Posted: 16/04/2006
Kyoto-ben: Kyoto accent
一
Stain
Thanks to Astarael00 for beta-ing.
Chapter 6
一
Reito lifted the plastic bag he was carrying into view.
"A gift for you, Kuga-san."
"Huh?"
"A pair of slippers." The corner of his lips quirked into a smile, and he looked down to her bare feet.
Natsuki blinked, and then mumbled. "Oh." She took the bag, and took out the simple, perhaps slightly plain, pair of slippers.
This suited the azure-haired girl perfectly, because, there was absolutely no way she would have worn them if they were...sparkling or...or something, even if her feet had been awfully cold and a little numb ever since she stepped into the hospital compound.
She slipped them on, and the painful numbness yielded almost instantaneously to the soft surface of the slippers. A sudden relief coursed through her veins, though she kept a blank face.
Her head lifted to meet a pair of expectant grey eyes.
"Thanks," she muttered, looking away, cheeks slightly warmer.
At that, he shook his head.
"It isn't not me you should thank, Kuga-san." He smiled, somewhat knowingly. "Takeda-kun was the one who bought them."
She turned back to him in surprise. "Takeda?"
Reito nodded.
"What happened to Takeda-kun, by the way?" Asked Shizuru, who seemed to have just noticed that the other man was not with Reito.
"Ah, him." Grey eyes slanted to a still staring Natsuki. "Well, he seems to be..." he paused, searching for the right word, "meditating."
Natsuki blinked, and Shizuru raised both eyebrows.
"Meditating," repeated the blue-haired girl incredulously.
Reito gave her a bemused look. "Meditating, Kuga-san. Look out the window, under the tallest tree to your left."
A small part at the back of Natsuki's mind wondered how Reito knew the location of Takeda as seen from the room they were currently in, since the two males had yet to step into the room due to Shizuru having to change.
The thought was promptly forgotten, though, when she looked out the window.
Takeda was sitting cross-legged on the grass, eyebrows knitted. Granted, he was quite a distance away, and she had to squint her eyes, but he was easily distinguishable by his formal wear and...unique...way of attracting attention...
"I wonder what happened, though?" Reito moved next to her, peering out of the window.
Natsuki twitched.
Reito quirked an eyebrow. "Takeda-kun seems to have a bleeding...nose?"
She twitched again, a little more violently.
"And...now he's acting like he's been possessed by a ghost," observed Reito, who paused, as if remembering something. "Come to think of it, he was mumbling something about a hug and a nice scent of...something..."
Oh.
Natsuki snarled.
"That...that god-forsaken idiot...!"
...And promptly stormed out of the room.
SLAM!
Reito winced.
For a moment, silence reigned. Then;
"A little evil, Reito-san." A voice, thick with Kyoto-ben, commented blandly.
The other only smiled, shrugging. "Whatever are you talking about, Shizuru-san?"
They fell into a comfortable silence, as Reito looked out the window, and waited patiently.
It wasn't long before he spotted a blue-haired girl in a mismatched gown and slippers, who approached Takeda with a frigid, frightening aura around her.
His eyebrows rose with amusement. And though Reito would have liked to watch on, there was a pressing matter to attend to. Now, with no disturbance, was the perfect time. He turned, and his gaze settled on Shizuru, who had closed her eyes.
She looked so calm, so peaceful, he noticed.
Except, it was only on the surface.
He had learnt, a long time ago, that Shizuru was not one of those he could read just by observing the surface.
While Shizuru may have closed her eyes, with all the tell-tale signs of sleeping, Reito knew, for a fact, that she was not.
"So." He started, testing.
"Hmm?" A light brown eyebrow quirked a little. She was awake, as he thought she would be.
"How are you feeling now?"
"Better."
And silence fell.
"Your back?" he asked suddenly, tentatively.
"It is all right, Reito-san." She smiled at him. "Sensei did give me some painkillers, in the end, but he told me they would not make me sleep."
He almost frowned. "Then..."
"Painkillers that weren't suitable for undergoing operation, Reito-san."
"Ah. I see."
A pause.
"I could tell them you are unable to come due to circumstances, Shizuru-san," he tried.
Another pause, and a shake of head.
"I will be there, Reito-san."
"But..."
"It is not going to be easy to deal with them alone," she said, quietly.
"Still..."
"Reito-san."
He sighed in defeat. "I can never win against you, can I?"
She chuckled. "That is because I am right and Reito-san knows it."
The dark-haired man gave her a wry smile.
"Indeed, you are." his tone grew soft, subdued.
Burgundy eyes met grey eyes, the steely metal orbs growing distant with memory, as emotions were evoked in him.
Shizuru looked away, expression calm.
Reito settled in a chair next to her bed, silently, and crossed his legs.
The atmosphere, if it was light before, somehow grew heavy with pain, sadness, and guilt.
A pain that both knew and experienced.
A type of sadness that only the two of them could understand.
A guilt that hung heavily on their shoulders, the same yet different.
They were similar, after all.
The only major difference between the two of them, perhaps, was that she took it harder - much harder - than he did.
His gaze trailed to her hands, which were folded neatly on her stomach.
Grey eyes traced the soft, slender fingers, perfect for playing piano, and before he knew it, he took her hand into his, examining the fading scar at the back of her palm. A scar whose fate was to disappear sooner or later, he knew, as was the little cuts from the glass that would eventually heal. But it was not quite the same case, for one particular stitched wound on her back...
"Reito-san?" The deep red eyes returned to his face, a little surprised.
"You are still doing it." He said, quietly. He gripped her hand a little tightly, a little protectively.
...and on her soul.
"You are still - "
"Please." She cut in, voice a whisper now.
"You can't let it hound you forever, Shizuru."
She didn't reply, and closed her eyes tiredly.
"It was not your fault to begin with." He murmured, head bowed, and he lifted her hand to press against his forehead.
"Reito..."
"My fault," he said. "All my fault."
Locks of black hair shadowed his eyes.
"It is not - "
"The First District," he cut in calmly, quietly, "The incident with Suzushiro-san and Kikukawa-san."
She fell silent.
"All this would not have happened, if it were not for me. And even now..."
"You had been possessed by the Obsidian Lord then, Reito-san."
He looked up, and stared into calm, placid red eyes. A pair of eyes that, beneath the exterior of tranquility, overflowed with pain, and pain, and pain...
"I gave you these cuts," he continued, as if she had not spoken. "These cuts on your hand, Shizuru."
For a long time, Shizuru did not say anything. She just stared at him, no, past him, at...
He turned.
A set of eyes, twin emerald orbs so cold they sent a shiver down his spine, was the only thing his mind registered, before he felt his head rattling from impact, his back painfully slammed into the wall, and his collar gripped so tightly it was almost suffocating.
"Natsuki!" The usually calm voice was alarmed.
"You," a snarl, one that was only a bare hint of what anger resided in her, reached his ears. "You gave Shizuru those cuts?"
"Natsuki!" Shizuru tried to get up, and a wince briefly marred her face.
"The cuts on her hand," hissed Natsuki, ignoring the girl on the bed. "You caused them?"
"K-Kuga..." He felt dizzy. The blue-haired girl could really pack a mean punch when she meant it.
"The past weeks, the past months," she intoned calmly, dangerously, "you have been hurting her."
For some reason, Reito's mouth clamped shut, even though he wanted to reply.
Even if he wanted to say, Yes, I was the cause of it. I was the cause of everything.
But he could not.
...trembling, shaking, in his arms, crying trembling shaking crying shaking red eyes full of pain pain pain dreams nightmares nightmares nightmares haunting scissors blood blood blood...
He couldn't.
Cold green eyes stared at him.
She took in a shuddering breath, and seemed to have difficulty breathing. Her shoulders were shaking; her whole form was shaking. From realization? From anger?
"Did you," she began, quietly, her voice a deathly whisper, "give her an injury on her back, before today's incident?"
His mouth worked before he could even stop it, because, he knew, this was one he could admit.
"Yes."
The grip on his collar tightened painfully, and he could not breathe.
And the next thing he knew, his world no longer consisted of reasoning, thinking, emotions, or anything at all, anything, except this;
Pain.
"NATSUKI!"
A/N. I'm immensely late, I know, but both my beta and I have been occupied with life and situations, so I plead not guilty. XP
And because whatever I may say about this chapter may well kill the suspense and tension, I shall refrain from saying anything, so the bunch of you will have to inteprete things yourself. -coughs- And...it appears that there's some big question marks around Reito and Shizuru's injuries (Reito in last chapter, not this chapter). The questions popped up here, and in an e-mail I recieved sometime ago, so I suppose some light should be shed to everyone.
When I say an outsider usually has a more objective view (i.e. Takeda), it doesn't mean the inside-people (eh...for lack of better term) doesn't either. Reito, I imagine, has a pretty good view on the overall picture as well. A major difference between Takeda and Reito is that Reito seems to know exactly what is going on, and what is it with Shizuru's injuries, while Takeda has only a vague idea, and that's mostly interpreted from the big loss of blood.
More importantly, Reito is not an outsider. Reito, unlike Takeda, does not have the reason to voice Shizuru's strange loss of blood. He has, in fact, most of the reasons to keep his mouth shut, for reasons unstated at this point. Shizuru's view is somewhere along the lines of Reito's view...if Reito had only most, Shizuru had all the reasons not to spill the beans. That's also the reason why I didn't emphasis on Reito but Takeda, otherwise it probably would take Natsuki a little while longer to notice the oddity of...just about everything.
As far as Shizuru's injuries is concerned, five stitches, I think, says a lot. It's enough to give you a permanent scar, depending on how deep is the injury. XD But, granted, I'm being impossibly vague and subtle about the extent of her injuries, and the recent scenes highlighted other things, with the injury as a minor thing. So don't hit yourself on the head for not understanding the extent of Shizuru's injury, cause I (somehow) guided you to a different focus, with the injury merely lingering at the back of your minds.
As a side note: I found the ever-elusive Mai Hime series. Yay?
With that, I shall stop boring you with my ramblings. My thanks for the reviews; and more, of course, is appreciated. And motivating. -coughs-
Stay tuned,
Eagle.
(And as for the ShizNat scene, it probably will be the next chapter. However little there is, though, so eh...)