[fic] [yst] At the Stars 11/?
1. edited a few words in the last chapter. i decided a little late to make them all use right-hand drive XD;
2. this turned out shorter than i expected. sorry for the lack of seiji here, lyntek! i promise to make up for it!
3. in case you haven't read it yet, inviting you to read this gorgeous poem by richard siken. this particular stanza, you might find, is especially relevant to the current chapter:
You're in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won't tell you that he loves you, but he loves you. And you feel like you've done something terrible, like robbed a liquor store, or swallowed pills, or shoveled yourself a grave in the dirt, and you're tired. You're in a car with a beautiful boy, and you're trying not to tell him that you love him, and you're trying to choke down the feeling, and you're trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you've discovered something you didn't even have a name for.
siken tag @ greatpoets. my other favorites are a primer for the small weird loves and scheherazade.
4. unrelated: a Stare of particular significance to no one but myself (and a Danna):
...someone tell me why don't i have a sengoku basara tag yet?
At the Stars
Part 11
In the morning, when Ryo came in for Seiji's routine tests and medications, he found Seiji lying awake. Touma was on his side - still in the clothes he wore home last night, on Seiji's bed, fast asleep.
Seiji wordlessly gestured for Ryo to take him outside, and Ryo obliged. Even when Seiji's weight had left the bed, Touma didn't stir.
Ryo lingered for a second, looking down at Touma, with Seiji in his arms. Seiji looked up at him, registering the pensive look he saw on his friend's face.
As Ryo was setting Seiji carefully down on the couch, he asked "What happened to him?"
Seiji shook his head. Ryo nodded. He started the routine pre-breakfast tests, looking grim, as if he were struggling to keep more questions from rising to the surface.
But as it often was with Ryo, the questions won. "Did it look like a fight? Or an accident?"
Seiji thought about it. "Not a fight," he eventually said. But as he could offer no additional wisdom, he said no more.
Touma woke up at around 11 AM. And even when he did, he did not immediately get out of the room. Ryo found out because it was nearing lunchtime and he had to see if Touma was awake. Otherwise his share of the meal was going into the fridge again.
He was sitting on the edge of Seiji's bed, inspecting the wound under his previously bandaged upper arm. His shirt and soiled wrappings lay on the floor. A large, freshly sewn-up gash glared at Ryo from that side of the room, like an unwanted visitor determined to make trouble.
Ryo strode over to Touma, not certain what to do. His first impulse was to show his alarm - but he caught himself as soon as he remembered that alarm could be parsed as anger and that might not be a very good thing to show a person who had just awoken from a possibly traumatic night.
What he did was sit at the edge of Touma's bed, beside Seiji's, so he and Touma could face each other. Touma looked up at him, but did not look him in the eye. "So..." Ryo began.
"The car," Touma said without further prompting. "I crashed it. So now we have no car." He pretended to inspect his wound some more. "That's going to be a problem..."
"How did you crash it?"
"How does anyone crash cars? Bad driving." He flinched when he touched a spot on his skin near the gash. "I was going too fast... trying to overtake this big truck. I didn't see the curve in the road..."
"You didn't have to hurry," Ryo admonished. "Seiji wouldn't have liked it if you'd come home minus an arm."
Touma stretched his lips into a mirthless smile. "I'm a doctor, remember? I could've sewn it back on."
The wound on his arm may have looked bad, but it wasn't deep, Touma assured Ryo: nothing broken, no lasting damage. The people at the hospital he had checked himself into had wanted him to stay for observation, but he knew better than they did about where he needed to spend the night.
He'd also removed the bandage taped over his right eye, and while his eye was partly shut, it seemed generally unhurt; there was instead a small, but rather deep cut over his eyebrow. Touma didn't seem concerned about that particular wound. Or about the bruises and smaller cuts his body had apparently sustained. Angry slices of red and patches of black and blue stood out on his pale skin.
Ryo couldn't help remembering the cut on the lip he'd given Touma several weeks back, and realizing that it looked like it had hurt Touma more than these newer wounds did.
"I need to clean up," Touma observed aloud. "Please have the antiseptic and the bandages ready for when I come out of the shower."
"I will," Ryo answered. "But... talk to me first. Where did the accident happen? Where's the car now?"
Touma sighed. He looked at Ryo, for a second as if contemplating telling him the truth. And the truth seemed painful - more painful than bearing up under Ryo's searching gaze.
Then he said: "Tell me about the hyena again."
Wounded or not, Ryo had to reach over, intending to slap him upside the head for that one. But instead his hand froze just as it was about to make contact with Touma's head.
It snaked round the back of his neck and pulled Touma forward, pulling Ryo forward and off his seat as well.
Ryo didn't really know what he had wanted to happen. Only, their foreheads touched lightly and afterwards, all he wanted to do was close his eyes.
How do I even start taking care of you?
But it didn't take very long before Touma tensed up and said "Ow."
Ryo let go abruptly and fell back onto his seat. Touma's fingertips rose to the cut that must not have liked having contact with Ryo's perpetually fevered skin all that much.
"Sorry," Ryo mumbled. To his surprise, Touma chuckled, clearly embarrassed.
"All right," Touma declared, "in lieu of hyena story, that will do." He pushed himself off the bed and made his way to the shower. Ryo found himself staring at the bruises along the right side of Touma's back. He was going to need help applying medicine to that.
Since the accident, it seemed as if Touma had become bolder with expressing himself, and less obsessed with the facts and figures of Seiji's health. Ryo noticed this instantly. Normally Touma would be isolating himself somewhere in the apartment, perhaps at the kitchen table or on the floor of the library, poring over Seiji's charts and his own notes.
And normally, Touma would be limiting his movements around Seiji, keeping a cold distance as he went about his duties as a physician. He would be careful, lest Ryo suspect that he was being anything but professional in his routines.
Not this time.
This time he held Seiji's hand, even if he knew Ryo was around to see it. He wrapped his arms around Seiji from behind while they were all out at the balcony, seated on a spare mattress and taking turns with the telescope Ryo had bought. He leaned in to say something softly into Seiji's ear and smiled when Seiji whispered something back. He never did more than touch his lips to Seiji's hair in Ryo's presence, but the way he looked at Seiji was more than enough.
Ryo could never watch it too long. It made him feel like he was intruding. Like he should never have offered to stay.
Like he would give anything to be looked at that way, by anyone.
But Touma hardly looked at him at all. Every day he patiently assisted Touma in tending his wounds, and all the while Touma spoke to him without holding his gaze for longer than a second.
Touma never did say where the car got into an accident. When Ryo brought it up, he dismissed the issue by saying everything had been taken care of. With the kind of beating his car took, it was going to be cheaper to get a new car, so he wasn't going to bother trying to get the old one fixed. And he gave his word that he wasn't leaving home while he was still healing up. That was all Ryo needed to know.
On the other hand, all Touma needed to know was that there were sweets in the house. Some well-meaning neighbors had dropped them off, Ryo reported; they should get around to thanking them at one point. "What for?" Touma said around a mouthful of cream puff. Seiji and Ryo looked at each other and decided he should be left out of any further discussion regarding the matter.
Ryo didn't want to ask too many questions, or demand too much. It was only good to have Touma home. It was good to see him happy - because if he was happy, Seiji was happy. And that was all that Ryo needed.
Touma no longer scribbled down notes. Instead, whenever he had time to himself, he stared into empty space, his brow knitted in concentration, looking as he did when he was studying materials he could hold in his hands. Ryo wondered at first if he should find this alarming... if it meant he had stopped developing Seiji's medications. But he recalled what Yayoi had said after reading Touma's research material: he had done everything humanly possible for Seiji. Maybe there was simply nothing new to write down.
Now and then Shuu came to visit. The first time, Shuu came alone, to say he was sorry he couldn't visit Seiji at the hospital.
Touma asked about the illness that had detained Shuu and then proceeded to dispense unwanted medical advice, which Shuu made light of until his absence from Seiji's bedside wasn't even worth discussing anymore.
"My right leg felt numb all of a sudden," Shuu told them, "and the feeling just sort of... spread. Didn't have a fever, but couldn't get out of bed. Touma says it was just fatigue, so I don't have to worry."
It was nothing like Seiji's disease, Touma had assured Shuu. It was not likely to recur. Maybe he had just been on his feet too long. After all, overseeing the day-to-day affairs of a chain of high-traffic food establishments is not a task for the weak of legs.
Shuu was easy enough to convince. He was eager to move on to other things that interested him more. Like how Touma's research was going and how his younger siblings were all growing up so fast and getting boyfriends who sometimes annoyed the heck out of him and hey, how about that championship game on TV last night? Was it thrown or what??
Shin, on the other hand, had settled into an apartment just a few stations down from Touma's, so he was over more often. He came by alone or with Shuu to deposit home-cooked gourmet meals into Touma's fridge, or to clean up. No matter how hard Ryo tried to keep the house clean and presentable, Shin would always find something to fix or to do better, and then rub it in Ryo's face.
The place was always livelier with friends around. These frequent visits and his time alone with Seiji was enough to keep Touma occupied. For the next few weeks, it seemed as if Touma would never have to go away again.
But of course, that was not to last.
Seiji was starting to need the oxygen tank more and more. Touma increased the doses on certain medicines and reduced others, but that seemed to do little more than help Seiji sleep better. When he woke up, the breathing problems remained.
Touma's concern was evident. He started to brood and to act restless. The fragile peace that the three of them had built around themselves was falling to pieces again.
At one point, Ryo suggested that they call Yayoi again. Or any member of Seiji's family, just to let them know. Touma responded to this with a stony silence. Ryo tried to get a more substantial answer out of him, but Seiji laid a hand on Ryo's arm and shook his head - thus effectively preventing a fight from breaking out between the two. He knew well how Ryo's innate lack of self-preservation skills sometimes made it difficult for him to see where the limits lay.
Very early one morning, Ryo woke to find Touma fully dressed to go out, with a backpack slung over one shoulder, heading for the front door.
"Wait!" he called. Touma stopped in his tracks. What do you want? the look in his sunken eyes said.
Ryo asked where he was going.
"Out," was the terse reply. He started to walk on, but Ryo blocked his path.
"What do you mean 'out'?" he demanded. "Out where? Your wounds are still healing. How long will you be gone?"
"I don't know," Touma answered, frustrated with the pointless questioning. "Get out of my way."
He started to push past Ryo. But Ryo, faster and stronger, saw it coming and was able to counter. In one swift movement he had pushed Touma up against the nearest wall.
Bang. At the back of his mind, Ryo hoped that was not loud enough to wake Seiji. Touma stared back at him, eyes wide with surprise but defiant.
His backpack slid off his shoulder and arm, onto the floor. It didn't make a very loud sound as it did; it must not have contained much more than a change of clothes.
"What're you gonna tell me this time? You're off to meet another investor? Or to squat at another lab?" One arm was keeping Touma pinned; he wasn't going anywhere until he answered. "I know you haven't been working on Seiji's medicine, so I really want to hear this."
Touma glared. "What are you accusing me of, Ryo?" His voice, while not loud, was definitely angry. "Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it's not happening."
"Look me in the eye then," Ryo commanded. "Tell me you're still working on it. Tell me you haven't given up. I need you to."
Lying at a close distance is a skill that not many people have. Touma happened to be one of the very few people blessed with it. He would lie if he needed to. He would tell you whatever you needed to hear to let him go.
But there were certain people he couldn't do it to.
Then again, not a lot of people could do it to Ryo.
"I... haven't given up," he said in monotone. "On Seiji's cure."
There was no lie there. Not the cure. No, not the cure - but he had given up on something.
Was it his research? The medicine? If so, what did that mean for all of them? What else had Touma turned to?
Ryo dropped his arm and his gaze, stepped back. Touma did not make a dash for the door as soon as he was released. That, at least, meant Ryo was able to buy a fraction of his time.
"There's something I have to tell you," Ryo began, still sounding a bit pissed off. "On the day we brought Seiji home from the hospital... Yayoi-san came with us."
"Yes," it was more a question than an answer. Already he was sure he wasn't going to like where this conversation was going.
"She asked... she asked to see your notes. The ones in the suitcase."
"What?!" Touma pulled himself up; a battle stance. "You let her touch my notes?! I TOLD you - "
"She didn't take any of it," Ryo said quickly, "or mess it up. She was very careful with it. She said - your research -"
"Damn it, Ryo, the last thing I want is for another doctor to see those notes, let alone a relative of Seiji's." Touma was almost shaking with anger. Ryo knew he was never one to throw the first punch, but that didn't make things any easier, exactly.
"Yayoi-san can be trusted! I'm sure of it! She said your research... can lead to some of the most important discoveries..." This was going badly. He raised his voice in an attempt to make the point clearer. "So don't give up on your work. Please. Even if it's not for Seiji."
As soon as he said that, it seemed Touma's rage started to dissipate. Ryo hadn't meant to get Touma's hackles up; he'd wanted to be encouraging, to be his usual enthusiastic self, changing things through sheer force of will. He'd wanted to make Touma feel better, even if what he'd said had the exact opposite effect.
Touma's shoulders drooped. Ryo stepped forward and laid his hands on them, as if that was enough to give them strength.
"Don't you understand, Ryo?" Touma muttered. "If it's not for Seiji, I can't afford to care about it. There's so much to do, there's only one of me, and... I'm not as smart as you think." This was something he would never have admitted, ten years ago, when they still had things to hide from each other. Now he said it easily, though with head bowed, eyes fixed on the ground.
"That's not true," Ryo interrupted. "Yayoi-san said - you're brilliant. She could see that in what you wrote. You can save the world..."
"I am saving the world," Touma said quietly, wearily. "My world."
Your world, Ryo wished he could say eloquently, without somehow making the conversation worse. Do you mean "our" world? The one with the youja and the armor and magic powers, the one we could save if only we wanted it badly enough? That world is gone, Touma. Nobody even remembers it now.
But a part of him knew what Touma meant. His world had a name. And no matter what he did, or didn't do, it seemed it was dying by the day.
Touma raised his hands and touched his fingertips to Ryo's arms - not to threaten. "Let me go."
"I can't." This was the truth, in so many dimensions. Ryo couldn't just let Touma out of his sight again. Not after what happened the last time.
Touma had not actually known that Shin had left his car with Ryo. When he learned it, he asked when Ryo was planning on telling him. "Never," Ryo guiltily confessed. "I was going to use it to tail you."
Touma's eyes narrowed. "I'm insulted," he huffed. "You don't think I'd know if I'm being followed?" Ryo cleared his throat, scratched his head and hoped he wasn't blushing as he said, "Well, I wanted to at least see how far I could get..."
Touma agreed to be driven to the train station. It was only practical, given that the particular station he had to go to was a good distance from their apartment - but it was also practical for Ryo not to accompany him. Someone needed to be home, in case something else happened to Seiji.
True, they could get Shin to stay with Seiji - but if worse came to worse, Shin should not be left to handle things alone. Moreover, the only other person besides Touma who knew Seiji's routines was Ryo. So Ryo simply had to stay. Not even he could argue with that logic.
What Ryo did not understand was why Touma had to leave - for an emergency out-of-town trip, no less. Touma remained taciturn on that matter, promising only that things were to be revealed "in time."
When Ryo started to protest, he responded with a challenge: "Don't you trust me?"
Ryo's teeth clenched.
The long drive to the station threatened to be awkward after that. Neither of them was ever very good at small talk, or at diffusing tension - that was always someone else's job.
But Ryo had to take a chance. They were getting nearer to the train station, closer to the moment when Touma would step out of the car, shut the door behind him, and vanish for another unknown period of time. This might be the only opportunity he had to speak.
"Shin once asked me," he ventured, "if I told Seiji anything. When he was in the hospital." He paused for a reaction. There was none. He kept going. "I said I couldn't think of anything. And it was true. But when you keep leaving like this... I realize there are a lot of things I want to say. To you."
Touma was looking out the open window of his side of the car, silent, waiting.
"Now, more than ever, I worry about you. I always worry that you've gotten into some accident or gotten mixed up in some bad business. I think, 'I should make him tell. I should make him stop being so damn selfish.' And maybe I should hit you or something just to drive it home." Ryo changed gears, and his voice softened. "But it all goes away when you come back."
Ryo stopped talking because he thought he heard Touma say something. But why would Touma say anything at that point? He wasn't even looking at Ryo.
"I don't know why... but when you're gone, it feels like things... aren't getting any better. Maybe it's because you're so cool most of the time..." God, his lack of skill with words. Why couldn't it have been he who was sick while Seiji was here talking some sense into Touma's impossibly thick skull? "You were always the one looking after us, you know? The one who kept it together. The one who was always right. So when you leave it feels like you don't trust anyone else to understand what has to be done. Or like - " Say it. It was best just to come out and say it. " - like there's something to run away from."
Touma glared at him. Ryo felt it like a cold shiver running down his back. He steeled himself against it.
"But you see... we're all grown up now and... it's okay to be afraid or to make mistakes, even for you. It's okay to be the one looked after."
"Ryo, we've saved each other's lives." In his old man's lecturing voice, a breath away from stern. "We don't owe each other anything anymore."
"But that doesn't mean we don't have to care about each other anymore, right?"
The station was in sight. There was time at least for a "yes" or a "no," but Touma stayed silent.
As the car was pulling over, he finally said: "Sometimes, I wish we didn't have to care. It would be so much easier."
Ryo wondered if it was his childhood friend or the doctor talking then. Either way, it didn't even sound like he was the one being addressed.
The car stopped. Touma opened the door to the passenger's side of the car and stepped out. Before he could step away, he turned back and leaned down, looking for a moment like he wanted to say something more.
But all he did was close the door.
A car, driving away from a certain train station, stopped when the traffic light turned red. Inside the car was a young man with tanned skin and black hair. A hundred unsaid things were going through his head.
He closed his eyes and rested his forehead on the steering wheel. He would have stayed like that for a long time, if the car behind his had not blown its horn to signal the changing of the light to green. Then the young man sat up, took a deep breath and drove on.
At roughly the same time, a train was making its way out of Tokyo. Inside the train was a tall young man with pale skin and tortured eyes. A hundred thoughts were going through his head.
There were plenty of empty seats but he stood by the door. While some of the passengers discreetly watched him while pretending not to, he rested his scarred forehead against the glass. Then the next station came, and he would have to make his decision: to leave the train or to stay. To move forward or back.
The young man stepped away from the door just before it opened. He opened his eyes, took a deep breath, and found himself a seat.
And then "back" was no longer an option.
(tbc)
2. this turned out shorter than i expected. sorry for the lack of seiji here, lyntek! i promise to make up for it!
3. in case you haven't read it yet, inviting you to read this gorgeous poem by richard siken. this particular stanza, you might find, is especially relevant to the current chapter:
You're in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won't tell you that he loves you, but he loves you. And you feel like you've done something terrible, like robbed a liquor store, or swallowed pills, or shoveled yourself a grave in the dirt, and you're tired. You're in a car with a beautiful boy, and you're trying not to tell him that you love him, and you're trying to choke down the feeling, and you're trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you've discovered something you didn't even have a name for.
siken tag @ greatpoets. my other favorites are a primer for the small weird loves and scheherazade.
4. unrelated: a Stare of particular significance to no one but myself (and a Danna):
...someone tell me why don't i have a sengoku basara tag yet?
At the Stars
Part 11
In the morning, when Ryo came in for Seiji's routine tests and medications, he found Seiji lying awake. Touma was on his side - still in the clothes he wore home last night, on Seiji's bed, fast asleep.
Seiji wordlessly gestured for Ryo to take him outside, and Ryo obliged. Even when Seiji's weight had left the bed, Touma didn't stir.
Ryo lingered for a second, looking down at Touma, with Seiji in his arms. Seiji looked up at him, registering the pensive look he saw on his friend's face.
As Ryo was setting Seiji carefully down on the couch, he asked "What happened to him?"
Seiji shook his head. Ryo nodded. He started the routine pre-breakfast tests, looking grim, as if he were struggling to keep more questions from rising to the surface.
But as it often was with Ryo, the questions won. "Did it look like a fight? Or an accident?"
Seiji thought about it. "Not a fight," he eventually said. But as he could offer no additional wisdom, he said no more.
Touma woke up at around 11 AM. And even when he did, he did not immediately get out of the room. Ryo found out because it was nearing lunchtime and he had to see if Touma was awake. Otherwise his share of the meal was going into the fridge again.
He was sitting on the edge of Seiji's bed, inspecting the wound under his previously bandaged upper arm. His shirt and soiled wrappings lay on the floor. A large, freshly sewn-up gash glared at Ryo from that side of the room, like an unwanted visitor determined to make trouble.
Ryo strode over to Touma, not certain what to do. His first impulse was to show his alarm - but he caught himself as soon as he remembered that alarm could be parsed as anger and that might not be a very good thing to show a person who had just awoken from a possibly traumatic night.
What he did was sit at the edge of Touma's bed, beside Seiji's, so he and Touma could face each other. Touma looked up at him, but did not look him in the eye. "So..." Ryo began.
"The car," Touma said without further prompting. "I crashed it. So now we have no car." He pretended to inspect his wound some more. "That's going to be a problem..."
"How did you crash it?"
"How does anyone crash cars? Bad driving." He flinched when he touched a spot on his skin near the gash. "I was going too fast... trying to overtake this big truck. I didn't see the curve in the road..."
"You didn't have to hurry," Ryo admonished. "Seiji wouldn't have liked it if you'd come home minus an arm."
Touma stretched his lips into a mirthless smile. "I'm a doctor, remember? I could've sewn it back on."
The wound on his arm may have looked bad, but it wasn't deep, Touma assured Ryo: nothing broken, no lasting damage. The people at the hospital he had checked himself into had wanted him to stay for observation, but he knew better than they did about where he needed to spend the night.
He'd also removed the bandage taped over his right eye, and while his eye was partly shut, it seemed generally unhurt; there was instead a small, but rather deep cut over his eyebrow. Touma didn't seem concerned about that particular wound. Or about the bruises and smaller cuts his body had apparently sustained. Angry slices of red and patches of black and blue stood out on his pale skin.
Ryo couldn't help remembering the cut on the lip he'd given Touma several weeks back, and realizing that it looked like it had hurt Touma more than these newer wounds did.
"I need to clean up," Touma observed aloud. "Please have the antiseptic and the bandages ready for when I come out of the shower."
"I will," Ryo answered. "But... talk to me first. Where did the accident happen? Where's the car now?"
Touma sighed. He looked at Ryo, for a second as if contemplating telling him the truth. And the truth seemed painful - more painful than bearing up under Ryo's searching gaze.
Then he said: "Tell me about the hyena again."
Wounded or not, Ryo had to reach over, intending to slap him upside the head for that one. But instead his hand froze just as it was about to make contact with Touma's head.
It snaked round the back of his neck and pulled Touma forward, pulling Ryo forward and off his seat as well.
Ryo didn't really know what he had wanted to happen. Only, their foreheads touched lightly and afterwards, all he wanted to do was close his eyes.
How do I even start taking care of you?
But it didn't take very long before Touma tensed up and said "Ow."
Ryo let go abruptly and fell back onto his seat. Touma's fingertips rose to the cut that must not have liked having contact with Ryo's perpetually fevered skin all that much.
"Sorry," Ryo mumbled. To his surprise, Touma chuckled, clearly embarrassed.
"All right," Touma declared, "in lieu of hyena story, that will do." He pushed himself off the bed and made his way to the shower. Ryo found himself staring at the bruises along the right side of Touma's back. He was going to need help applying medicine to that.
Since the accident, it seemed as if Touma had become bolder with expressing himself, and less obsessed with the facts and figures of Seiji's health. Ryo noticed this instantly. Normally Touma would be isolating himself somewhere in the apartment, perhaps at the kitchen table or on the floor of the library, poring over Seiji's charts and his own notes.
And normally, Touma would be limiting his movements around Seiji, keeping a cold distance as he went about his duties as a physician. He would be careful, lest Ryo suspect that he was being anything but professional in his routines.
Not this time.
This time he held Seiji's hand, even if he knew Ryo was around to see it. He wrapped his arms around Seiji from behind while they were all out at the balcony, seated on a spare mattress and taking turns with the telescope Ryo had bought. He leaned in to say something softly into Seiji's ear and smiled when Seiji whispered something back. He never did more than touch his lips to Seiji's hair in Ryo's presence, but the way he looked at Seiji was more than enough.
Ryo could never watch it too long. It made him feel like he was intruding. Like he should never have offered to stay.
Like he would give anything to be looked at that way, by anyone.
But Touma hardly looked at him at all. Every day he patiently assisted Touma in tending his wounds, and all the while Touma spoke to him without holding his gaze for longer than a second.
Touma never did say where the car got into an accident. When Ryo brought it up, he dismissed the issue by saying everything had been taken care of. With the kind of beating his car took, it was going to be cheaper to get a new car, so he wasn't going to bother trying to get the old one fixed. And he gave his word that he wasn't leaving home while he was still healing up. That was all Ryo needed to know.
On the other hand, all Touma needed to know was that there were sweets in the house. Some well-meaning neighbors had dropped them off, Ryo reported; they should get around to thanking them at one point. "What for?" Touma said around a mouthful of cream puff. Seiji and Ryo looked at each other and decided he should be left out of any further discussion regarding the matter.
Ryo didn't want to ask too many questions, or demand too much. It was only good to have Touma home. It was good to see him happy - because if he was happy, Seiji was happy. And that was all that Ryo needed.
Touma no longer scribbled down notes. Instead, whenever he had time to himself, he stared into empty space, his brow knitted in concentration, looking as he did when he was studying materials he could hold in his hands. Ryo wondered at first if he should find this alarming... if it meant he had stopped developing Seiji's medications. But he recalled what Yayoi had said after reading Touma's research material: he had done everything humanly possible for Seiji. Maybe there was simply nothing new to write down.
Now and then Shuu came to visit. The first time, Shuu came alone, to say he was sorry he couldn't visit Seiji at the hospital.
Touma asked about the illness that had detained Shuu and then proceeded to dispense unwanted medical advice, which Shuu made light of until his absence from Seiji's bedside wasn't even worth discussing anymore.
"My right leg felt numb all of a sudden," Shuu told them, "and the feeling just sort of... spread. Didn't have a fever, but couldn't get out of bed. Touma says it was just fatigue, so I don't have to worry."
It was nothing like Seiji's disease, Touma had assured Shuu. It was not likely to recur. Maybe he had just been on his feet too long. After all, overseeing the day-to-day affairs of a chain of high-traffic food establishments is not a task for the weak of legs.
Shuu was easy enough to convince. He was eager to move on to other things that interested him more. Like how Touma's research was going and how his younger siblings were all growing up so fast and getting boyfriends who sometimes annoyed the heck out of him and hey, how about that championship game on TV last night? Was it thrown or what??
Shin, on the other hand, had settled into an apartment just a few stations down from Touma's, so he was over more often. He came by alone or with Shuu to deposit home-cooked gourmet meals into Touma's fridge, or to clean up. No matter how hard Ryo tried to keep the house clean and presentable, Shin would always find something to fix or to do better, and then rub it in Ryo's face.
The place was always livelier with friends around. These frequent visits and his time alone with Seiji was enough to keep Touma occupied. For the next few weeks, it seemed as if Touma would never have to go away again.
But of course, that was not to last.
Seiji was starting to need the oxygen tank more and more. Touma increased the doses on certain medicines and reduced others, but that seemed to do little more than help Seiji sleep better. When he woke up, the breathing problems remained.
Touma's concern was evident. He started to brood and to act restless. The fragile peace that the three of them had built around themselves was falling to pieces again.
At one point, Ryo suggested that they call Yayoi again. Or any member of Seiji's family, just to let them know. Touma responded to this with a stony silence. Ryo tried to get a more substantial answer out of him, but Seiji laid a hand on Ryo's arm and shook his head - thus effectively preventing a fight from breaking out between the two. He knew well how Ryo's innate lack of self-preservation skills sometimes made it difficult for him to see where the limits lay.
Very early one morning, Ryo woke to find Touma fully dressed to go out, with a backpack slung over one shoulder, heading for the front door.
"Wait!" he called. Touma stopped in his tracks. What do you want? the look in his sunken eyes said.
Ryo asked where he was going.
"Out," was the terse reply. He started to walk on, but Ryo blocked his path.
"What do you mean 'out'?" he demanded. "Out where? Your wounds are still healing. How long will you be gone?"
"I don't know," Touma answered, frustrated with the pointless questioning. "Get out of my way."
He started to push past Ryo. But Ryo, faster and stronger, saw it coming and was able to counter. In one swift movement he had pushed Touma up against the nearest wall.
Bang. At the back of his mind, Ryo hoped that was not loud enough to wake Seiji. Touma stared back at him, eyes wide with surprise but defiant.
His backpack slid off his shoulder and arm, onto the floor. It didn't make a very loud sound as it did; it must not have contained much more than a change of clothes.
"What're you gonna tell me this time? You're off to meet another investor? Or to squat at another lab?" One arm was keeping Touma pinned; he wasn't going anywhere until he answered. "I know you haven't been working on Seiji's medicine, so I really want to hear this."
Touma glared. "What are you accusing me of, Ryo?" His voice, while not loud, was definitely angry. "Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it's not happening."
"Look me in the eye then," Ryo commanded. "Tell me you're still working on it. Tell me you haven't given up. I need you to."
Lying at a close distance is a skill that not many people have. Touma happened to be one of the very few people blessed with it. He would lie if he needed to. He would tell you whatever you needed to hear to let him go.
But there were certain people he couldn't do it to.
Then again, not a lot of people could do it to Ryo.
"I... haven't given up," he said in monotone. "On Seiji's cure."
There was no lie there. Not the cure. No, not the cure - but he had given up on something.
Was it his research? The medicine? If so, what did that mean for all of them? What else had Touma turned to?
Ryo dropped his arm and his gaze, stepped back. Touma did not make a dash for the door as soon as he was released. That, at least, meant Ryo was able to buy a fraction of his time.
"There's something I have to tell you," Ryo began, still sounding a bit pissed off. "On the day we brought Seiji home from the hospital... Yayoi-san came with us."
"Yes," it was more a question than an answer. Already he was sure he wasn't going to like where this conversation was going.
"She asked... she asked to see your notes. The ones in the suitcase."
"What?!" Touma pulled himself up; a battle stance. "You let her touch my notes?! I TOLD you - "
"She didn't take any of it," Ryo said quickly, "or mess it up. She was very careful with it. She said - your research -"
"Damn it, Ryo, the last thing I want is for another doctor to see those notes, let alone a relative of Seiji's." Touma was almost shaking with anger. Ryo knew he was never one to throw the first punch, but that didn't make things any easier, exactly.
"Yayoi-san can be trusted! I'm sure of it! She said your research... can lead to some of the most important discoveries..." This was going badly. He raised his voice in an attempt to make the point clearer. "So don't give up on your work. Please. Even if it's not for Seiji."
As soon as he said that, it seemed Touma's rage started to dissipate. Ryo hadn't meant to get Touma's hackles up; he'd wanted to be encouraging, to be his usual enthusiastic self, changing things through sheer force of will. He'd wanted to make Touma feel better, even if what he'd said had the exact opposite effect.
Touma's shoulders drooped. Ryo stepped forward and laid his hands on them, as if that was enough to give them strength.
"Don't you understand, Ryo?" Touma muttered. "If it's not for Seiji, I can't afford to care about it. There's so much to do, there's only one of me, and... I'm not as smart as you think." This was something he would never have admitted, ten years ago, when they still had things to hide from each other. Now he said it easily, though with head bowed, eyes fixed on the ground.
"That's not true," Ryo interrupted. "Yayoi-san said - you're brilliant. She could see that in what you wrote. You can save the world..."
"I am saving the world," Touma said quietly, wearily. "My world."
Your world, Ryo wished he could say eloquently, without somehow making the conversation worse. Do you mean "our" world? The one with the youja and the armor and magic powers, the one we could save if only we wanted it badly enough? That world is gone, Touma. Nobody even remembers it now.
But a part of him knew what Touma meant. His world had a name. And no matter what he did, or didn't do, it seemed it was dying by the day.
Touma raised his hands and touched his fingertips to Ryo's arms - not to threaten. "Let me go."
"I can't." This was the truth, in so many dimensions. Ryo couldn't just let Touma out of his sight again. Not after what happened the last time.
Touma had not actually known that Shin had left his car with Ryo. When he learned it, he asked when Ryo was planning on telling him. "Never," Ryo guiltily confessed. "I was going to use it to tail you."
Touma's eyes narrowed. "I'm insulted," he huffed. "You don't think I'd know if I'm being followed?" Ryo cleared his throat, scratched his head and hoped he wasn't blushing as he said, "Well, I wanted to at least see how far I could get..."
Touma agreed to be driven to the train station. It was only practical, given that the particular station he had to go to was a good distance from their apartment - but it was also practical for Ryo not to accompany him. Someone needed to be home, in case something else happened to Seiji.
True, they could get Shin to stay with Seiji - but if worse came to worse, Shin should not be left to handle things alone. Moreover, the only other person besides Touma who knew Seiji's routines was Ryo. So Ryo simply had to stay. Not even he could argue with that logic.
What Ryo did not understand was why Touma had to leave - for an emergency out-of-town trip, no less. Touma remained taciturn on that matter, promising only that things were to be revealed "in time."
When Ryo started to protest, he responded with a challenge: "Don't you trust me?"
Ryo's teeth clenched.
The long drive to the station threatened to be awkward after that. Neither of them was ever very good at small talk, or at diffusing tension - that was always someone else's job.
But Ryo had to take a chance. They were getting nearer to the train station, closer to the moment when Touma would step out of the car, shut the door behind him, and vanish for another unknown period of time. This might be the only opportunity he had to speak.
"Shin once asked me," he ventured, "if I told Seiji anything. When he was in the hospital." He paused for a reaction. There was none. He kept going. "I said I couldn't think of anything. And it was true. But when you keep leaving like this... I realize there are a lot of things I want to say. To you."
Touma was looking out the open window of his side of the car, silent, waiting.
"Now, more than ever, I worry about you. I always worry that you've gotten into some accident or gotten mixed up in some bad business. I think, 'I should make him tell. I should make him stop being so damn selfish.' And maybe I should hit you or something just to drive it home." Ryo changed gears, and his voice softened. "But it all goes away when you come back."
Ryo stopped talking because he thought he heard Touma say something. But why would Touma say anything at that point? He wasn't even looking at Ryo.
"I don't know why... but when you're gone, it feels like things... aren't getting any better. Maybe it's because you're so cool most of the time..." God, his lack of skill with words. Why couldn't it have been he who was sick while Seiji was here talking some sense into Touma's impossibly thick skull? "You were always the one looking after us, you know? The one who kept it together. The one who was always right. So when you leave it feels like you don't trust anyone else to understand what has to be done. Or like - " Say it. It was best just to come out and say it. " - like there's something to run away from."
Touma glared at him. Ryo felt it like a cold shiver running down his back. He steeled himself against it.
"But you see... we're all grown up now and... it's okay to be afraid or to make mistakes, even for you. It's okay to be the one looked after."
"Ryo, we've saved each other's lives." In his old man's lecturing voice, a breath away from stern. "We don't owe each other anything anymore."
"But that doesn't mean we don't have to care about each other anymore, right?"
The station was in sight. There was time at least for a "yes" or a "no," but Touma stayed silent.
As the car was pulling over, he finally said: "Sometimes, I wish we didn't have to care. It would be so much easier."
Ryo wondered if it was his childhood friend or the doctor talking then. Either way, it didn't even sound like he was the one being addressed.
The car stopped. Touma opened the door to the passenger's side of the car and stepped out. Before he could step away, he turned back and leaned down, looking for a moment like he wanted to say something more.
But all he did was close the door.
A car, driving away from a certain train station, stopped when the traffic light turned red. Inside the car was a young man with tanned skin and black hair. A hundred unsaid things were going through his head.
He closed his eyes and rested his forehead on the steering wheel. He would have stayed like that for a long time, if the car behind his had not blown its horn to signal the changing of the light to green. Then the young man sat up, took a deep breath and drove on.
At roughly the same time, a train was making its way out of Tokyo. Inside the train was a tall young man with pale skin and tortured eyes. A hundred thoughts were going through his head.
There were plenty of empty seats but he stood by the door. While some of the passengers discreetly watched him while pretending not to, he rested his scarred forehead against the glass. Then the next station came, and he would have to make his decision: to leave the train or to stay. To move forward or back.
The young man stepped away from the door just before it opened. He opened his eyes, took a deep breath, and found himself a seat.
And then "back" was no longer an option.
(tbc)