Author's Note: Hello! I know some of you guys have been asking when the story might get a little happier. Well, at the end of this chapter one of the characters comes to a turning point, so you might be able to expect a brighter horizon soon. Thank you for all of the wonderful feedback. I really appreciate it and I hope you guys enjoy the chapter!

Chapter 15

"And I'm staring down the barrel of a 45"—Shinedown.

"What are you planting?"

"Leeks," Yuki said. He looked up from the soil he was tending. Ayame stood just outside of the square of earth reserved for Tohru's plants in tan, draw-string khakis and a long sleeved white shirt. He held a white canvas bag and a pair of sunglasses were pushed up into his hair like a headband.

"Oh, and here I thought you were planting something romantic," Ayame said. "Can you take a break, or are you at a crucial moment in your planting?"

Yuki rolled his eyes and removed his large gardening gloves. He settled them on the dirt and stood. "Yes, Nisan, what is it?"

"Well, the agent I've decided to work with has found a potential buyer for the house already. It's a young couple with a child. They seem like very nice people, but I wasn't expecting for anyone to respond to the prospect of the house being on the market so soon. I thought it would take months. It's much too soon to speak to Kyo about this, but these buyers might be the kind of people Kyo would want to live in this house. I want to meet with them, and… I'd like for you to come with me."

Yuki stared. "What? Nisan, you're much better with people than me. I don't see why…."

"You'll best be able to determine if these people are people Kyo will like," Ayame said.

"Whether I like them or not will not mean Kyo will be ready to move out of his house for these people to move in," Yuki said. "Your first instincts were right; it's too soon, much too soon."

"Well, the Nakamura family doesn't want to move in immediately. The only reason why the real estate agent even considered them and contacted me was because the family would be looking to move-in six months from now."

"That could still be too soon, Nisan. We don't even know if Kyo's going to stick with his decision to sell the house. He's been changing his mind so much lately," Yuki said. Kyo hadn't wanted to look at photo albums after the funeral, now—only three days later—he lay in bed thumbing through the same volumes over and over. He hadn't wanted to sleep in his and Tohru's bed, and now he wouldn't leave the room.

"He's grieving and ill. He can't think clearly, but when he's feeling better I think he'll still want to sell this house, or lease it," Ayame said. "The family is willing to lease the house with hopes of eventually buying."

"I don't want to get these people's hopes up, and I'm not telling Kyo about this," Yuki said firmly. "Nisan, you'll just have to tell the agent 'no'."

Ayame sighed and played with his sunglasses. "I think we'd be passing up a good thing."

"If it's that good, the people will be willing to wait until Kyo himself wants to talk about selling his house to them," Yuki said. "It's great that you've gotten this real estate thing in motion, Nisan, but you're going too fast. Take a break."

"Little Brother, I'm only going to be here for three more days. I don't want to leave things so unfinished," Ayame said, sounding sad. "I know I can keep making plans and deals over the phone, but it's so much easier to do these things while I'm here."

"You've done more than enough Nisan," Yuki said. "You've been amazing. I couldn't have asked anyone else to do better." He squinted at Ayame; the daylight set his pale skin and hair aglow. He looked like a celestial being, which was what he'd been for the past few weeks. "Thank you, Nisan." Yuki hugged Ayame and felt his brother stiffen in surprise before loosening and hugging Yuki back.

Yuki couldn't remember the last time he'd initiated a hug between himself and Ayame. Ayame usually grabbed him; Yuki didn't need to put any work into it. "You always come through."

Ayame patted Yuki's back and stepped away. He looked upwards for a second, then back at Yuki, biting his lip. "Yuki, I want to ask you something else."

Yuki frowned. Ayame was fidgeting with his hands and shuffling his feet. He realized that he'd never seen his brother look nervous before; it was a bit unsettling. He hadn't already set up an appointment with that family had he?

"Go on."

"After this—this tragedy, I've realized that life's too short and anything can happen," Ayame said slowly. "I've been putting it off and making excuses, but Little Brother, it's time that I ask for Mine's hand. I want to be married in the summer, and I want—will you be my best man?"

Yuki almost stumbled a step backward. "Nisan, me? Not Shigure or Hatori—me? Are you sure?"

Ayame beamed. "Of course, it is my dream to have you stand next to me like I hope I can stand next to you. But I know you have many close friends, so I don't expect to be the best man at your wedding."

Yuki blinked in surprise. He hadn't even thought about a best man. He'd supposed it would be Kakeru, but after this—he wanted it be Kyo, but… Ayame was his brother. Damn, yet another decision to make.

"But I am planning your wedding after all, Little Brother. You can have two best men, or three! It will be sensational," Ayame said, beam growing wider. He eclipsed the sun when he got excited like that.

"What about your own wedding? What will you plan for it?" Yuki asked, curious. If Yuki's wedding was going to look like a white bomb went off, what was Ayame's wedding going to look like?

"Oh, it'll be a small, intimate affair. Mine talks a little about the wedding she wanted to have when she was a little girl sometimes. She knew she wanted to be a designer when she started setting up her dream wedding for her dolls. Little outdoor events with gazebos threaded with lilacs and the ocean as a backdrop. She only had enough little wicker chairs for twelve, and so her dolls would only tell their most special people that they were getting married."

Only twelve chairs: that meant only six chairs for Ayame and six for Mine. "Nisan, what about our family? Twelve chairs won't seat all of them, and then there's Mine's family to consider."

"Which is why our wedding will be a private affair; not exactly an elopement because we will tell the people we want to join us what we're doing, but for the most part, not many people will know that we're even engaged."

Yuki thought about that, a small wedding, limited family, limited décor, limited stress. "That's brilliant Nisan! I think that you should plan the same kind of wedding for me."

"Oh don't be ridiculous, Yuki! You're much too popular for a private affair! Haha! Why your guest list shall be spectacular. I should get started on it soon. Oh, the invitations will be marvelous and elegant and the talk of the town."

"Nisan?"

"Yes, dear brother?" Ayame stopped gushing and clasped his hands together.

"Why are you downplaying your own wedding?" Yuki asked. Ayame should want to throw a big sparkling wedding for himself. Why was he pushing it on Yuki instead?

Ayame looked startled, before recovering, his smile wavering. "I'm not…."

"You are," Yuki said. "Why are you trying to live vicariously through my wedding? You know I don't like big deals done in my honor. What's really wrong, Nisan? Why do you want to do this, aside from wanting to make my dress?"

Ayame sighed and shrugged. "There's nothing wrong, Yuki; I just… I don't think many people would show up for my wedding if I had an extravagant affair." His golden eyes were bright. "My only friends are Hatori, Shigure, Ritsu, Mine and you. Hatori can bring Mayu-chan, and you may bring Machi, and if Kyo would honor me with his presence I would like him there as well. Mine only wants to invite her parents; her sister will be her maid of honor."

"You mean that your only close friends are us; you have plenty of other people to invite who'd love to come and support you," Yuki said. Ayame attracted people; they were intrigued by his eccentricities.

Ayame gave a sad chuckle. "I annoy more people than I endear I'm afraid, but thank you for believing that about me. I don't mind. So many people worry about not knowing who their real friends are, with me, I've always known, and it is very special to me that you all be the ones to share the day with me."

"And just how many 'real' friends do you think I have, Nisan?" Yuki asked.

Ayame smiled. "More than you know, Little Brother. Do not worry. You'll enjoy the wedding. I know what I'm doing."

And after the wake and funeral, and the real estate agent, and dealing with mother and father on Yuki's behalf, he couldn't doubt that Ayame knew what he was doing. "Of course you do, Nisan."

Ayame ruffled his hair and pressed a kiss to his brow. "You're so cute. Now, go back to your leek-planting. I have to call the agent about the family."

Yuki bit his lip on that. "Uh…."

Ayame glanced at him. "Don't call the agent right away," Yuki said slowly. "Let me think about it some more, okay?"

"Are you sure?" Ayame asked. "Because this is a beautiful place; someone else will come along who will be just as good as this family. You're right that we don't have to hurry into this."

Yuki sighed and nodded. "I'm sure. Just… give me a day, and I'll tell you what I think, then."

Ayame ruffled his hair again with a fond smile. "Thank you, Little Brother."

Ayame went into the house, closing the door behind him. Yuki looked down at his dirt- streaked jeans and filthy shirt. He loved working with his hands when he was frustrated, or sad, or nervous, or procrastinating, or avoiding things. He was all of those things right now. It was hard to be inside that heavy house. Every time he went inside it felt like a curtain of rock was crushing him to the floor. Machi said she understood how he felt, but how could she really? He let her kiss him and hold him at night, he let her tempt him with food and tell him funny stories. She had even gone out and bought a scrapbook. There were no pictures, and she didn't want to take any pictures now, in Maizuru. It had to be bad luck to start your first scrapbook out with death and sadness.

Yuki went back down into the dirt to finish his planting. Machi was leaving tomorrow, and he had no idea of when to tell her he'd be coming home. He didn't want to talk to Kyo about Tokyo right now, not while he was sick, and crying off and on, and unwilling to eat. He imagined Kyo curled up in a ball on his and Tohru's bed, hugging her pillow that he'd wrapped one of her scarves around. Hatori didn't leave the house. He sent Machi out to buy things, because she said she didn't mind, and because Yuki didn't feel like leaving the house and interacting with the outside world. He liked the bubble he was in. He didn't have to talk to anyone he didn't want to, he didn't have to explain to anyone what happened or how he felt or why he was staying when everyone else was leaving.

Yuki patted the dirt. He and Machi would buy a house after they were married, one with a yard where he could start a garden. They'd take all sorts of pictures of them moving in and of Yuki's first breaking of the dirt. Their scrapbook would mark the beginning of their life as a unit. He'd never be able to forget anything. He dug another hole, flinging the dirt, not caring where it went. If they had kids—gods kids!—they would start a new scrapbook for each of them. He didn't bother planting another seed; he went on to digging the next hole, stabbing deep into the ground.

Would Kyo start new scrapbooks? Would he take pictures of himself at his dojo on his first day back to work without Tohru? Would he take pictures of a new general manager of The Rice Ball? Would he take pictures of the people he sold his house to—of him moving away?

Who'd want to remember that?

And if there was a new wife one day, what would Kyo do with all of his old scrapbooks? Would he hide them, Tohru, away? The garden became a mess of holes and loose dirt. Yuki smeared mud across his forehead and stared at the dirt under his nails. He'd forgotten to put his gloves back on. Shaking his head his rose, his knees knocked together slightly, and he remembered the lunch Machi had put out, but that he hadn't eaten.

He trudged into the kitchen, leaving his dirty boots outside the backdoor. Kyo sat at the kitchen table alone, a yellow letter box with cartoon butterflies and caterpillars glued to it sat in front of him, opened. He read a long letter, multiple pale pink pages spread out at his finger tips. The print was neat, feminine, with loopy letters and circles with smiley faces for dots. Tohru's writing. A box of tissue was in his lap.

"H—hi," Yuki greeted him. He hadn't spoken to Kyo that day, though he'd peeked in on him. He just didn't have much to say to his cousin, and knew Kyo would get tired of Yuki staring at him without words after a while.

Kyo glanced up at him through weary eyes. "Yo." His voice was a croak. Hatori had labeled Kyo's sickness as a conglomerate of illnesses: a bad cold, exhaustion, malnutrition, depression, dehydration, and just not giving a damn.

"Fever all gone?" Yuki asked. He would have touched Kyo's forehead, but his hands were disgusting.

"Yeah," Kyo said, "just needed water." He went back to his reading, a slight smile gracing his lips. He shook his head several times and murmured to himself. His finger caressed each page before pushing it aside for the next.

Yuki stood feeling awkward and curious. What had Tohru written and was her letter to Yuki in that box? "Ah… are those all of Tohru's letters?"

"Not all of them, but yeah, these are the ones she told you about," Kyo said. He paused in his reading and fished a thick, sky blue envelope out. "Here."

Yuki held out his hands, splaying his fingers to show Kyo how dirty he was. "I need a bath. I'll—um—come out and read with you in a bit. Are you going through things today?"

Kyo rubbed his eyes. "I don't know what I'm doing."

"Oh." Yuki shuffled his feet. "Well, I'll be back in a bit, okay?" He left the kitchen thinking about Tohru's message to him…and to Kyo. What was he reading that made him smile?

Yuki took his time in the bathroom, not in a hurry to return to the kitchen. An hour passed before he padded back to the table. Kyo still sat, but reading another letter, this one on aqua green paper. The other letter had been placed back inside the box. Yuki smelled chicken broth and seasoning, and there was a silver pot on the stove. Was Hatori making dinner, or was Kyo?

"Kyo, are you cooking?" Yuki asked softly, not wanting to startle his cousin.

"No," Kyo said. "Your brother is."

Yuki blinked. Ayame was cooking? "Oh." He couldn't force enthusiasm into his voice. "He uh…put soup together?"

"He's heating up Mrs. Todou's soup. Hatori said she came this morning," Kyo said. He flipped the page he was reading over. Yuki sat down next to him, fingers moving to the blue envelope Kyo had left out for him.

"Have you had any?" Yuki asked, slowly opening the letter. The powder blue pages inside were unlined and soft.

"A little," Kyo said. A little usually meant a spoonful or two.

"Will you have some more with me later?" Yuki asked.

Kyo sighed. "I don't know." He rested his hand on top of the page he was reading and shut his eyes. "What did I do to make her love me so much?"

"You were yourself," Yuki said.

"She forgave me for everything I did," Kyo said. He folded the letter he was reading and put it away. He stared at his hands. "Even though I never did. Did you know that I could have saved her mom, Ms. Kyoko?"

Yuki stared at Kyo. His pale face was lost in some distant memory.

"The day Ms. Kyoko got hit by that car I was there. I could have grabbed her, pulled her back to the curb. I saw that car coming. But had I done that, she would have crashed into me, and I would have changed in front of all of those people. So, I just watched."

Yuki's heart clenched.

"It was so awful, and after that I hated myself even more than I already did and I ran away for a long time."

The time Kyo had spent in the mountains fighting bears.

"When I told Tohru, I thought she'd hate me, too, but she didn't."

"Kyo, you knew all about Ms. Kyoko, but you pretended not to all that time?" Yuki asked.

Kyo shrugged. "I didn't want to talk about it. I didn't want to stay with you guys. There was so much I didn't want and couldn't face. It was why I was so angry all the time, well, angrier. I was this walking black hole and she filled me in. If it hadn't been for her, I think—I think I might have…followed my mom. It would have been too easy, and I wanted something to be easy for once."

He looked at Yuki with large, shadowed eyes. "The hole's back."

Yuki felt like someone had pushed him off a cliff. He was falling without a parachute or rope and there was no safety net. "Kyo… do you…."

"I hear her voice in my dreams, calling me. I wish…."

Yuki clutched his letter, staring hard at his cousin as his cousin concentrated on his clasped hands. "What do you wish?"

"I wish she'd taken me with her."

(~*~)

"He needs to see a counselor, Hatori," Ayame said. "You're not enough."

"I know, Ayame, but he doesn't want to. We can't force him to talk to someone when he doesn't want to; it will do him no good," Hatori said.

Yuki listened to the argument. He stood with his back against the frame of Kyo's open door. His cousin was asleep; his congested snores let Yuki know he was still breathing. After Yuki had convinced Kyo to eat a little more soup and go to bed, he'd raced to find Hatori and Ayame and repeated Kyo's wish.

"Hatori, I'm leaving in 3 days. Can you and Kazuma handle everything on your own?" Ayame asked. "I won't be able to return for at least a week and a half."

"We'll be fine Ayame," Hatori said.

"I hate this Hatori," Ayame said; he spoke in an unusual register. Was he crying? Yuki frowned, moving through the hallway to the den. He looked in to see Ayame sitting on the couch staring up at Hatori, who'd removed his glasses and was massaging the bridge of his nose.

"Everyone hates it," Hatori said. "But we'll get through it. Don't worry so much. You just go home, take care of Mine, and the real estate and your business."

"Hatori, I'd feel better if Mayu was still here. And with Machi leaving tomorrow, who's going to make sure Yuki's not overdoing it? He thinks he's responsible for Kyo," Ayame said. "If anything…happens… he'll think it's his fault."

"Nothing will happen on my watch, Ayame. Kyo is going to be okay," Hatori said.

"I don't see how he can be," Ayame said. "If Mine wasted away in front of me like that, I'd die."

Yuki's eyes filled and his stomach ached. He backed out of the room, returning to stand in Kyo's open doorway to watch him sleep. Not on my watch, Kyo.

Tohru's letter to him was in his back pocket, burning into his backside. He extracted it and slid down the door frame, staring at it, before pulling the blue pages out.

Help me, Tohru. Please, help me.

He began to read.

Shinedown. "45." Leave a Whisper. Atlantic, 2004. CD.

Author's Note: So, what's the verdict? Like it? Hate it? Don't care about it either way? Well, any way you liked it, let me know. Please review!