to test the thought, "What if . . . What if, the reason I can't remember, it isn't you?"

"Huh?" Tsukushi leaned closer in confusion. What could he mean? Of course it was her. He'd forgotten nothing but her.

"What if, " Tsukasa tried again, trying to get his slowly-firing brain to connect the puzzle, to make his words make sense, "The thing I forgot, the thing I don't want to remember, it's me?" And now the words came faster, all in a rush, "When I do remember bits, none of them are good. And you yourself said, just yesterday, that things were never easy, always difficult, You couldn't even think of one good time to tell me about. One happy moment! So what if, I can't remember, because I am a bad person, after all. What if I don't want to be that man anymore? Amnesia, a fresh start. What if. . . What if I just didn't have the strength to heal, the person that I was? If it's only without the past that I can live. What if Umi was right?"

"No!" Tsukushi's words were a shout. An utterly flat denial of his rapid-fire musings. "No! You were, You are, the strongest person I've ever met! You were never really a bad person. . ." her voice lowered, as she, herself, remembered all the things that he could not. Tsukasa had been like a wounded lion when she'd first met him, like a magnificent animal with its leg caught in an unforgiving trap. Like a wounded beast, he'd lashed out with fury at anything that got in his way. Anything that got too close. It had only been her that had had been able to subdue him at last. Subdue him, only to lose him to this crisis of self-doubt. Both hers and his.

"Then why is everything wrong?" Tsukasa demanded, eyes blazing, "I told you, remembering hurts! Last night, I remembered chasing you, slamming you to the floor. My blood, your tears. I don't even know what happened next. I remember wanting to hurt. To make you suffer. But I don't know why. And you say I'm not a bad person. If that's the sort of crap I have to remember, then I don't want any of it."

"It was my fault. It's always my fault." Tsukushi interrupted, hanging her head low.

"I remember saying that." Tsukasa scowled, wondering how Tsukushi's fire had been so quickly damped by his words.

"Everything bad. All the pain we caused each other." Tsukushi bit her lip, and looked away, ashamed that it was only now, after she felt she'd forfeited the last possibility she might ever have of winning her Doumyouji back, that s he was able to admit to the one thing she'd feared the most. The secret shameful truths that she buried deep in her heart, "It was my fault. I pretended not to understand what you wanted. Every time. I denied what I felt. You said something stupid, I fought back to hurt. You gave me love, I threw it in your face. You pursued me, I ran away. You were too intense. I was too afraid. I didn't want to love you. I didn't want to fight for you. I just wanted my simple life back. I hurt you. You hurt me. It was only to be expected. But you can't blame yourself." She was crying again, "Please, if anything, you're better off forgetting me. I might've been the single worst thing to ever happen to you. We were so not meant to be." She could hardly hear herself talk through the roaring in her ears. She couldn't think, couldn't stop the rush of words, didn't care that she was putting herself down. All she cared about was making the tired, angry man next to her realize that it wasn't him. That he was a good man, despite everything. She would say anything to convince the stranger she still loved that he was, that he had been, the finest man she'd ever known. "So blame me. Be happy you've forgotten. Maybe it is a fresh start. A chance to fall in love with someone who can't hurt you so much." She didn't think she'd ever be able to stop talking, not as long as that stormy despairing expression remained on his face.

Tsukasa closed his eyes against Tsukushi's desperate pleas, let them wash against the blackness of his mind. He didn't want to hear it. He didn't think anyone who could seem so strong-willed as the small girl beside him should demean themselves so. He might not remember her; they may have only had a few scathing confrontations since he woke in the hospital to find himself a stranger amid his own friends, but something was breaking on the inside when he heard her talk like this. He couldn't bear it.

"Shut Up!" His harsh shout rasped through the air. A cold command, in such a tone as Tsukushi had not heard since his old dead-eyed days.

Shit. She shut up, her jaw clicking closed with an audible snap. Eyes widening as she dared glance up at his face.

Tsukasa was fighting a war on the inside. He had been right, the previous night, after all, to suppose that animal instinct was all that he really needed to get him through. It was certainly surging up in floods right now. The desire to shake this teary-eyed girl, to shout at her until she yelled back. He couldn't remember shit, but he knew he'd rather have her insulting him any day, than to hear her losing self esteem. Somehow, he knew, she should be strong and proud. As strong and proud as he had thought himself to be.

There was a memory tickling in the lock-box of his brain. He could feel it, struggling to be let out. Beating against the confines of his prison. He wondered if it would be as godsawful as the last. He couldn't take that. Not right now. Let the shit-fest that was his past life, his relationship with this girl stay put. He didn't need it right now. He needed to shake her, to yell at her, to kiss her senseless? That was what his body said. His mind said no. That he couldn't, that kissing her last night had been a mistake, as kissing Sakurako had been. Besides, she'd just broken with Rui. And what would his friends say? But fuck that shit. She was here, at his side, shaking. Feeling like hell warmed over.

With a shudder he lost the battle. Fine. He'd do things his way. And fuck his friends if they didn't like it. Their way was not his. He was the Almighty Doumyouji Tsukasa and he wanted this. The body remembered if the mind did not.

He reached out and shook the girl. He opened his mouth and yelled at her. It was better not to question his instincts, he decided with relief. He felt much better when her eyes lit up and she snapped back.

Maybe this not remembering thing wasn't quite such a deficit after all. If all his memories sucked, then maybe. . . Maybe he could make new ones? Without the clutter of the past to interfere, but with the wisdom of his instincts to guide him?

Now if only his inner beast had let him be moved by a more attractive woman, one more worthy of his station, one with less baggage, then maybe he might almost have been content to let things rest.

But here was Makino, and though she was yelling at him, and rubbing her shoulders where he'd gripped too tightly, he could still see, hiding in the shadows of her eyes, the sad fact that she still believed all she'd just said. That it was all her fault, and she was still the terrible person she thought herself to be.

He wished he didn't want to make her feel better. Wished he didn't care. You shouldn't have to care about someone you hardly remembered. But he did. And now that he realized that truth, he strongly suspected that making himself feel better, forcing himself to heal from the leaking wound in his side; well such a feat might just require him to make this girl Makino feel better first.

Tsukasa sighed again, glaring down at the girl. Damn it. If he didn't remember s hit, his instincts damned well better not be forcing him to repeat past mistakes. 'cause that would just be fucking stupid.

And she was crying again. Or was it still? Having given up on the yelling when Tsukasa did nothing bit glare, lost as he was, in his own reverie, Tsukushi retreated to the far end of the bed, and curled up, feeling as though the argument had sapped the last of her strength. Given the day she'd had, and the exhaustion she'd already felt from her encounter with Rui, this may very well have been the truth. At least Exhaustion would be a decent excuse for why she couldn't stop crying. She was just a stupid girl. She knew that. Maybe . . . Doumyouji looked like he was realizing it too, or at least, he looked deep in thought about something. So maybe, he would go back to his world, and she'd go back to hers? They could be strangers. And it would be ok. She would make it be ok. But right now, she was going to ignore him, and sleep. Or at least just close her eyes for a few moments.

Even she couldn't admit to herself, that it was only with Doumyouji still perched on the end of the bed, like some glowering guardian spirit, that she actually felt relaxed enough to drift off to sleep. Middle of the afternoon be damned.

She didn't know, didn't need to know, that the reason Tsukasa had ignored her, sat frozen in his own reverie for so long, was that he was desperately fighting the urge to lean over, grab her, and kiss her, like he'd done last night.

He wanted to, but even his animal hind-brain told him to wait. Now was not the time for this kind of dangerous experimentation.

Not now.

Maybe later.

TBC

- - check it out, yo. Isn't this much nicer than the chapter this replaces? What was that about anyway? Even I don't remember, and I wrote the fucking thing. hey, is that what this fic needs, more fucking? Naah . . .- - cm - - -