- - -Look! Brand spanking new chapter, short and incoherent, perhaps. But directional, for sure. Ok, maybe not. But plenty of angst, you better believe. More importantly, ch28 and 29 have been completely rewritten as of 5-31-05, if you last read like 6 months ago or whenever it was I posted those pieces of shit, go read the new versions instead, then read this chapter. Whee! - - cm - - -

Tsukasa sat on the edge of the bed, the perpetual dull ache in his wounded side momentarily forgotten as he stared fiercely at the sleeping girl. Any second now, he swore his friends would come stomping through that door. Yelling at him for upsetting Makino, or for god only knows what. As if any of it were his fault. He was the victim here, and they'd do well to remember it. Besides, he had a right to be here. This slip of a girl confused him with her mood swings, the way she stirred his instincts. His friends were useless, when it was so clear, that all the answers began and ended here, with her. Almost he caught himself wishing that he'd understood this before he'd driven her off into Rui's arms.

But no. How should he have known? How could he have cared? It had taken this weekend, the concentrated force of his friends, and her, and the trickling of his memories to make him see. What a stupid brain.

Tsukasa snorted, as if he could be anything less than perfect. By definition. Whatever the cause, this was the result. Her, him, and them.

Tsukasa edged closer. Even in sleep, the infuriating girl still wasn't very attractive. Not like Sakurako or even Shigeru. Cute, maybe, on a good day. He certainly couldn't remember seeing her on a good day. Yet even without memory, he couldn't seem to stay away. He realized that now. Ever since she'd shown up here the day before with Rui, Tsukasa had been following her, demanding answers, enlisting her aid, taunting her, testing her. He really was a basket case.

Tsukasa wondered what it had felt like to fall in love with this girl. Had it felt as frustrating and painful as she'd implied? Did it feel anything like this sense of icy frustration he felt now? What good did it do to feel like that? He needed something more positive if he were ever to force himself to recover.

Something more positive.

Tsukasa's stony countenance softened slightly, and he glanced furtively towards the door. No suspicious footsteps, no voices. No one to tell him to stop. Not that they had a right to order him around anyway, but still, who needed the added hassle?

The coast was clear, and so, Tsukasa reached out one furtive hand, allowing it to gently ghost along the curve of Tsukushi's cheek, just enough to feel the soft down of her skin, jerking back as if scalded when she sighed in her sleep. He wanted her to breathe his name again, as she had in the dark the night before. Wanted to feel the resonance in his mind as it slipped from between those unhappy lips.

No such luck.

So Tsukasa did the next best thing, and tentatively leaned forward, testing his instincts, the residue of a thousand lost memories, to kiss her. A kiss so slight it was hardly there, the barest whisper of lips on hers, enough to feel her soft exhale.

It sent a jolt reeling through his overworked brain, nevertheless.

And he remembered.

Pajamas four sizes too small. The shittiest apartment he'd ever seen, mildew and cracked walls, uncomfortable mattresses, the bustle of a family preparing for sleep.

Jealousy. He was jealous. It gnawed at him. The reason he was here. A picture in a magazine. The dress she wore. She'd never dressed like that for him. She'd curled her hair. Not for him.

It took every ounce of self control not to jump her. With her parents in the next room no less. She was angry. But to him, she was beautiful.

And when she admitted she hadn't kissed that other guy. That politician scum, his heart had beat so hard it could have burst.

He'd watched her sleep, he'd kissed her the way he never could when she was awake. He wanted so much more. For now, one stolen kiss would have to suffice. . .

He remembered the way that kiss had felt, how it had destroyed his resolve to stay away. She was an addiction, a drug. His drug. He'd wanted no one else to have her. He'd been the first to see, to appreciate her. No one else. He wasn't her first love, but he'd sworn to be the one that counted. He'd believed in her. If only she'd believed in him.

It was the single most coherent memory fragment Tsukasa had recalled yet. And also, the most pleasant. Despite the bittersweet connotations.

On the other hand, Tsukasa sighed, perhaps all it meant was that he was doomed to repeat all his previous errors. Step by plodding step. God. That would suck. It already sucked completely to be drawn to someone he could hardly remember, wasn't sure he wanted to remember, and thought that if he could remember how much he was supposed to have loved her. might have been driven mad by the fact that she'd fucked his best friend instead of him.

But then, Tsukushi stirred, smiled in her sleep, as if recalling happier days. Or as if, she'd felt his kiss in her sleep, incorporated it in to her dreams. And Tsukasa felt his scowl dropping away. He couldn't seem to stay mad at her. And that serene look she wore at last, it calmed him, soothed the angry ache in his soul. It promised him that he could get well, then the past would stay in the past, leaving the future bare to him. It would be nice to believe that he had a future. Nicer to believe that it would be a future he could enjoy as he had not especially enjoyed what he remembered of his life thus far.

He wanted to believe.

Now.

Before, he hadn't been sure. But today, something had changed, And now he knew. He wanted to heal. He would heal. He was a Doumyouji, and the Doumyoujis are inimical? No. . . indestructible? Closer. . .Indomitable. Yes. The Doumyouji's are indomitable. He would live, and he would heal, and whether or not he remembered, he would make his life better than it had been, Lest he end up a crushed shell of man, a withered bitter husk. He would find a way to be happy, and if he couldn't find it, then he would make his own.

What a Doumyouji wants, a Doumyouji gets. No one had ever told him any different.

But a Makino. No one had ever told Makino she could be or have anything. She'd had to fight for everything, against everything. Never allowing herself to dream, until he'd come along.

He'd taught her to dream of more.

And then he'd taken it all away.

Tsukushi's dreams now were nightmares, where Doumyouji stormed away, where Rui turned his back on her. Where they ripped her in half between them, and stomped on the pieces of her broken heart.

But when it all became too much to bear, she'd remember the feel of his lips, the gentle kisses he'd only bestowed on her, a feeling so real it was as if it was happening now.

Dreams could crush you, this Makino knew.

But memories could be a refuge.

Memories could not lie.

Tsukushi slept on.

Tsukasa stared a while longer, vainly hoping to retrieve another memory, another stolen moment. It was not to be. Indeed, it was almost a relief from his impending headache when Rui slipped into the room, and sunk heavily onto the bed next to him, a melancholy set to his delicate features.

"So. They told me I'd find you in here." Rui sighed, "Why?"

"Why what?" Tsukasa bridled, still unused to the prickly stranger his best friend had become.

"Why are you staring at Tsukushi like that? Three days ago, you couldn't be bothered to give her a civil greeting, and now, you can't leave her alone."

Shit. Tsukasa hadn't realized he'd been so obvious. "It's none of your business."

"Why? Because Tsukushi broke up with me? That doesn't mean I can't care."

"Hah." Tsukasa snorted. "When did you start to care about others?" For that change in Rui had been instigated by Tsukushi, and therefore among the things that Tsukasa had forgotten.

"You're a real ass when you're feeling sorry for yourself." Rui observed.

"And you're an idiot. If I'd just been dumped, I'd be doing something about it, instead of moping around and accusing other people of stalking my ex-girlfriend."

At this statement, Rui straightened, and let out the first genuine laugh Tsukasa had heard all day. "Oh man. The irony." At Tsukasa's peeved glare, Rui continued, "I guess you wouldn't remember, would you. Oh well. Maybe you'll get it someday." He swallowed another laugh, "But seriously, when you get dumped, you get mad, and you mope. But what can I do? It's not like I haven't done the exact same thing to Tsukushi that she did to me." Truly, he had been hurt by Tsukushi's rejection, though he should have seen it coming, and it was his own fault he'd let things get out of hand to begin with. But still, he'd realized, sitting out by the pond in the late afternoon sunlight, that Tsukushi had used him the same way he'd once tried to use her to forget Shizuka. The role reversal was ironic. But he should have realized it sooner. So who was he to lay blame? He felt bad enough about it as it was, even if, he couldn't completely regret having slept with her.

But Tsukasa knew none of this subtext, and simply looked confused and angry at being left out of the joke.

"So," Rui pulled himself out of his momentary reverie and tried again, "What do you really remember?"

"What do you mean?" Tsukasa scowled.

"Oh don't play stupid." Rui admonished, "You wouldn't be in here, right now, wearing that hungry look I saw when I walked in, if you didn't remember something. So spill it."

"Why should I?" Tsukasa was just being petulant. What he remembered, it was his, his and private. He didn't want to share. Not with Rui.

And that was when he realized something else.

A familiar sensation.

He'd felt it only minutes before, caught up in the web of memory.

He was jealous.

Jealous of Rui.

Jealous of Rui for possessing a part of his past that he'd lost, yes that too. But more importantly, jealous that Rui was in love. Jealous that Rui knew what it was to love, to not be lonely, even if only briefly.

And more.

Jealous because it was Makino that Rui loved.

Fucking ridiculous. To be jealous over her.

He wanted to deny it to himself

Pretend it wasn't so.

He couldn't.

He was.

Damn those instincts.

They'd gotten him into this shit.

Now what?

TBC