My Dearest Morphine
Chapter 8: Paralyzed
Nothing mattered.
The world was void, meaningless, and cruel.
For an hour, if not two, my mind simply shut down, as if all my fuels of logic and passion had burnt out. During that time, I relied nothing but on my rash instincts. I could not think and control myself. I didn't realize that I was crying before she whispered 'stop those tears' softly in my ears. I didn't realize that she held me in her arms before she fainted on the couch. Strikingly pale, her face scared me the instant I saw it. The wrinkles not from age but from fatigue outlined her eyes and forehead. Her lips were pale purple, as if all the heat from her body disappeared and her hands were so cold that I couldn't touch them without flinching. She seemed dead, conquered by my pains.
The weight on my heart was slowly lifted as her life was slowly sucked away by my pain. Although I should have, I couldn't feel guilty for causing her pain. Part of me cursed her for telling me everything in the first place. Sure, I was curious but I didn't expect something so… grand, so convoluted. Part of me still couldn't accept it, and wished that someone would just slap me across my face to wake me up from the horrible nightmare. My Kaho… my sister. My wife. My everything. The sole reason for my existence suddenly disappeared. She was still the same person, with the same body and same soul but suddenly, she became a stranger to me. I couldn't accept her anymore; I couldn't accept us anymore. The pain and confusion that plagued her for the past two months transferred to me, a thousand folds as my philosophical and moral ideals and questions took over. What could you call this, other than a tragedy?
Attempting to distract myself from my profound and disturbing thoughts, I shifted my eyes to the woman unconscious on the couch. My head which previously rested on her chest slid down to her stomach. I noticed how remarkably skinny she became, as if she was starving herself like a foolish teenager would. Without her ability to heal, it became futile for me to physically touch her. In fact, her unconscious state repelled me. I retracted away from her as I felt a vortex of darkness around her aura. I blamed her pains on herself. What kind of healer absorbed people's pains? I mused curiously to myself, wondering how she coped with the pain before. Perhaps she never encountered a case like mine before?
With a wave of my hand, her body floated in midair. I still had no intention to touch her, although her pitiful state accused me of betraying her. Despite the fact that my marriage was deteriorating, I was still married and owed respect to Ms. Daidouji's privacy. Yet, somehow, part of my body yearned to envelop her in my arms and to employ magic to help her gain consciousness. As I directed her body to an empty guest room, I stared at my empty hands, smooth and unused because of my magic.
I had never been able to perform healing magic before; I simply couldn't heal. I didn't consider myself particularly evil or cursed. I could harm someone physically and derange someone mentally to an extreme degree. I could even directly suck the life out of a living being without much effort. I could make plants grow out of nowhere with some concentration. But never could I heal or alleviate someone mentally or physically.
I always either inflicted pain on others or received it in return. I never stopped the war of pain like Tomoyo did.
I deposited her body on a king sized bed, one that had been unused for so long that when her body touched its surface, a layer of dust dissipated in the air. Unconsciously, I began dusting the room with a towel that I procured from the bathroom. Doing simple chores distracted my mind enough. I cleaned every corner of the room meticulously, as if I had invited the queen of England to my mansion. I had forgotten which surfaces were already cleaned so I must have wiped everything at least twenty times. Everything, in the end, sparkled in bareness. I sighed in discomfort at the quietness. I walked to the gardens to grab myself a rigid plastic chair, afraid that a more comfortable one would lull me to sleep. Upon seeing the dead plum blossoms trees, the usual pang of pain didn't hit me. Their lifelessness seemed extremely appropriate so I could not bother myself to change anything. Aimlessly, I trotted back to the guest room, desiring to keep company the only other living thing in the mansion.
The room contained no windows and no clock so within the first half-hour, I lost track of time. I felt no fatigue and no soreness from simply sitting in the rigid plastic chair. My mind was completely blank. I didn't reflect upon Tomoyo's beauty as she slept. I didn't think of Kaho, or of our marriage. I didn't consider reviving the plum blossoms. I didn't even realize where I was.
It wasn't until I felt a warm hand resting on my left shoulder that I realized I was still alive. The hand was Kaho's. Although there were millions of reasons to not look at her, I turned my head and stared into her eyes. It was the first time that we both knew, although her knowledge was suppressed. Her eyes indicated slight happiness, probably because she had a good day at work while mine indicated nothing at all. She seemed extremely understanding as usual and although she knew that I knew everything, she didn't react at all. Whatever Tomoyo did to Kaho seemed to be for the best…
How could I blame Tomoyo for Kaho's happiness?
"I'm going to cook dinner," she murmured so softly that her words seemed like whispers of the wind.
Then, I understood. I understood why Kaho wanted to be healed so badly, so desperately, and why Tomoyo's magic worked that way. There was nothing that could be done to change a blood bond, secured through five lifetimes. Erasing our morals was the only solution.
I followed her to the grand kitchen, just to watch her graceful movements as she prepared an unnecessary meal. Neither of us was hungry. I glanced at the clock for the first time in hours and sighed as it indicated that it was past midnight.
As I stood there, leaning against the plain white walls, I slowly realized the extent of Kaho's love for me: she was willing to give up everything that society despised just to live happily with me, willing to ignore the fundamentals just so that we could live in blissful ignorance.
Something heavy and burdensome stirred in my heart. I felt those unusual tears nearing my eye sockets. I never cried before but that day… everything haunted me. I stared at the love of my life, at the perfect woman for me, and realized that I… I was unable to love her like she loved me. I was unable to give up my morals, my philosophies, for anything, not even for our bond. I knew that if I too made Tomoyo erase my morals, I would never forgive myself. I would regret it for the rest of my life.
Our marriage, already shattered in billions of chaotic pieces, was beyond repair.
My whole body trembled in a strange sensation. I felt almost relieved, knowing that at least I would not betray my morals. But at the same time, I felt guilty of betraying Kaho, her love, and Tomoyo's efforts to bring Kaho and I back together. Unable to express any of my bewildering thoughts, I simply stood there, numb against the wall.
After a while, Kaho, worried by my silence, turned to look at me. "Are you okay?" she asked although we both knew the answer to the question.
How could I be "okay"? my head screamed in confusion and wrath. There had to be something that I could do, to fix something. I cursed my magic and my past. Why was everything that I had been proud of suddenly breaking me apart? Although I had known it for hours, it finally dawned on me. It was over.
It was over.
There would be no more Eriol Hiiragizawa and Kaho Mizuki.
Yearning for some comfort, I searched for Kaho's eyes but found none. She understood what I just realized. And even though she always understood me before, a new kind of profound understanding struck her.
"I know, Eriol. I know."
None of us could cry; it was already futile. She simply continued her mindless cooking with her face hidden in the darkness. Tomoyo's spell must have disappeared as Kaho's body began to shake alarmingly. Although I shouldn't have, I walked to her, near the stove, and embraced her from behind. I became the younger brother, reassuring his big sister that everything was going to be alright but I wanted so much more.
"Thank you, Eriol. Thank you." Her tone had changed too. Her usually stone cold voice became soft, as if she was speaking to an innocent child. Thank you for everything for these past five years, she seemed to say.
Everything remained quiet until the fire alarm suddenly echoed through the mansion. The sprinklers from the ceiling sprang to life, spouting water at an impressive rate. Even though I could have extinguished the fire on the stove and stop the sprinklers from ruining my books, drenching our clothes, and possibly giving Tomoyo Daidouji pneumonia, I simply couldn't wave my hand to summon my magic. The cool water flowed down our embracing bodies and reached my cold toes. I was fully awake yet still wished that everything was just a nightmare. I wished that the pure water could cleanse us of everything, purge us of our sins, and instigate a new beginning.
But as I withdrew from our embrace after the fire went out and the sprinklers stopped, nothing changed. The same graveness and anguish reigned in the mansion.
No hope remained. And not even Tomoyo Daidouji could change that.
Kaho, who was already very familiar with divorces, didn't encounter any problems in arranging our paperwork. The sentimental side of the divorce, however, took a while to settle in. Part of us couldn't even believe that we were married in the first place. It just seemed so incredulous. The other part of us cursed all the connotations that came with 'incest,' and wished that past lives didn't influence our present ones. We had no more blood-relations but every time our skins came in contact, guilt rushed through our bodies and we retracted from each other.
Kaho didn't say anything, but she didn't have to. I knew that she was packing little by little, folding each piece of clothing carefully as if she didn't want to leave. Optimistically, I believed that part of her didn't. After all, she remained in the mansion for months even if she knew about the situation. Perhaps she was still trying to make this work and she knew that if she had everything packed, she'd never have another chance to step back.
"Morning," I called to her as I went to the kitchen a week after the revelation.
"Hi," she smiled sympathetically at me. "Coffee and croissants are ready."
"Mhm, thank you." I gladly ate my breakfast in quiet before a curious thought struck me. "How are you feeling?"
"Why are you asking?" she asked in return.
"You threw up in the toilet last night before you went to bed," I simply stated.
"Oh, you heard that?" she sipped a bit of her coffee. "I had to go cross the lake yesterday to meet a patient in prison, you know, on the island. A combination of road sickness and sea sickness doesn't bode well for me," she chuckled to herself as if she was foolish. Her words rolled off softly from her tongue, not like before, when she forced every syllable out as if she was tortured to speak.
"Ah."
In the silence, Kaho somehow even smiled more, for reasons that I couldn't understand—or, more truthfully, refused to accept. I knew that she was relieved from the burden of knowing it and as we both entered this awkward stage, she didn't need to hide it anymore.
"I'll be back late tonight but I'll buy some take-out. Bye, Eriol," she said in one breath before grabbing a last bite of her croissant. I couldn't bring myself to say goodbye to her.
Just like usual, the motor of her car started and roared softly as she accelerated down the mountain through the foggy roads.
"Be safe…" came my whisper although it was too late.
The mansion was so empty that I felt lost in it. It was completely quiet except for the continuous sound of water from the pond. After the revelation of it happened, I took on gardening full-time. Even in the middle of November, when the temperature got close to freezing, a multitude of flowers just began to bloom in my gardens. The visitors—yes, I opened the mansion to visitors—claimed that it was magical. Well, I chuckled to myself, it technically was, but no matter. I couldn't believe that I didn't perceive it before… how the company of others comforted me, how their smiles and their gasps in awe made my heart slowly heal. Perhaps that was why Kaho was always more stable than I was; she always frequented normal people at work and only spent half of her time with me. I was like a cage for myself and for everyone around me. When I turned eighteen, I promised myself to be a full-time writer of philosophy and curious articles, trapping myself in the mansion that I inherited from my father, also a prominent writer and philosopher. Although I didn't always appreciate having my works published because of people's sometime cruel judgments, I still depended on the money to make a living. My father and ancestors might have left me a brilliant reputation and estate, which I was never allowed to sell, but I was still in a poor financial stage.
I glanced at the grandfather clock on the wall and sighed. In an hour, the visitors and buyers would begin to show. They willingly paid to visit the garden and paid even more to buy the magical plants. Finally, I discovered a way to earn enough money from doing magic instead of writing thought-provoking articles read only by a few interested people.
The thought of visiting Tomoyo Daidouji suddenly pricked at my brain. The young woman was still in a deep coma, although I wasn't sure if one would call it a deep coma—it was more of a death-that-could-be-revived-stage. I believe many called it being stuck in limbo; it was beyond the stage of coma.
She was still in the lonely guest room with no windows, perhaps suffocating in the airless atmosphere. I only managed to prevent her from starving to death by a strange form of magic. Whenever I held her hand, her cheeks grew slightly red and her stomach began to rise and fall, as if my touch healed her, gave her strength, nutrition, and air. But I ignored the belief that I could possibly heal anyone. I was Eriol Hiiragizawa and I could only hurt or be hurt. There was no part of my cycle that included healing others. That, that was Tomoyo Daidouji's job, her purpose in the world. Mine was to teach and spread philosophy, and perhaps add more flowers and trees to the world. But it stopped at that. We must all have a destiny in this world, I told myself. But as I gazed at her limp body, my heart stung a little. She has such a depressing fate, my mind said, to be used over and over again by people around her. She took my pains away in exchange for her life. And although she broke my marriage with Kaho, what Kaho and I suffered was nothing compared to what she went through. She lost everything: her practice, her soul, and perhaps her healing abilities. Magic isn't a permanent power; it is merely a gift awarded to the few who need it whether to do good or evil. Magic holds no bias towards anyone except its selection in the receivers.
"No," I told myself firmly. It was Tomoyo's fault. It had to be. I couldn't possibly blame Kaho nor me for what happened—it had to be Tomoyo's fault. I chuckled to myself almost in disbelief of my own thoughts. If Tomoyo Daidouji's name never called to me in the first place when I looked for help, Kaho and I would have lived in perfect oblivion forever… "But that would be wrong. You should thank her for not committing a fundamentally wrong sin," my mind told me.
No, no. Tomoyo Daidouji was destined to be the bringer of death of my marriage and I was meant to hate her, just as anyone would hate Death, I finally decided. Yet, somehow, when I gazed at her pale face again, I felt so guilty, so guilty for blaming everything on this lifeless and sacrificed girl. Her lips were a bit rosier because of my touch but her skin was a pale gray, the color of a distant ghost. She already had little to lose—her reputation, her practice— and yet she lost everything. I predicted that it would take her months to wake up from her state. By that time, all her patients would have left her and she would be left with nothing, no money, no office, and no 'friends.'
What a sad existence it was…
I withdrew my hand from her body and ignored the fact that her cheeks turned back to her deadly paleness. It's not your fault that you can't heal her, my mind chided me again for my guilty feeling. It's not your fault that she chose to heal you but you can't return the favor. It's really too bad for her.
I couldn't bring myself to look at her again so I sprang out of the room in a rather distressed state. Nervously, I paced around the living room, prodding at random objects with renewed interest. Fortunately, there was only half an hour left until the visitors would come. I sighed in relieve as newcomers would probably distract me from thinking about anything at all. Unconsciously, I curled my fists and concentrated my power. It had become a routine already: the warmth, then a comfortable and soothing light enveloped the outside gardens. Everything sprang to life. The gardenias, lilies, plum blossoms, roses, tulips, peonies, cherry blossoms, poppies, violets, lavender, and sunflowers all smiled back at me.
It was only then that I was truly proud of myself. Although I didn't know of it, my heart began to melt.
I let out a sigh that came from the bottom of my existence.
It was late, extremely late, late enough to get me worried about my sister. (I cringed at myself at the awkwardness of that phrase.)
I dared not to cook food since Kaho had promised to bring something. Knowing her, cooking dinner would be proof that I didn't hold trust in her. Of course, I couldn't let her believe that. So I just sat there, starving in my miserable state. The mansion was so quiet that chills ran up and down my spine. Usually, I would hear the soft humming of my old-fashioned lamp as I write an article or continue on my thousand-page-novel, but that day, I couldn't bring myself to write anything. I sat there in the darkness, on the lonely king-sized bed that was no longer occupied by a couple. Tomoyo Daidouji's ghostly presence didn't help either. I wasn't scared or anything of that sort of ghosts, robbers, etc. but something stressing and ominous pricked at my magical senses. Something was wrong with Kaho. Something awfully wrong.
I couldn't bring myself to sit there anymore as I began fidgeting. It was rather uncharacteristic of me but has become a habit as of lately; whenever the visitors examined my plants suspiciously, I always fidgeted. Unconsciously, my mind brought my body to the living room, near the only means of communication with the outside world in the mansion: the ancient telephone that rarely rang. And that night, it remained even more quiet. I was waiting for anything, anything at all. I wanted to hear Kaho say "I'm staying at a friend's house", "I need to travel abroad tonight, I'm sorry", or even "I am celebrating a victory with my clients". Anything. Even… "I found a new love and am not coming back" would have been better than nothing. As I continued to panic, my heart accelerated to such a frightening rate that I wasn't sure if I was alive anymore. Half an hour, or perhaps even more, passed in silence and my heart was still torturing the rest of my body. Suddenly, the ringing of the grandfather clock surprised me from my contemplations, accelerating even more my heartbeat. I closed my eyes, attempting to distract myself, and found my location not helpful at all. The sight of the telephone covered with dust due to its unused state continued to bother me.
To stop myself from further torturing my heart, I dragged myself—although I lost track of how exactly my body was moving—to a different room, to the only completely enclosed room in the whole mansion, not counting the claustrophobic closets, Tomoyo Daidouji's room. I soon realized why I liked it so much there. It became my sanctuary within my sanctimonious mansion, a layer of security within another layer. When the door was the closed, the room was completely sound proof, as if everything inside resided in another dimension. With some unknown magic, I preserved whoever or whatever was inside. Perhaps that was why Tomoyo Daidouji kept breathing in there, although she was deeply stuck in limbo. As I entered the room, I immediately felt a rush of relief. I wondered, was Tomoyo's healing powers so strong that they even worked when she was asleep? I stared at my hands in confusion. Does that mean that, indeed, I couldn't heal people, that I was still the sorcerer cursed with only spells that could damage foes but not those who could heal friends? I sighed once again, realizing that previously, I was only able to keep Tomoyo alive because of her own magic. I simply redirected her energy and conducted it back to her body.
I truly wished that I was gifted enough and openly warm enough, like Tomoyo Daidouji, to be able to heal someone else. Because then, perhaps I could have saved Kaho's relationship with me. I could have healed our pains, made us forget. It would be different from what Tomoyo did because with my strong magic, I would leave no trace behind, not like Tomoyo did. I could change society entirely according to my own will, define it with new rules that suited my lifestyle. I would be able to heal the world.
I was, after all, proclaimed the most powerful sorcerer of the world.
Ironically, I used my magic for nothing for gardening and trivial chores. Left with no one to duel, my once powerful and invincible magic, began to rot. But still, I was considered the greatest mage of my time because no one practiced curses anymore. Times had changed and people began investing more time and knowledge in what they called science, in subatomic researches, in more efficient manmade inventions, for useless things that could be easily done with magic. Ordinary people were sick of us magicians. They were sick that we could produce everything without much effort and be praised without working hard like they had to. Slowly, we were shunned away from society. Only those who were beneficial to society, like Tomoyo Daidouji, the healer, stayed public and offered her services willingly (although she had no clue she was actually abiding society's laws). Even Tomoyo, however, was bound to her practice forever, unable to escape her fate.
The newspapers, the media, and those same inspirational books and articles that I wrote were to inspire people to achieve personal freedom, limitless self-expression and yet, I was bound by the same damn rules that I argued against. I was forever to be a writer. A philosopher. A thinker. A magician. A recluse.
Suddenly, she stirred. Her right arm which previously sat beside her right thigh moved up to her stomach. She let out a soft moan, an almost sensual noise that shook me from my senses. This was innocent Tomoyo Daidouji, a woman in her early twenties, and a pure woman too. But somehow, I had never realized how pretty she was. Her raven hair fell lazily on the pillows and curved at the right spots, framing her small sophisticated face. Her eyes, although closed, emitted a strange aura of grace and wisdom. And her lips, her rose-purple lips, pouted slightly. She was the perfect image of a saintly young woman, a chaste, cautious, and caring woman, completely opposite to Kaho. Tomoyo was untouchable; the pure white light that sometime surrounded her when I pictured her in my mind often repelled me from her. Sometime, before I touch her, I wonder if a barrier might form around her body. I realized that it wouldn't be surprising if someone out there was looking for her, for a perfect daughter, a perfect girlfriend, or perhaps a prefect wife. But I chuckled to myself. Tomoyo Daidouji became my prisoner ever since she accepted to help Kaho and me.
I gazed at her pitifully again, blaming myself for hurting her over and over again. I reached out for her hand cautiously, not wanting to damage her porcelain skin. As our fingers met, a spark of warmth filled both our bodies. Her cheeks turned a healthy rose again while my heart finally began slowing down from what seemed an eternity ago. I closed my eyes and simply waited there, by Tomoyo's side. If I couldn't help Kaho, I told myself, I could at least help Tomoyo. Part of my mind sought to find Kaho's aura around the mansion while the rest of it redirected Tomoyo's healing power to the poor woman's body.
Her body temperature rose little by little, so slowly that even my keen magical sense couldn't detect the difference, but her skin color looked increasingly better as she turned from the ghostly gray to a healthy peach color.
Slowly, slumber consumed me for the better, as my heart finally came to its normal pace again. My worries about Kaho were all dissipated by my new concerns about Tomoyo. I could not have found a better distraction from contemplating about the special relationship that I had had and still had with Kaho. There were so many mysteries about Tomoyo that I could uncover. The curiosity sparked in me a new form of life, a quest for knowledge that hadn't be revived for perhaps a lifetime or two.
Then, I wondered. Perhaps, Tomoyo Daidouji was connected to my past lives too. After all, her name called out in a strange manner to me, just like how I was drawn to Kaho when we first met.
Author's Notes: Yes, I know. This chapter was crazy slow! I apologize if you don't appreciate description but it was a bit of a pain to write. But seriously, it takes a lot of words to describe Eriol's true feelings at the moment. I probably did repeat too many times the healing part but it's important – it links back to the first few sentences of the fic.
Anyhow, you guys have been great on the reviews lately! Thank you so much – they're making me update more often!
So, again, please review! Even a "update soon" is fine.
