A/N: Thank you so much for your support of the last chapter. What happened was already established in One Soul and the prologue of To the Beginning, but I was still a bit nervous that everyone would be upset with me... because, well, it was kind of upsetting. But you guys are amazing as always, and like Kurogane's mother you know there's meaning to everything, even this.
Just to keep everyone posted, this is the last chapter before the epilogue, BUT there is also a little treat coming your way after that. I'll talk about that next week, so stay tuned!
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Seventeen: To My Love
It was nearly impossible for Kurogane to take the moment his private grief became public. It was one thing to have Ashura-san and Taishakuten bring Ashura-chan and Yasha to stay with him at Yuuko's, and it didn't bother him so much that Watanuki had also returned to resume his old position of preparing their food, but it was hard to receive every person in the village one-by-one as they personally paid their respects. They each tried to be kind as they conveyed how sorry they were to lose Fai and how much they respected the relationship the two of them had shared, but Kurogane grew tired of summoning the energy to respond to their condolences and hide the full extent of his mourning from their prying eyes. It was moving to see how many people had truly cared for Fai, but all the same, he wished he could separate himself from everyone else, leaving the raw nakedness of his sorrow only for the memory of Fai to bear witness to.
The funeral ceremonies themselves were solemn and respectful, and Doumeki did his best not to draw them out for Kurogane's sake. Even if they were given a week to honor Fai's life, there would never be enough time to articulate what had really happened, all the beauty and pain of his childhood and the struggle to grow up and move forward after he had lost his faith in the future following the death of Yui. Doumeki also spared a few words to address the love Kurogane had carried for Fai, but even that was not enough to describe an emotion that had spanned thirty-nine years and defined everything that mattered in his life.
After Doumeki concluded the rituals and Kurogane once again had to endure the repeated exchange of condolences, Yuuko knelt down in front of him and took his hands, which for once he was too tired to push away. "Watanuki-kun will be preparing food to bring to your house for your family," she said softly. "I know you have not been in that house since Fai-kun died, so we will give you time to adjust yourself before we arrive. If it is absolutely necessary, the feast can be moved to my manor, but I do not recommend you hide from the memories in that house for any longer than necessary. That place is your home, and it will not be welcoming to you if you fear it."
Kurogane shook his head. "I'm not afraid of it," he muttered. "But..."
"But?"
"The family shrine... no one ever drew a portrait of that guy, did they? There's nothing I can put there when I get back other than his name."
"There is something," Yuuko corrected him. "It is an older picture, but one that should reflect who he was at a very important time in your life, the first years you lived together shortly after the flood. And I need not give it to you, since it's been in your possession ever since it was drawn."
"What are you talking about?" Kurogane grumbled, finally brushing her hands away. "Where would I have gotten something like that?"
"Fai-kun was unable to sew near the end of his life, but surely he kept the box where he stored his thread and tools. You will find what you are looking for in the box's bottom."
"Are you trying to tell me that he's had a picture of himself all this time that he's never shown me?"
"It's more complicated than that. You do remember that I asked Fai to sew his wedding kimono as one of the earliest pieces he'd ever made. It would have been difficult for him to attempt it without proper preparation and sketching."
"Yeah, yeah, I've seen his sketches before. But he only ever drew the kimono on its own."
"Normally, yes. But I hardly need to remind you of how important that particular fabric was to him." She rose to her feet. "But you'll see for yourself. And I look forward to seeing it again this evening, Kurogane-kun."
Yuuko walked away to retrieve Watanuki, and Ashura-chan took her place to help Kurogane to his feet.
"How are you feeling, kid?" Kurogane asked, noting Ashura's bloodshot golden eyes. "You haven't been looking too good."
"I look just about as bad as you, ojisan. Are you sure you don't want me to walk you back to the house?"
"If I can't do it myself, there's no point. You just let that quiet guy of yours take care of you and don't let those tears of yours be shed alone."
"And you?"
Kurogane shook his head. "I'm not alone either. That doesn't change so easily."
The walk back to his house seemed longer than he remembered it, but then again, he'd never been away from it for so many days, except when he'd been kept at Yuuko's with his fever. It felt odd to stand in front of it, to have it almost completely the same as he'd left but yet so terribly different. His hand remained frozen in front of the door, wanting to slide it open and bravely accept the silence waiting for him inside, but all the same hesitating, knowing that this, too, was a moment he could not turn back from.
He took a deep breath and pulled open the door. The table was bare and all the chairs remained empty, with only Kurogane's worn sun hat slung onto the backboard. Fai's spectacles were set on the family shrine, but other than that, there was no sign of him anywhere.
But he's here, Kurogane reminded himself. He knelt down to dig through the shelves until he found Fai's sewing box, unopened now for years. The clasp struggled to open, and once Kurogane forced it to unlatch, he saw that the box was sloppily strewn with swatches of leftover cloth, sheets of needles, and a tin full of pins. He emptied it item by item onto the floor until all that was left was a pile of papers covered in sketches and measurements and notes. Most Kurogane sorted through were familiar to him, and none seemed out of the ordinary. It wasn't until he made it through all the sketches from Reed-san's kimono that he came across the ones from the fabric he had purchased for Fai and saw what Yuuko had meant.
The first of the sketches was like the others, strewn with notes on the measurements Yuuko had left him and diagrams of where exactly the stitches should be on the garment. It was the second that was different. There were no details written on it, or even a hint of roughness or haste in the quality of the sketch. The kimono was rendered in intricate detail, down to the shading on the folds and how the pattern would fall with the kimono completed with its two wide sleeves and obi wound around the waist. But it was not the kimono that held Kurogane's eyes. It was the limber body the inked fabric covered, the beautifully translated figure of Fai reaching out in a moment of joy, his eyes bright and his hands pulling Kurogane in until he was completely lost inside him.
His hands shaking, Kurogane turned the drawing over. In Fai's tiny handwriting the words My wish for the precious gift from my love were written in a neat line, almost too small for Kurogane to make out. He almost didn't believe it when he scanned it for the first time. After all, Fai had been deeply in denial during those years, and had determinedly run away from Kurogane's love with all the fear inside of his heart. He hadn't even had any knowledge of the purpose for which the kimono had been intended, but still he had wished for it in secret, imagining himself accepting the happiness he thought he couldn't have.
Kurogane read the message over and over again, and then turned to study the drawing itself once more. Fai had always been a decent artist, but this was beyond anything Kurogane could have imagined him creating. It wasn't the lifelike quality of Fai's face and body that truly struck him, but rather the clarity with which Fai had captured his own soul, laying it so potently bare at a time when he hadn't even been able to confront it properly on his own.
He didn't have a frame for it at the moment, but he laid it on the family shrine, pinning it in place with Fai's spectacles. With the portrait set up beside Yui and his parents, Kurogane knew it was time to clean up the dust and prepare the house to receive guests, but all he could do was remain seated in front of the shrine, gazing into the eyes that held the quiet wish for the love Kurogane still felt in his heart, a love stronger than death and that knew no ending, even in spite of the silence of the new life he had come home to.
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Ashura-chan and Yasha were the first to arrive at the house. "Here," Yasha said, thrusting forward a bottle of sake. "We knew Watanuki-san was cooking, so we thought we could at least bring this."
"Thanks." Kurogane accepted the bottle and set it on the table. "Come on in. It's not very clean, but-"
"That's why I told you to let me come with you!" Ashura snatched up a cloth and began wiping down the table. "After what happened, no one expects you to be able to do everything all at once, ojisan."
"It's not all that dusty," Kurogane pointed out. "It's only been a few days."
"Just let me do something nice for you. I can't imagine how exhausted you must be, and you shouldn't have to extend yourself for as long as we're here."
"Better just give in," Yasha advised. "Yuuko-san's already told us that you haven't been eating and sleeping properly for months, so you're going to have to let us take care of you until you build up your strength."
"It's not because we're trying to baby you," Ashura cut in when Kurogane snorted in protest. "It's our way of saying 'thank you.' Yuuko-san also told us that the doctor didn't think Fai-ojisan would be able to go on for as long as he did, and that it was because you did so much for him that he was able to hold on. You've exhausted yourself enough. Now it's time for us to give back to you."
Another rap came on the side of the house, and Ashura-san and Taishakuten stepped in, each carrying an additional bottle of sake. "We figured if Yuuko-san was coming, you'd need more than just one bottle," Ashura said. "Please accept these, Kurogane-kun."
"Yeah, yeah. And don't you two try to clean up or anything. Just take a seat and don't exert yourself."
"Just because we're older than you doesn't mean we're going to keel over this second," Taishakuten said, digging through the shelves with Ashura for bowls and plates to set up on the table. "You're the one who needs to sit down, kid."
"He's right, you know," Ashura added. "Fai would never forgive us if we intruded on your grief and then made you do all the work on top of it."
"Actually, he might think it was funny," Ashura-chan corrected him. "He always said it was so cute whenever Kurogane-ojisan did domestic things."
"Oi," Kurogane objected, but another knock on the house interrupted him. This time Doumeki and Watanuki came through the door, Doumeki armed with two bottles of sake and Watanuki struggling to carry his bento boxes and ingredients.
"Please accept," Doumeki said, handing Kurogane the drinks. "Watanuki, start cooking."
"I was going to even if you didn't tell me to, idiot," Watanuki snapped. "Kurogane-san, I'll take over making food for everyone, so just sit back. Doumeki, don't just stand there! Help out with something."
"I'll help out with the eating," he said, but nonetheless gave Watanuki a hand piling logs on the hearth and lighting the fire.
"You guys.. you're being annoying," Kurogane grumbled. They shrugged innocently, and Yasha pulled up a chair and gently nudged Kurogane into it.
"You're the one being annoying," Yuuko announced, waddling into the room as she tried to hold on to her armful of sake bottles. "You could have at least left the window open."
"No one other than you would use the window. And it's too cold for that right now."
"So let's warm up!" Yuuko dropped her bottles on the table beside the others. "Now this is nice. I wasn't expecting there to be so many."
"At this rate, there's going to be more alcohol than food," Watanuki pointed out. "I could go back and get more ingredients, but..."
"Not necessary. This feast is in honor of Fai, and if he was here, we all know what he'd do. Right, Kurogane?"
Kurogane sighed. "He'd get drunk," he said. "And act like an idiot all night."
"And doesn't that sound like something good right about now?"
Ashura, Taishakuten, Yasha, Ashura-chan, and Doumeki gathered around the table, pouring out cups of sake to go around. Kurogane took a long sip from his, enjoying the sharp bite of the alcohol and the way it burned his throat. His first kiss with Fai had tasted like this, as had the one he'd given the moment after they had been married and sealed the union between them. It surprised him somewhat how painless it was to remember. It was not the past that troubled him, after all. Nothing could take away from the happiness he remembered, or flaw the memories he treasured most.
It was quiet for a time as they each sipped their drinks and Watanuki put together their meal. Even Yuuko was silent, trailing her finger in loops around the rim of her cup and gazing back and forth between all the people assembled in front of her.
"I've been wondering something," Ashura said suddenly, directing his eyes towards Yuuko. "You seem to know quite a bit about the future, Yuuko-san. That's part of the reason Clow-san brought you here."
"I know only what I am able to see in dreams, and only what the direction of people's actions show me," she replied. "And Clow didn't bring me here. I came here of my own will, and even if he had asked me, that would not have been the reason."
"In any case, you must know. Is there only one?"
"One?"
"One future."
Yuuko tilted her head. "What do you think the answer to that question is, Ashura-san?"
"I wonder. I did not live in this village before Fai and Yui arrived here with their mother. She did not even ask me to come join her, since I was from her husband's family, and not her own. It was because I had a feeling that something bad was going to happen to her children that I moved to be beside them. And when she passed away so soon, I was certain I had made the right decision."
"And do you think now that you were wrong?"
"I cannot help but think so, sometimes. In choosing to leave behind my village, I also chose to leave behind the people in it." His eyes strayed to Taishakuten. "I chose to give Fai and Yui the future I thought they needed, one with a mother who would stand in the place of the one they had lost, and a family where they would not have to be alone. But this choice only set in motion the events in which Yui would be lost... perhaps the ill fortune I perceived was because I made that choice in an attempt to change the future."
"It was inevitable that you would make that choice, given who you are," Yuuko said. "Perhaps that is why many believe the future is one. The person you are is exposed to any number of choices, but your soul is bound to respond in certain ways in accordance with its nature and desires. But think for a moment of the future you did not choose. Do you truly believe it would have kept those boys perfectly from ill fortune? Their mother still would have died, and instead of remaining in this village, they would have been moved to yours. It is likely that Fai would have lost contact with Kurogane, and would have never been blessed with all the happiness knowing that person gave him at that time in his life. And it is also likely that you would have still seen virtue in providing those boys with a mother. You would have married Shashi all the same, brought life to your child, and Yui would have still been brought under Shashi's influence. The survival of Yui and yourself and the child would have been variable given the brokenness of Shashi's mental state, but had something happened to Yui, I doubt anyone would have been able to keep Fai from killing himself without Kurogane in the picture."
Yuuko took a long gulp from her drink and then slammed it down. "In a way, there may only be one future," she continued. "Our souls are bound to certain people and certain desires, and even if we are thrown into a situation time and time again, it is likely we will repeatedly make the same choices that feel right to us. But this 'one future' hinges on each individual person behaving at all times in the way that is expected of them, never veering from their single path or for a single moment hesitating at a key moment. Perhaps this is the case, but I would be surprised if every soul in existence would be willing to be bound in such a way, given what I know of souls. The wish of a human heart is a very powerful thing, more powerful than even the path of the future."
The group fell silent again after she had spoken. Watanuki quietly filled their plates with food, and they each continued to eat and drink, dwelling on their own private thoughts.
"Oi," Kurogane said finally. "No matter how often you think of going back and changing things, it doesn't matter. He had the life he wanted. In spite of everything, he was happy."
"I never thought when I first saw him that a person devoid of all happiness could ever smile again," Yasha said. "But when I saw him next, it was as if he had transformed completely. We should not regret the path the world took, if he was able to reach that point."
Ashura-chan nodded. "And ojisan was always the most beautiful when he was smiling. Even when things got difficult, because Kurogane-ojisan was at his side, he was never as sad as he could have been. He would have never wanted us to regret the decisions we made because of him."
"He would have been happy enough just to have us all here together," Doumeki said.
"And even happier that Kurogane-san is here and able to remember him happily," Watanuki concluded.
"Speaking as someone who also considered Fai to be a precious friend, that is what matters at this very moment over everything else," Yuuko said with a smile. She refilled her glass and lifted it up, gesturing for a toast. "To Fai. To the beautiful person we remember in the past, the person who lingers in our hearts in the present, and the person who will watch over us as we build a future that he can be proud of. Kampai!"
They clinked their glasses together and drank deeply, each thinking to themselves of the smile that had graced their lives, a smile that had been lost too soon but still shone with all its life and radiance in a place deep within their hearts.
0o0o0o0o0o0o
An hour later and the feast had descended into madness. Watanuki, as always, was the first to be affected by the liquor, and began to berate both Doumeki and Yuuko about all the cooking they had made him do in his lifetime and that they should all be bowing down to him and calling him "Watanuki-sama." He was then shortly joined by Ashura-chan, who decided the only way to calm Watanuki down was to explain all the reasons why he was blessed to find such an honorable calling as a housewife. This somehow led to Yuuko and Taishakuten exchanging dirty jokes which Ashura-san listened to with a wide-eyed solemnity. Doumeki remained fairly calm, but every once in awhile muttered something under his breath about aprons.
Kurogane was just as drunk as the rest of them, but was somehow able to stay afloat, watching the scenes unfolding before him distantly, as if through a mirror. He knew Fai would love such a show, and would have gladly participated in it himself, purring like a cat or coiling himself into Kurogane's arms even with everyone there watching them. But more than anything, he would have been so happy to see, as Doumeki had mentioned, his family and friends together, healing each other's pain without having to do it alone.
Kurogane turned his head and looked back at the drawing of Fai still resting on the family shrine. Perhaps that was not the only gift he had left behind when he'd passed; perhaps what he'd truly left behind were a group of people who had been touched and brought together because of him, a family that had not been lost simply because he was gone. Kurogane smiled to himself. It was so like him. Fai hadn't been alone when he had nearly lost everything, and there was no way he would ever want Kurogane to be.
In a few more hours, everything quieted down. Watanuki fell asleep with his face buried in Doumeki's robes, and Ashura-chan and Yasha's long, dark hair pooled together where they had both dozed off on the floor. Ashura-san and Taishakuten were at least covered by a blanket they had dug up, but even they had fallen asleep rather haphazardly for two people their age. Only Yuuko hadn't curled up on the floor to rest. She'd simply taken her sake outside and sat staring at the sky, raising her glass up towards the quarter moon, oblivious to even the bite of the cold wind and slowly falling rain.
Kurogane stumbled into the room he had shared with Fai, staring at the bed that they had slept in every night together, even back in the days when they had been unable to confess their love. It felt strange to slide into it alone, with no hands there to reach out and tangle against his body, no eager lips to seek out his skin and tease him into abandoning all thoughts of sleep. Even though he couldn't have these simple pleasures anymore, there was meaning in the fact that he had had them once, whether it was because of an inevitable future, an outcome of actions taken, or simply because his soul was inherently drawn to Fai's for some great purpose or another. He'd spent so much of his life longing for the one memory he'd forgotten, the very instant it had all started, but what mattered most were all of the thousand of moments he had gotten to keep, imprinted on every inch of the house, from the frame of their bed to the floors where the people Fai had loved were now resting. He remembered everything that had happened, from the early days when Fai had been the only one so desperately in love, to the time when he had been the one chasing after Fai, deliberately avoided until the wall between them had crumbled. I'm not alone either. That doesn't change so easily.
As his eyes gradually closed, overcome by the need to sleep, Kurogane extended his hand and reached out to the place beside him in bed, drawing it closer and pressing it to his beating heart.
0o0o0o0o0o0o
In the morning, everyone woke up with a hangover and found that their resolve to be as useful as possible to Kurogane suddenly wavering. Watanuki got saddled with cleanup duty while Doumeki left to tend to his duties at the shrine, and Taishakuten and Ashura-san returned to Yuuko's to get some proper rest. Yuuko herself had left earlier in the morning, ordering Yasha and Ashura-chan to go ahead of her and purchase a special hangover remedy from the doctor.
As soon as the house was emptied out, Kurogane pulled a cushion from one of the chairs and set it down in front of the family shrine. Over night, Fai's portrait had been placed in an iron frame patterned like butterfly wings and moved to the forefront of the shrine. Kurogane knelt down on the cushion and clapped his hands together, bowing his head.
"Hey," he said quietly. "You can hear this, right? You're not going anywhere without me." He reached out his hand and gingerly touched Fai's drawn face, a wavering smile settling on his lips. "You're still here."
He closed his eyes, feeling a core of warmth diffusing within him in spite of the coldness in the room and the numbness still as of yet straying a little too close to his heart. He couldn't quite call himself happy, but he could also no longer feel himself helpless. There was still life to be lived and still a future to be written. When everything was said and done, there was no doubt in his mind that they would be together once again.
"I promised you forever," he said once he'd opened his eyes again. "I'll give it to you. I'll take you there."
The image of Fai remained smiling radiantly to his love, extending two arms forward, reaching out to bring him to the next steps, to forever, to the future.
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