[fic] [yst] At the Stars 16/16 (end)
At the Stars
Part 16
He was expecting his whole life to flash before his eyes. After all, he knew what being close to death felt like. He had been there before, a couple of times. It had been the same every time, it had started to become predictable.
But all Ryo saw this time was darkness.
He wasn't sure he had opened his eyes again in the first place. It felt strange. He felt like he was dreaming, and that sensations like touch, smell, taste had become vague memories... but he knew he was awake. And he knew he should be feeling something else besides "awake," but there were no words for it.
Though his sense of touch was diminished, he realized he was wearing armor - armor that he felt he had worn for the longest time. But it wasn't any armor that he knew. It wasn't the red fire armor, or even the Inferno armor, both of which had vanished a long time ago.
This was different. This was traditional armor, which one only read about in books and saw as costumes in period dramas on TV. Ryo vaguely wondered what he was doing with it, and why it felt so comfortable, like a second skin.
Why was this scene familiar? Had he read it somewhere? Maybe in something that Seiji wrote...
...Seiji. The thought of his friend's name reminded him of something. Something important.
It was why he had to take a step forward.
Even in absolute darkness Ryo's feet followed a path, like being carried along in a current. And soon, a bright shadow appeared in front of him, walking in the opposite direction.
Ryo stopped and waited for the shadow to approach. It was another person, around the same height as himself, also in traditional armor, though a different style. He was walking slowly, very slowly, but his back was straight and his bearing noble.
Ryo knew who he was even before he could see his face.
"Shin," he whispered, and far away, the person approaching looked at him and smiled.
He reached out a hand. Shin took that hand and his grip was strong and alive.
"You sure took your time," Shin greeted, as dryly as ever. His soft voice sounded nonetheless like it echoed across invisible walls.
But there was worry on his face. His smile wasn't a glad one. And when he was face to face with Ryo finally, the smile vanished.
"It felt like I've been keeping a door open for someone else," Shin said. "I just didn't expect it would be you."
There was no door anywhere, not that Ryo could see. But there was no reason to doubt what Shin was saying.
"This isn't yours. Or mine." Shin held his hand more tightly. "Let's go back together."
Ryo shook his head. "I can't." He smiled bitterly. "None of this would've happened if it wasn't for me."
Shin looked him in the eye as if he knew exactly what Ryo was talking about. He released Ryo's hand and sighed.
"That's not true," he said in a kind voice. "But even if you believed that, it won't stop you, will it?"
Shin looked over his shoulder at something or someone. Ryo followed his gaze, but there was nothing there - only absolute darkness.
"There's something I have to tell you," he said. "Before you go. Something you have to know."
"What is it?"
"Touma," he began. "The machine he built... wasn't just for us. He knew more than one way to draw life from human bodies. Not just ours."
There was no room or time to ask how Shin knew this. Shin had come from a place that Ryo couldn't see, and had been waiting a long time - in that place, he may have learned some things, or figured them out.
"Touma could've sacrificed the world to save Seiji, but he didn't. He chose instead to sacrifice himself." Shin stepped up and laid a hand on Ryo's shoulder. "Knowing this made it easier for me. Maybe it could make it easier for you, too. He only did what he had to do."
Ryo didn't understand what Shin was saying. But he thought that if he could get to the place Shin came from, he finally could. He didn't have to understand it to believe it, however. He nodded in acknowledgement, and seeing that was all that Shin needed.
Shin let go and walked ahead, and was soon swallowed up by the darkness.
Seiji was just falling asleep when he thought he heard a sound.
He wasn't sure what kind of sound it was, or where he heard it from. He thought at first it was coming from somewhere inside the room. But there was no one here besides Touma and himself.
Touma was fast asleep in his arms. Seiji had hoped he could sleep as well. He had not known how much he wanted this until only an hour ago, when it felt like Touma was leaving again, and it somehow felt like he was leaving for good...
Then Seiji wasn't able to help himself. The need overpowered him. It would not have overpowered him at any other time. He had sought to stay disciplined, leveled, even during the worst moments of his illness.
He gave in because he knew it would lead to this.
Now he lay in bed with the person he loved. The last dark months of pain and resentment, of scrapping for every bit of happiness they could find to tide them over while they waited for the inevitable, were washed clean away within the last hour. Touma had tried to leave, to attend to this mysterious all-important errand that was dragging him away - but sleep assaulted his tired mind and body, and facing defeat he surrendered with an anxious sigh, buried himself in the warmth of Seiji's bare skin.
This was theirs. No matter what would happen tomorrow, or whenever things were due to change again, they had this moment.
And yet...
That sound. What was it? Perhaps it was not so much a sound as a feeling. It nagged at him, constant, relentless, erasing every trace of drowsiness from his mind.
Someone was calling for help.
He tried to be careful as he disentangled himself from Touma, though he knew it was useless - Touma often slept like the dead, especially when exhausted, and not even the youjakai falling down around his ears would wake him. He had often envied Touma this natural method of recharging.
Seiji brushed the backs of his fingers lightly across Touma's cheek. The sight of that sleeping face always put a sort of calm over Seiji's heart; at no other time would Touma seem as defenseless and as young.
With difficulty Seiji drew away from his lover, covered up his own naked body with a comfortable jinbei, then made his way out of the room silently. It was as if something else was moving his body again: another kind of overwhelming desire.
He stood in front of the glass door to the balcony. From there he could see clearly that it was raining. And yet, his hand moved toward the knob, and turned it, and his feet took him outside.
He was not dressed for rain at all. The cold sank into him even before he got wet. But not even the cold made him hesitate. He stepped into the downpour in a slow but steady pace.
The shivering started. The cold was making it so much harder to think, and the noise - if that was what it was - was getting louder. At least out here, in this small space between the greenhouse and the telescope and the merciless sky, the noise seemed loudest. He listened more closely, and it began to resemble an infinite number of voices whispering.
But every ounce of reason told him this wasn't right; nothing could possibly be calling for help out here. And if Touma were awake to see this, he would be panicking right now - Seiji, are you insane?! Come inside! The cold couldn't kill him, but that didn't mean it wouldn't make him sick. He was in his favorite housewear, besides, and this was no way to treat it.
So Seiji withdrew. He closed his eyes and took himself away from the cold, the confusion, the painful ache to go back inside, to crawl back into bed and hold Touma close again - and tried to isolate the sound.
His grandfather had taught him... take a few deep breaths, steady yourself. Find a place behind the agony and white noise. What he sought lay in that silent place where everything fell away, where nothing mattered but the answer -
Ryo.
That was it. The right name. The right person. A smile of relief touched Seiji's lips.
Ryo.
He opened his eyes, but he saw nothing. He heard nothing; the voices were still. The cold was gone, and the rain was gone, and all there was, was a familiar darkness.
He vaguely felt himself losing balance and falling - slowly, too slowly. It took forever to fall, and he had to hurry.
As soon as Shin vanished, something opened up far ahead of Ryo.
A portal. Light streamed from within, and Ryo thought he could see things moving within it, but were too fast and too far away to be clearly seen.
This must have been the "door" Shin was talking about...
But when Ryo looked over his shoulder, Shin wasn't there. There was no evidence that he had been there in the first place.
Ryo felt a pang of sadness at not having been able to say goodbye.
He looked back at the portal. Somehow he knew that if he went through this, there would be no returning.
He squared his shoulders, and walked on.
Then he thought he could hear voices.
Whispers, at first, too soft to perceive as more than a light buzzing. But then, words started to form. Ryo thought he could understand some of them. And that some of them were his name.
He wasn't sure he recognized them, but some of them sounded familiar - a friend from school. A beloved neighbor. A teacher he'd always admired. Long-lost voices, from a long-lost time.
And over all of them, a woman's voice: warm and comforting. Like a memory that never quite left him, but had long ago settled at the back of his mind.
How could he have forgotten? She was the most familiar thing to him now. He didn't know yet who this woman could be, or how she knew his name, or what she was saying to him, but if there was any reason, any one reason, to go through that door, it was her presence on the other side.
Ryo was close enough to step through the door, finally. He reached out, into the golden light, for the sound of her voice...
To his surprise, the last thought in his head, like a final stab of regret, was Touma.
And then he was pulled back.
In that place where there was no sensation, no sense of time, he barely felt the arms that had wrapped around his torso, the weight that pulled him away from the door. It was too soon, too slowly, that the whispers faded, and the door reverted to a mere portal of light.
He had been so close. And even now it lay just within reach. He was about to take another step closer to it.
But a voice, gentler and louder than any other, spoke close to his ear: "Still jumping into things without looking ahead, I see."
Ryo came to his senses with a start.
Seiji.
Emotion rushed into Ryo's chest, flooding it with warmth. This couldn't be death, he told himself.
"Seiji!!" He grabbed his friend's shoulders.
"Didn't think I was going to leave you alone, did you?" Seiji rapped the knuckles of one hand lightly on the front of the helmet Ryo wore.
In this armor, Seiji looked as if he was in perfect health - as Ryo would've wanted to see him, for the first time in years. Not bedridden, or wasting away, or silently bearing up with the pain.
It was as if he had never become ill. Or, Ryo noted, in love.
"Seiji," he breathed, "what are you doing here?"
"Just making sure you keep your promises."
Seiji was grinning brightly. Of all the miracles that had occurred recently, this was probably the only one that felt right to Ryo. Seiji was here for him. Seiji was in top form, and nothing could go wrong.
Seiji was the knight in shining armor again, good as new.
"How did you find me?" Ryo asked, but it was a pointless question. How did either of them get there? It didn't seem to be the sort of place anyone would go to on purpose.
Seiji's brow knitted. "I don't really know," he admitted. "I just had this... feeling... that you needed help. And I followed that feeling here." He looked at the portal Ryo was about to walk into - it was still there, still dangerously close. "I've been here before."
Ryo followed his gaze, and realized that the voices that had been calling him had faded away. If he listened loudly enough, he could still hear whispers... but he was no longer sure that they were for him.
The woman's voice was gone. Maybe if he came closer he could hear her again, but at that distance he couldn't hear her at all.
"This is my door," was Seiji's explanation. "I'm ready."
Ryo gripped his friend's arm.
"You can't," he declared. "You can't go. Not now. We... we worked so hard."
Ryo struggled to find the right words. Why was it that even in this dreamlike place, he couldn't get his head on straight when things needed saying?
"All of us. Especially Touma." So you can't leave him, he wanted to say. You're going to have a good life with him, and then die at a ripe old age. Not now. Not this way.
Seiji waited until he let go. Then he knelt on one knee before Ryo and bowed his head.
... As if it was the most natural thing in the world. As if he had not playfully rapped his knuckles on Ryo's forehead just a moment ago.
"I promised long ago," Seiji said, "that I would lay down my life for you. It was a promise I made to myself, and to whatever gods would hear. Now I am thankful to those gods that I can do this."
In another time and place, this would not be happening. Ryo would be pulling Seiji to his feet and telling him he was being ridiculous.
But something kept Ryo from interrupting; he figured it was simply the way Seiji made it look and sound like it was something he was born to do. That this was how this old, old story ended.
"I also swore," Seiji continued, "that I would protect you, though we be separated by distance and time. That I would be with you always. And that whatever stupid shit you'll get yourself into, like everyone who's ever cared for you, I'll be around to keep you safe."
Since dragging Seiji to his feet so they could talk was out of the question, Ryo went down on both knees. Facing Seiji, he pulled his friend into a tight embrace.
The armor they wore did not get in the way. The hard leather and iron yielded as if they did not exist.
"I loved you," Seiji whispered. "But I didn't know what to do with that love except let it get to me. Touma misunderstood. He couldn't believe that I could love him the same way."
"Was it true, what you said?" Ryo softly asked him. "Was it all a mistake?"
Seiji took his time before he pulled away. And when he did, the first thing Ryo saw was the smile on his face - a kind smile. Seiji shook his head.
"Love is never a mistake," he answered. "No matter what changes."
Seiji said something else. But Ryo could barely hear. He soon came to the realization that something was going on, something was distorting everything in that place.
He got to his feet. Seiji got to his feet, too, and stopped talking, and simply smiled at him. Ryo tried to reach out, but Seiji was too far away.
And getting farther. Something was pulling him out of there, and its speed only grew the more he struggled against it.
No, Ryo thought, NO.
But it was too late. The general had turned around and started walking toward his fate. And the last thing Ryo saw, before the darkness took him again, was the portal of light closing around his friend.
He slipped in and out of consciousness. Vaguely he felt that he was being lifted to his feet, laboriously, by someone who didn't seem strong enough to do it.
He felt parts of his body strike ground or wall a few times... it should've woken him, but he somehow couldn't keep his eyes open. Neither could he process the pain that should've come with each moment of impact.
Why does there have to be, this person muttered, so much life in you. But Ryo wasn't sure that was what he heard. The person was saying other things, but they sounded garbled, lost in transit.
The person's face was so close to his. Ryo reached up, hoping he could at least recognize that face by touch. But the face was turned away, and his hand lost its strength and refused to be moved again.
Ryo wanted to wake up. He was sure this person was trying to help him, and he was sure it was for a good reason - maybe he was dying, and maybe they were both in danger - so he had to get up. He had to stay on his feet.
But the more he struggled, the more he lost the fight. It was a familiar sensation, being dragged under.
Ryo woke up in a cozy bed that he didn't recognize, naked underneath warm blankets. His clothes were neatly folded in a seat near the bed. An IV drip was attached to his wrist.
Early morning sunlight streamed into the window. He still felt weak. For a moment he contemplated staying in bed, but he never really took well to waking up in strange places. He tore the drip from his arm and dragged himself to his feet, put on his clothes and braced himself to confront whatever he would find after opening the door.
Outside the door was a middle-aged couple he didn't know, having breakfast. They stared at him, and he stared back. Eventually the woman muttered "Good morning," and as per impulse, he returned the greeting.
"Where am I?" he asked. He tried taking another step forward but his knees buckled, and he held on to the doorframe for support. The man rushed to his side to help him to an empty seat at the breakfast table.
He was told where he was, and introductions were made. This couple had taken care of him while he had been unconscious for an entire day.
He was brought to this place unconscious close to dawn the other day, Ryo was told, by a young man who said he was his friend: a tall, thin young man with haunted blue eyes and short hair. The young man had had medical supplies with him - which wasn't at all strange because they knew him to be a doctor - and had seen to Ryo's emergency care.
At around noontime, he left his car in the couple's care, for giving to Ryo when he woke up. He also left a few instructions for taking care of Ryo, but assured them both that he was going to be all right soon.
They first met the young man, the couple relayed, when his old car crashed not too far from their home. The wounded and shaken youth had begged the couple for shelter, saying he couldn't afford to go to a hospital because he was being pursued and his life was in danger. But he needed to be home as soon as he could, because the people he cared about were in danger, too.
(So he did have an accident, Ryo realized. He hadn't been lying about that.)
They trusted him and sheltered him during the few hours that he needed to patch himself up. He enlisted the husband's help to drag his wrecked car to their garage, so he could cannibalize it for parts that he said he needed for his work.
He was very grateful for their help, and he was liberal with showing it. Now and then he came back for the parts, sometimes with gifts for the couple, always ready to give medical advice and help if he was asked for it.
All he ever really asked for was their silence.
They felt he was a good sort, and had no reason to suspect him, even if he never really told them anything about himself, not even his name. They felt he had a good reason for his unusual actions. At the very least, they felt that he must've cared deeply indeed about the people he was doing his secret "work" for.
Was Ryo hungry? There was food for one more person. Ryo realized just then that he could eat a horse.
The couple was wary of him, to be sure, but they cared for him the best he could, and sent him on his way with good wishes. More than anything, that gave Ryo the strength to move forward with his day.
He'd had a dream, a long and sad dream, but one he could no longer remember. He needed all the help he could get to break loose from that dream... and help came in the reminder that there were still people in the world who could be kind even to strangers.
The last thing he remembered before waking up in the couple's house was being inside the cave Touma had left him in.
So the first thing he did was return to that cave.
When he got to the cave, he found it empty. There were no crates, no bits of metal and wire, no steel monstrosity resting at the center - nothing.
The recesses that had been carved and burned into the cave floor and the rock walls by the presence of the machine were still there, impossible to erase, so that someone who would bother might at least be able to piece together that something had been here, something large and manmade and functional...
But there was hardly any light in the cave. And given the distance of the cave to civilization, it wasn't likely that anyone would travel all the way there just to snoop. Anyone could just say the strange marks were made by smugglers. Or kidnappers. Or pirates.
Touma's doing, Ryo knew... and yet he was amazed at how quickly he was able to accomplish cleanup, if he was working alone. And he always did.
There was nothing in there for Touma to return to, so Ryo didn't see the point in staying. He had to go back to Tokyo. With any luck, some answers were waiting for him there.
His first stop in Tokyo was home - which was, at the time, Touma and Seiji's apartment.
No one was there.
Had they taken off without telling him...? There were no notes, no messages, but all their things were still in place - all their clothes and food and medicine. Seiji's shoes for going out were still on the rack by the door.
His next stop was the hospital Shin was staying in.
He caught them just in time - Shin was getting ready to be discharged. Shuu was the only other person in the room as Shin was putting on his freshly-pressed shirt and coat, and as Ryo walked in.
Shin was the very picture of perfect health. His eyes glittered with life. When his two friends saw Ryo, they didn't seem alarmed - only surprised. Clearly, they still had no idea what had been happening outside the hospital.
"You're alone? Where's Touma?" Shuu demanded.
Ryo asked why he would think he and Touma were together. He had hoped he would find Touma and Seiji here, visiting Shin.
"He said he was going off to find you," Shin started to say, but he trailed off. He and Shuu looked at each other, worry and sadness suddenly evident.
"Ryo," Shin gently began again, "you didn't know...?"
Ryo looked from Shin to Shuu, and back. Their faces betrayed that he should be prepared for the worst kind of news.
After a long pause that weighed heavily on them all, Shuu took a seat, and prompted his friends do to the same.
Shin was the one who proceeded to explain: the two of them had been hoping Ryo could clue them in on Touma's whereabouts. Touma had not been to see them since he visited Shin at the hospital the other night.
That night, it was Shuu's turn to watch over Shin. At around 7:30 PM, Shin began to stir. His vital signs quickly rose to stable levels, and Shuu nearly tripped over the wires and tubes in a mad rush to call the nurses and doctors in.
Soon it was evident that Shin was going to be fine. He was still weak at the onset, but he was finally responding to medications. It was as if nothing had happened. After two days of near-death, he was speaking, breathing and moving normally.
He was asked to stay another whole day "for observation" not for his sake, but for his puzzled doctors'.
Close to midnight, Touma came. It was long past visiting hours, but he talked his way past the guards and tricked everyone in his way into believing he was a visiting doctor attending to a medical emergency. That way he was able to stride into Shin's private room unhindered.
By that time, Shin was well enough to walk around. Shuu was expecting Touma would be surprised, but surprise was the last thing Touma's face registered. He may have feigned confidence to get there, but once there, the farce disintegrated. He looked breathless, lost, shattered.
Touma wouldn't say a word. Shuu came up to him and shook him by the shoulders, but he only looked back at Shuu blankly, without answering any of his questions.
Shin walked up to Touma, wrapped his arms around him.
And Touma started to cry.
He cried, Shuu related, for what seemed like hours. He babbled and yelled and wept in Shin's arms. It was a complete breakdown. He said a lot of things, not all of which made sense, but what he repeated the most was he was sorry, he was sorry, he was sorry.
It was all that Shin and Shuu could do to keep the orderlies from throwing him out, or coming at him with a sedative... and Shin wasn't letting go, not until he had quieted down.
It was definitely not how they expected a friend to react to good news. So they knew something was wrong. Had something happened to Ryo? Or to Seiji? But it wasn't until Touma had calmed down, a long time later, that he was able to answer.
He had come to tell them that Seiji was dead.
What happened? Ryo asked.
We couldn't tell, Shin replied. Touma left as soon as he could calm down enough. He said... you've done something stupid again. Something he hadn't planned, and it messed everything up. He said he just had to find you...
And then he was going to be "out of everyone's hair," Shuu finished for him.
Did he... was he... angry? With me?
I don't know, man. It was hard to tell. He was being really weird. I said I wanted to go with him, help him find you and stuff, but he got mad and said there was no way I could help. So I got angry, too, but if he didn't want me around, I didn't want to be around him either.
In the morning, we got to talk to Seiji's older sister, Yayoi-san. She was the one who identified the body at the morgue.
Yayoi-san said Touma found the body, and the cause of death was heart failure...
She said Seiji's body was found in the balcony, and it was raining... but it was also possible that his heart had stopped before the cold could set in.
The family's said no autopsy, so maybe we'll never know.
I don't understand, Ryo said softly. His heart...? But his heart was fine. I checked it before I left to... to take care of stuff at home. We ran all the tests, he could've run a marathon with that heart!
But how long were you gone? Shuu asked. It's possible that his health changed while you were away, right?
If he was with Touma, Ryo argued, there couldn't have been a risk. Touma would've stopped him from doing anything to hurt himself.
Except it would seem that Touma was asleep when it happened.
Asleep? What are you - that's not possible!
One of the things Touma said that night was, he shouldn't have fallen asleep. He was blaming himself. He said if he'd only woken up on time, everything would've been all right.
How could he have... fallen asleep. He wouldn't have. How...
The last time we spoke, he seemed so exhausted. Like he'd sleep for ages as soon as he felt at ease for even a second. He wasn't being kind enough to himself, and maybe Seiji knew. Maybe that was why Seiji let him sleep.
There were no wounds, no drugs, nothing found on Seiji. He was in perfect health, but his heart just... stopped. We kept telling Touma he shouldn't blame himself. But he wouldn't listen.
And we were hoping he was with you.
No... I... I don't, I'm sorry. I, if only I'd -
Stop it, Ryo, it's not your fault, either! God, I'm sick of all this selfish crap, all right?! We were already expecting it to happen, just not like this.
Shuu's right, Ryo. Seiji... wouldn't want you or Touma to feel this way.
It doesn't help anyone now. And it's sure going to annoy the hell out of Seiji if he were here. He was our friend, too, remember? We know.
Touma wasn't at the Date family's ancestral home for the wake. Neither was he at the funeral. He wasn't there to see Seiji go home, into the open arms of his family and everything familiar and beloved to him.
The Date family asked for him, knowing as they did how close Seiji had been to all his childhood friends. Only Yayoi did not ask. Neither was she asked what she knew, and so she did not need to answer. They were all somehow prepared for Seiji's passing: the last time he called already struck them as a sort of goodbye.
During their leave-taking, Yayoi said to Ryo: "Tell him we are grateful." Ryo nodded.
After the funeral, Ryo had to go back to the apartment. Ryo wasn't sure how he could stay in such a fancy place, seeing as how he was penniless and in desperate need of work, so it was high time to pack up.
"Do you want to go?" Shuu had asked him. Ryo had answered readily, "No. Touma'll have to come home sometime. I want to make sure he's all right, when he does."
Shuu wasn't so sure Touma was coming back. He wasn't up front about what he thought could have happened to Touma. "He'll probably want to be alone," he muttered. "You know how he is..."
But just in case, he told Ryo - just in case, I'll take care of a year's rent. Stay in that apartment, if that's what you feel you should do. Maybe you're right, and maybe Touma will need someone to come home to.
There was no way to refuse Shuu's help once he had made up his mind that he was giving it, but it turned out that the help was necessary. Touma had kept his word about transferring his assets to Ryo, which meant the lease of the apartment and the contents of his personal bank account - which, predictably, had next to nothing in it. The account was closed a long time ago, so it was not even a good way to track Touma down.
Ryo attempted to keep a close eye on the news, looking for an event that would have Touma's trademark on it, any sign that he had not been able to keep from helping someone out (or at least showing off his extraordinary smarts) in a big way.
...But he was bombarded instead with news of Touma's disappearance. What had happened to this prodigy, the young man who was once hailed as the hope of Japanese astrophysics? The last that anyone knew was that he was working for a major pharmaceutical company - it would seem that he had left this company, and no one had heard of him since.
Touma's mother, an award-winning international journalist, made several appearances on television calling for any information on her only child's whereabouts. She knew her own son better than anyone, Ryo knew, but let him live his life as he chose, believing he would always know better. She conducted her own investigations. That she was distressed and helpless now meant there was truly cause for concern.
Touma could've sacrificed the world to save Seiji, but he didn't. He chose instead to sacrifice himself.
Ryo didn't know who said those words, and why they stuck with him. He didn't know what they meant. He only knew they comforted him, though he felt perhaps they shouldn't.
It seemed for a while that everyone was looking for Touma. Shin and Shuu took time off to travel, hoping they would find some indication that Touma had been to any of the places they knew. They had even visited the old Yagyuu mansion, and recruited the help of Nasuti in trying to track Touma down.
At times they thought they found clues... but those clues, if that was what they were, led nowhere. Touma could vanish without a trace if he wanted to. And as time drew on, people grew tired of searching and gradually went back to their old routines. He became just another lost thing.
Ryo had also tried contacting the couple that he and Touma had been acquainted with - no luck. They'd seen his face (and learned of his name) in the news, but they had not heard from Touma at all.
It seemed that all that was left for Ryo to do was wait.
"Are you all right with this?" Shin had asked. "With waiting?"
Shin was getting ready to go back to his work in Aomori. His research break was over and it was time to leave Tokyo. He visited Ryo at Touma's apartment before he left.
He was taking his car back, of course. It wasn't as if Ryo still needed it; he preferred commuting anyway.
While Shin stayed in the city, he and Ryo spent time together, talking about many things... still they weren't able to talk about everything. Ryo couldn't bring himself to ask, for example, if Shin knew about Seiji's feelings while they were growing up. Shin would say something soothing and honest, and Ryo wasn't ready.
"Nothing wrong with it, I've just never known you to be very patient," Shin pointed out with a wry smile.
Ryo shrugged. "I guess it's a virtue I have to learn."
Shin was quiet for a while, turning his wine glass in his hand. Then, "He may never come back," he solemnly said.
They knew, they both did, that there was a chance Touma had taken his own life, but neither of them opened it up for discussion.
Ryo had never told Shin about Touma's machine, about what it did to him. It was a confession that wasn't his to make. And yet, somehow, he sensed that Shin already knew. And he had forgiven Touma long ago.
And he had never told Shin that there was no other option. How Ryo didn't see himself going back to his old life while there was a chance Touma was out there all alone. How he still blamed himself, in some way, for everything that had happened. How his hands missed the feeling of Touma's skin. But he never had to.
"He knows I'll be here." Ryo smiled wanly. "So he might."
Shin studied his younger friend silently, leaving objections unsaid. In the end he just nodded.
The apartment was large, and lonely. There were too many memories. On quiet nights Ryo couldn't help but recall the times they spent together, laughing at inane things, sitting under the stars and sharing memories, talking about everything, or not talking at all.
He would think that he heard Seiji or Touma's voice call his name - and that would make him stop whatever he was doing.
Sometimes, Mrs. Nakajima knocked, and Ryo let her in. And sometimes, if he was in need of human company, he would head over to Mrs. Nakajima's, where - in a grumbling, pretend-resentful way - he was always welcome.
Mrs. Nakajima's gossip wasn't always to Ryo's liking, but it passed the time. And she certainly needed help around the house. Sometimes she was too proud to ask for help changing light bulbs, carrying laundry baskets, or tilting heavy furniture back so she could vacuum underneath, and it was a good thing Ryo was around to notice.
It was as if Ryo was discovering the other tenants of the apartment for the first time, though he'd lived there for several months and had greeted almost all of them at one point or another, as he passed them by in the hall or in the lobby at the ground floor. At one point he realized they made good models for photographs, which provided its own share of amusement. Mrs. Nakajima herself was a frequent subject.
Daily life photography was proving surprisingly lucrative. It put him in touch with his old contacts, and new contacts as well, who opened doors for him. He was told early on that he had an "eye" for finding the beauty in everyday things: this "eye" got him places, allowed him to search for Touma when it seemed everyone else had already stopped searching.
The world was vast. There were so many people to talk to, and no one to confide in.
So, at night, Ryo stepped out into the balcony, and looked up.
Touma had said once that he liked to stay in high places, because if you were close enough to the sky, you could hear the stars, and the stars had stories.
Ryo often wondered about them, staying so far out of reach, and at the same time watching over everything. Wasn't it lonely out there, watching as the little creatures of the little world below loved, lost, died and were born?
But if all the stars were living things, it was impossible to feel alone.
When he was little, his father told him that when people died, they became stars. And you could talk to them just like you could to regular people, because they were still human souls, only taking on another body after they were done.
He closed his eyes and felt the presence of these souls over and all around him. He spoke to them because he knew they could hear: Look after him. Keep him safe. If he was out there. If he was all right.
Help him remember how to listen.
(end)
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edited 30 Dec 2011: So it ends. My heartfelt thanks to everyone who read this far! It's been a long year and a half, and writing for this story provided me much-needed distraction.
There was originally an epilogue here, but I took it down. After rereading it, and after receiving feedback in public and in private, I realized it still needed a lot of work. I suppose I just wanted to finish something in time for Christmas, and it came out subpar.
I apologize for everyone who had to suffer that. Sometime in the future, I may decide to revise this fic, but probably not anytime soon. I'm not sure the epilogue is ever going back up, either. For now I hope the conclusion of the story, open-ended as it is, provides a decent enough tie-up to everything.
I'm truly grateful to everyone who left feedback, positive or otherwise. It's humbling to know that other people have become invested in this story as well, and I do apologize to everyone I may have disappointed with my crappy writing. As said in the fic: It's not my story, it's just my words.
Finally: Happy Holidays! I hope that everyone else is also looking forward to the coming new year :)
Part 16
He was expecting his whole life to flash before his eyes. After all, he knew what being close to death felt like. He had been there before, a couple of times. It had been the same every time, it had started to become predictable.
But all Ryo saw this time was darkness.
He wasn't sure he had opened his eyes again in the first place. It felt strange. He felt like he was dreaming, and that sensations like touch, smell, taste had become vague memories... but he knew he was awake. And he knew he should be feeling something else besides "awake," but there were no words for it.
Though his sense of touch was diminished, he realized he was wearing armor - armor that he felt he had worn for the longest time. But it wasn't any armor that he knew. It wasn't the red fire armor, or even the Inferno armor, both of which had vanished a long time ago.
This was different. This was traditional armor, which one only read about in books and saw as costumes in period dramas on TV. Ryo vaguely wondered what he was doing with it, and why it felt so comfortable, like a second skin.
Why was this scene familiar? Had he read it somewhere? Maybe in something that Seiji wrote...
...Seiji. The thought of his friend's name reminded him of something. Something important.
It was why he had to take a step forward.
Even in absolute darkness Ryo's feet followed a path, like being carried along in a current. And soon, a bright shadow appeared in front of him, walking in the opposite direction.
Ryo stopped and waited for the shadow to approach. It was another person, around the same height as himself, also in traditional armor, though a different style. He was walking slowly, very slowly, but his back was straight and his bearing noble.
Ryo knew who he was even before he could see his face.
"Shin," he whispered, and far away, the person approaching looked at him and smiled.
He reached out a hand. Shin took that hand and his grip was strong and alive.
"You sure took your time," Shin greeted, as dryly as ever. His soft voice sounded nonetheless like it echoed across invisible walls.
But there was worry on his face. His smile wasn't a glad one. And when he was face to face with Ryo finally, the smile vanished.
"It felt like I've been keeping a door open for someone else," Shin said. "I just didn't expect it would be you."
There was no door anywhere, not that Ryo could see. But there was no reason to doubt what Shin was saying.
"This isn't yours. Or mine." Shin held his hand more tightly. "Let's go back together."
Ryo shook his head. "I can't." He smiled bitterly. "None of this would've happened if it wasn't for me."
Shin looked him in the eye as if he knew exactly what Ryo was talking about. He released Ryo's hand and sighed.
"That's not true," he said in a kind voice. "But even if you believed that, it won't stop you, will it?"
Shin looked over his shoulder at something or someone. Ryo followed his gaze, but there was nothing there - only absolute darkness.
"There's something I have to tell you," he said. "Before you go. Something you have to know."
"What is it?"
"Touma," he began. "The machine he built... wasn't just for us. He knew more than one way to draw life from human bodies. Not just ours."
There was no room or time to ask how Shin knew this. Shin had come from a place that Ryo couldn't see, and had been waiting a long time - in that place, he may have learned some things, or figured them out.
"Touma could've sacrificed the world to save Seiji, but he didn't. He chose instead to sacrifice himself." Shin stepped up and laid a hand on Ryo's shoulder. "Knowing this made it easier for me. Maybe it could make it easier for you, too. He only did what he had to do."
Ryo didn't understand what Shin was saying. But he thought that if he could get to the place Shin came from, he finally could. He didn't have to understand it to believe it, however. He nodded in acknowledgement, and seeing that was all that Shin needed.
Shin let go and walked ahead, and was soon swallowed up by the darkness.
Seiji was just falling asleep when he thought he heard a sound.
He wasn't sure what kind of sound it was, or where he heard it from. He thought at first it was coming from somewhere inside the room. But there was no one here besides Touma and himself.
Touma was fast asleep in his arms. Seiji had hoped he could sleep as well. He had not known how much he wanted this until only an hour ago, when it felt like Touma was leaving again, and it somehow felt like he was leaving for good...
Then Seiji wasn't able to help himself. The need overpowered him. It would not have overpowered him at any other time. He had sought to stay disciplined, leveled, even during the worst moments of his illness.
He gave in because he knew it would lead to this.
Now he lay in bed with the person he loved. The last dark months of pain and resentment, of scrapping for every bit of happiness they could find to tide them over while they waited for the inevitable, were washed clean away within the last hour. Touma had tried to leave, to attend to this mysterious all-important errand that was dragging him away - but sleep assaulted his tired mind and body, and facing defeat he surrendered with an anxious sigh, buried himself in the warmth of Seiji's bare skin.
This was theirs. No matter what would happen tomorrow, or whenever things were due to change again, they had this moment.
And yet...
That sound. What was it? Perhaps it was not so much a sound as a feeling. It nagged at him, constant, relentless, erasing every trace of drowsiness from his mind.
Someone was calling for help.
He tried to be careful as he disentangled himself from Touma, though he knew it was useless - Touma often slept like the dead, especially when exhausted, and not even the youjakai falling down around his ears would wake him. He had often envied Touma this natural method of recharging.
Seiji brushed the backs of his fingers lightly across Touma's cheek. The sight of that sleeping face always put a sort of calm over Seiji's heart; at no other time would Touma seem as defenseless and as young.
With difficulty Seiji drew away from his lover, covered up his own naked body with a comfortable jinbei, then made his way out of the room silently. It was as if something else was moving his body again: another kind of overwhelming desire.
He stood in front of the glass door to the balcony. From there he could see clearly that it was raining. And yet, his hand moved toward the knob, and turned it, and his feet took him outside.
He was not dressed for rain at all. The cold sank into him even before he got wet. But not even the cold made him hesitate. He stepped into the downpour in a slow but steady pace.
The shivering started. The cold was making it so much harder to think, and the noise - if that was what it was - was getting louder. At least out here, in this small space between the greenhouse and the telescope and the merciless sky, the noise seemed loudest. He listened more closely, and it began to resemble an infinite number of voices whispering.
But every ounce of reason told him this wasn't right; nothing could possibly be calling for help out here. And if Touma were awake to see this, he would be panicking right now - Seiji, are you insane?! Come inside! The cold couldn't kill him, but that didn't mean it wouldn't make him sick. He was in his favorite housewear, besides, and this was no way to treat it.
So Seiji withdrew. He closed his eyes and took himself away from the cold, the confusion, the painful ache to go back inside, to crawl back into bed and hold Touma close again - and tried to isolate the sound.
His grandfather had taught him... take a few deep breaths, steady yourself. Find a place behind the agony and white noise. What he sought lay in that silent place where everything fell away, where nothing mattered but the answer -
Ryo.
That was it. The right name. The right person. A smile of relief touched Seiji's lips.
Ryo.
He opened his eyes, but he saw nothing. He heard nothing; the voices were still. The cold was gone, and the rain was gone, and all there was, was a familiar darkness.
He vaguely felt himself losing balance and falling - slowly, too slowly. It took forever to fall, and he had to hurry.
As soon as Shin vanished, something opened up far ahead of Ryo.
A portal. Light streamed from within, and Ryo thought he could see things moving within it, but were too fast and too far away to be clearly seen.
This must have been the "door" Shin was talking about...
But when Ryo looked over his shoulder, Shin wasn't there. There was no evidence that he had been there in the first place.
Ryo felt a pang of sadness at not having been able to say goodbye.
He looked back at the portal. Somehow he knew that if he went through this, there would be no returning.
He squared his shoulders, and walked on.
Then he thought he could hear voices.
Whispers, at first, too soft to perceive as more than a light buzzing. But then, words started to form. Ryo thought he could understand some of them. And that some of them were his name.
He wasn't sure he recognized them, but some of them sounded familiar - a friend from school. A beloved neighbor. A teacher he'd always admired. Long-lost voices, from a long-lost time.
And over all of them, a woman's voice: warm and comforting. Like a memory that never quite left him, but had long ago settled at the back of his mind.
How could he have forgotten? She was the most familiar thing to him now. He didn't know yet who this woman could be, or how she knew his name, or what she was saying to him, but if there was any reason, any one reason, to go through that door, it was her presence on the other side.
Ryo was close enough to step through the door, finally. He reached out, into the golden light, for the sound of her voice...
To his surprise, the last thought in his head, like a final stab of regret, was Touma.
And then he was pulled back.
In that place where there was no sensation, no sense of time, he barely felt the arms that had wrapped around his torso, the weight that pulled him away from the door. It was too soon, too slowly, that the whispers faded, and the door reverted to a mere portal of light.
He had been so close. And even now it lay just within reach. He was about to take another step closer to it.
But a voice, gentler and louder than any other, spoke close to his ear: "Still jumping into things without looking ahead, I see."
Ryo came to his senses with a start.
Seiji.
Emotion rushed into Ryo's chest, flooding it with warmth. This couldn't be death, he told himself.
"Seiji!!" He grabbed his friend's shoulders.
"Didn't think I was going to leave you alone, did you?" Seiji rapped the knuckles of one hand lightly on the front of the helmet Ryo wore.
In this armor, Seiji looked as if he was in perfect health - as Ryo would've wanted to see him, for the first time in years. Not bedridden, or wasting away, or silently bearing up with the pain.
It was as if he had never become ill. Or, Ryo noted, in love.
"Seiji," he breathed, "what are you doing here?"
"Just making sure you keep your promises."
Seiji was grinning brightly. Of all the miracles that had occurred recently, this was probably the only one that felt right to Ryo. Seiji was here for him. Seiji was in top form, and nothing could go wrong.
Seiji was the knight in shining armor again, good as new.
"How did you find me?" Ryo asked, but it was a pointless question. How did either of them get there? It didn't seem to be the sort of place anyone would go to on purpose.
Seiji's brow knitted. "I don't really know," he admitted. "I just had this... feeling... that you needed help. And I followed that feeling here." He looked at the portal Ryo was about to walk into - it was still there, still dangerously close. "I've been here before."
Ryo followed his gaze, and realized that the voices that had been calling him had faded away. If he listened loudly enough, he could still hear whispers... but he was no longer sure that they were for him.
The woman's voice was gone. Maybe if he came closer he could hear her again, but at that distance he couldn't hear her at all.
"This is my door," was Seiji's explanation. "I'm ready."
Ryo gripped his friend's arm.
"You can't," he declared. "You can't go. Not now. We... we worked so hard."
Ryo struggled to find the right words. Why was it that even in this dreamlike place, he couldn't get his head on straight when things needed saying?
"All of us. Especially Touma." So you can't leave him, he wanted to say. You're going to have a good life with him, and then die at a ripe old age. Not now. Not this way.
Seiji waited until he let go. Then he knelt on one knee before Ryo and bowed his head.
... As if it was the most natural thing in the world. As if he had not playfully rapped his knuckles on Ryo's forehead just a moment ago.
"I promised long ago," Seiji said, "that I would lay down my life for you. It was a promise I made to myself, and to whatever gods would hear. Now I am thankful to those gods that I can do this."
In another time and place, this would not be happening. Ryo would be pulling Seiji to his feet and telling him he was being ridiculous.
But something kept Ryo from interrupting; he figured it was simply the way Seiji made it look and sound like it was something he was born to do. That this was how this old, old story ended.
"I also swore," Seiji continued, "that I would protect you, though we be separated by distance and time. That I would be with you always. And that whatever stupid shit you'll get yourself into, like everyone who's ever cared for you, I'll be around to keep you safe."
Since dragging Seiji to his feet so they could talk was out of the question, Ryo went down on both knees. Facing Seiji, he pulled his friend into a tight embrace.
The armor they wore did not get in the way. The hard leather and iron yielded as if they did not exist.
"I loved you," Seiji whispered. "But I didn't know what to do with that love except let it get to me. Touma misunderstood. He couldn't believe that I could love him the same way."
"Was it true, what you said?" Ryo softly asked him. "Was it all a mistake?"
Seiji took his time before he pulled away. And when he did, the first thing Ryo saw was the smile on his face - a kind smile. Seiji shook his head.
"Love is never a mistake," he answered. "No matter what changes."
Seiji said something else. But Ryo could barely hear. He soon came to the realization that something was going on, something was distorting everything in that place.
He got to his feet. Seiji got to his feet, too, and stopped talking, and simply smiled at him. Ryo tried to reach out, but Seiji was too far away.
And getting farther. Something was pulling him out of there, and its speed only grew the more he struggled against it.
No, Ryo thought, NO.
But it was too late. The general had turned around and started walking toward his fate. And the last thing Ryo saw, before the darkness took him again, was the portal of light closing around his friend.
He slipped in and out of consciousness. Vaguely he felt that he was being lifted to his feet, laboriously, by someone who didn't seem strong enough to do it.
He felt parts of his body strike ground or wall a few times... it should've woken him, but he somehow couldn't keep his eyes open. Neither could he process the pain that should've come with each moment of impact.
Why does there have to be, this person muttered, so much life in you. But Ryo wasn't sure that was what he heard. The person was saying other things, but they sounded garbled, lost in transit.
The person's face was so close to his. Ryo reached up, hoping he could at least recognize that face by touch. But the face was turned away, and his hand lost its strength and refused to be moved again.
Ryo wanted to wake up. He was sure this person was trying to help him, and he was sure it was for a good reason - maybe he was dying, and maybe they were both in danger - so he had to get up. He had to stay on his feet.
But the more he struggled, the more he lost the fight. It was a familiar sensation, being dragged under.
Ryo woke up in a cozy bed that he didn't recognize, naked underneath warm blankets. His clothes were neatly folded in a seat near the bed. An IV drip was attached to his wrist.
Early morning sunlight streamed into the window. He still felt weak. For a moment he contemplated staying in bed, but he never really took well to waking up in strange places. He tore the drip from his arm and dragged himself to his feet, put on his clothes and braced himself to confront whatever he would find after opening the door.
Outside the door was a middle-aged couple he didn't know, having breakfast. They stared at him, and he stared back. Eventually the woman muttered "Good morning," and as per impulse, he returned the greeting.
"Where am I?" he asked. He tried taking another step forward but his knees buckled, and he held on to the doorframe for support. The man rushed to his side to help him to an empty seat at the breakfast table.
He was told where he was, and introductions were made. This couple had taken care of him while he had been unconscious for an entire day.
He was brought to this place unconscious close to dawn the other day, Ryo was told, by a young man who said he was his friend: a tall, thin young man with haunted blue eyes and short hair. The young man had had medical supplies with him - which wasn't at all strange because they knew him to be a doctor - and had seen to Ryo's emergency care.
At around noontime, he left his car in the couple's care, for giving to Ryo when he woke up. He also left a few instructions for taking care of Ryo, but assured them both that he was going to be all right soon.
They first met the young man, the couple relayed, when his old car crashed not too far from their home. The wounded and shaken youth had begged the couple for shelter, saying he couldn't afford to go to a hospital because he was being pursued and his life was in danger. But he needed to be home as soon as he could, because the people he cared about were in danger, too.
(So he did have an accident, Ryo realized. He hadn't been lying about that.)
They trusted him and sheltered him during the few hours that he needed to patch himself up. He enlisted the husband's help to drag his wrecked car to their garage, so he could cannibalize it for parts that he said he needed for his work.
He was very grateful for their help, and he was liberal with showing it. Now and then he came back for the parts, sometimes with gifts for the couple, always ready to give medical advice and help if he was asked for it.
All he ever really asked for was their silence.
They felt he was a good sort, and had no reason to suspect him, even if he never really told them anything about himself, not even his name. They felt he had a good reason for his unusual actions. At the very least, they felt that he must've cared deeply indeed about the people he was doing his secret "work" for.
Was Ryo hungry? There was food for one more person. Ryo realized just then that he could eat a horse.
The couple was wary of him, to be sure, but they cared for him the best he could, and sent him on his way with good wishes. More than anything, that gave Ryo the strength to move forward with his day.
He'd had a dream, a long and sad dream, but one he could no longer remember. He needed all the help he could get to break loose from that dream... and help came in the reminder that there were still people in the world who could be kind even to strangers.
The last thing he remembered before waking up in the couple's house was being inside the cave Touma had left him in.
So the first thing he did was return to that cave.
When he got to the cave, he found it empty. There were no crates, no bits of metal and wire, no steel monstrosity resting at the center - nothing.
The recesses that had been carved and burned into the cave floor and the rock walls by the presence of the machine were still there, impossible to erase, so that someone who would bother might at least be able to piece together that something had been here, something large and manmade and functional...
But there was hardly any light in the cave. And given the distance of the cave to civilization, it wasn't likely that anyone would travel all the way there just to snoop. Anyone could just say the strange marks were made by smugglers. Or kidnappers. Or pirates.
Touma's doing, Ryo knew... and yet he was amazed at how quickly he was able to accomplish cleanup, if he was working alone. And he always did.
There was nothing in there for Touma to return to, so Ryo didn't see the point in staying. He had to go back to Tokyo. With any luck, some answers were waiting for him there.
His first stop in Tokyo was home - which was, at the time, Touma and Seiji's apartment.
No one was there.
Had they taken off without telling him...? There were no notes, no messages, but all their things were still in place - all their clothes and food and medicine. Seiji's shoes for going out were still on the rack by the door.
His next stop was the hospital Shin was staying in.
He caught them just in time - Shin was getting ready to be discharged. Shuu was the only other person in the room as Shin was putting on his freshly-pressed shirt and coat, and as Ryo walked in.
Shin was the very picture of perfect health. His eyes glittered with life. When his two friends saw Ryo, they didn't seem alarmed - only surprised. Clearly, they still had no idea what had been happening outside the hospital.
"You're alone? Where's Touma?" Shuu demanded.
Ryo asked why he would think he and Touma were together. He had hoped he would find Touma and Seiji here, visiting Shin.
"He said he was going off to find you," Shin started to say, but he trailed off. He and Shuu looked at each other, worry and sadness suddenly evident.
"Ryo," Shin gently began again, "you didn't know...?"
Ryo looked from Shin to Shuu, and back. Their faces betrayed that he should be prepared for the worst kind of news.
After a long pause that weighed heavily on them all, Shuu took a seat, and prompted his friends do to the same.
Shin was the one who proceeded to explain: the two of them had been hoping Ryo could clue them in on Touma's whereabouts. Touma had not been to see them since he visited Shin at the hospital the other night.
That night, it was Shuu's turn to watch over Shin. At around 7:30 PM, Shin began to stir. His vital signs quickly rose to stable levels, and Shuu nearly tripped over the wires and tubes in a mad rush to call the nurses and doctors in.
Soon it was evident that Shin was going to be fine. He was still weak at the onset, but he was finally responding to medications. It was as if nothing had happened. After two days of near-death, he was speaking, breathing and moving normally.
He was asked to stay another whole day "for observation" not for his sake, but for his puzzled doctors'.
Close to midnight, Touma came. It was long past visiting hours, but he talked his way past the guards and tricked everyone in his way into believing he was a visiting doctor attending to a medical emergency. That way he was able to stride into Shin's private room unhindered.
By that time, Shin was well enough to walk around. Shuu was expecting Touma would be surprised, but surprise was the last thing Touma's face registered. He may have feigned confidence to get there, but once there, the farce disintegrated. He looked breathless, lost, shattered.
Touma wouldn't say a word. Shuu came up to him and shook him by the shoulders, but he only looked back at Shuu blankly, without answering any of his questions.
Shin walked up to Touma, wrapped his arms around him.
And Touma started to cry.
He cried, Shuu related, for what seemed like hours. He babbled and yelled and wept in Shin's arms. It was a complete breakdown. He said a lot of things, not all of which made sense, but what he repeated the most was he was sorry, he was sorry, he was sorry.
It was all that Shin and Shuu could do to keep the orderlies from throwing him out, or coming at him with a sedative... and Shin wasn't letting go, not until he had quieted down.
It was definitely not how they expected a friend to react to good news. So they knew something was wrong. Had something happened to Ryo? Or to Seiji? But it wasn't until Touma had calmed down, a long time later, that he was able to answer.
He had come to tell them that Seiji was dead.
What happened? Ryo asked.
We couldn't tell, Shin replied. Touma left as soon as he could calm down enough. He said... you've done something stupid again. Something he hadn't planned, and it messed everything up. He said he just had to find you...
And then he was going to be "out of everyone's hair," Shuu finished for him.
Did he... was he... angry? With me?
I don't know, man. It was hard to tell. He was being really weird. I said I wanted to go with him, help him find you and stuff, but he got mad and said there was no way I could help. So I got angry, too, but if he didn't want me around, I didn't want to be around him either.
In the morning, we got to talk to Seiji's older sister, Yayoi-san. She was the one who identified the body at the morgue.
Yayoi-san said Touma found the body, and the cause of death was heart failure...
She said Seiji's body was found in the balcony, and it was raining... but it was also possible that his heart had stopped before the cold could set in.
The family's said no autopsy, so maybe we'll never know.
I don't understand, Ryo said softly. His heart...? But his heart was fine. I checked it before I left to... to take care of stuff at home. We ran all the tests, he could've run a marathon with that heart!
But how long were you gone? Shuu asked. It's possible that his health changed while you were away, right?
If he was with Touma, Ryo argued, there couldn't have been a risk. Touma would've stopped him from doing anything to hurt himself.
Except it would seem that Touma was asleep when it happened.
Asleep? What are you - that's not possible!
One of the things Touma said that night was, he shouldn't have fallen asleep. He was blaming himself. He said if he'd only woken up on time, everything would've been all right.
How could he have... fallen asleep. He wouldn't have. How...
The last time we spoke, he seemed so exhausted. Like he'd sleep for ages as soon as he felt at ease for even a second. He wasn't being kind enough to himself, and maybe Seiji knew. Maybe that was why Seiji let him sleep.
There were no wounds, no drugs, nothing found on Seiji. He was in perfect health, but his heart just... stopped. We kept telling Touma he shouldn't blame himself. But he wouldn't listen.
And we were hoping he was with you.
No... I... I don't, I'm sorry. I, if only I'd -
Stop it, Ryo, it's not your fault, either! God, I'm sick of all this selfish crap, all right?! We were already expecting it to happen, just not like this.
Shuu's right, Ryo. Seiji... wouldn't want you or Touma to feel this way.
It doesn't help anyone now. And it's sure going to annoy the hell out of Seiji if he were here. He was our friend, too, remember? We know.
Touma wasn't at the Date family's ancestral home for the wake. Neither was he at the funeral. He wasn't there to see Seiji go home, into the open arms of his family and everything familiar and beloved to him.
The Date family asked for him, knowing as they did how close Seiji had been to all his childhood friends. Only Yayoi did not ask. Neither was she asked what she knew, and so she did not need to answer. They were all somehow prepared for Seiji's passing: the last time he called already struck them as a sort of goodbye.
During their leave-taking, Yayoi said to Ryo: "Tell him we are grateful." Ryo nodded.
After the funeral, Ryo had to go back to the apartment. Ryo wasn't sure how he could stay in such a fancy place, seeing as how he was penniless and in desperate need of work, so it was high time to pack up.
"Do you want to go?" Shuu had asked him. Ryo had answered readily, "No. Touma'll have to come home sometime. I want to make sure he's all right, when he does."
Shuu wasn't so sure Touma was coming back. He wasn't up front about what he thought could have happened to Touma. "He'll probably want to be alone," he muttered. "You know how he is..."
But just in case, he told Ryo - just in case, I'll take care of a year's rent. Stay in that apartment, if that's what you feel you should do. Maybe you're right, and maybe Touma will need someone to come home to.
There was no way to refuse Shuu's help once he had made up his mind that he was giving it, but it turned out that the help was necessary. Touma had kept his word about transferring his assets to Ryo, which meant the lease of the apartment and the contents of his personal bank account - which, predictably, had next to nothing in it. The account was closed a long time ago, so it was not even a good way to track Touma down.
Ryo attempted to keep a close eye on the news, looking for an event that would have Touma's trademark on it, any sign that he had not been able to keep from helping someone out (or at least showing off his extraordinary smarts) in a big way.
...But he was bombarded instead with news of Touma's disappearance. What had happened to this prodigy, the young man who was once hailed as the hope of Japanese astrophysics? The last that anyone knew was that he was working for a major pharmaceutical company - it would seem that he had left this company, and no one had heard of him since.
Touma's mother, an award-winning international journalist, made several appearances on television calling for any information on her only child's whereabouts. She knew her own son better than anyone, Ryo knew, but let him live his life as he chose, believing he would always know better. She conducted her own investigations. That she was distressed and helpless now meant there was truly cause for concern.
Touma could've sacrificed the world to save Seiji, but he didn't. He chose instead to sacrifice himself.
Ryo didn't know who said those words, and why they stuck with him. He didn't know what they meant. He only knew they comforted him, though he felt perhaps they shouldn't.
It seemed for a while that everyone was looking for Touma. Shin and Shuu took time off to travel, hoping they would find some indication that Touma had been to any of the places they knew. They had even visited the old Yagyuu mansion, and recruited the help of Nasuti in trying to track Touma down.
At times they thought they found clues... but those clues, if that was what they were, led nowhere. Touma could vanish without a trace if he wanted to. And as time drew on, people grew tired of searching and gradually went back to their old routines. He became just another lost thing.
Ryo had also tried contacting the couple that he and Touma had been acquainted with - no luck. They'd seen his face (and learned of his name) in the news, but they had not heard from Touma at all.
It seemed that all that was left for Ryo to do was wait.
"Are you all right with this?" Shin had asked. "With waiting?"
Shin was getting ready to go back to his work in Aomori. His research break was over and it was time to leave Tokyo. He visited Ryo at Touma's apartment before he left.
He was taking his car back, of course. It wasn't as if Ryo still needed it; he preferred commuting anyway.
While Shin stayed in the city, he and Ryo spent time together, talking about many things... still they weren't able to talk about everything. Ryo couldn't bring himself to ask, for example, if Shin knew about Seiji's feelings while they were growing up. Shin would say something soothing and honest, and Ryo wasn't ready.
"Nothing wrong with it, I've just never known you to be very patient," Shin pointed out with a wry smile.
Ryo shrugged. "I guess it's a virtue I have to learn."
Shin was quiet for a while, turning his wine glass in his hand. Then, "He may never come back," he solemnly said.
They knew, they both did, that there was a chance Touma had taken his own life, but neither of them opened it up for discussion.
Ryo had never told Shin about Touma's machine, about what it did to him. It was a confession that wasn't his to make. And yet, somehow, he sensed that Shin already knew. And he had forgiven Touma long ago.
And he had never told Shin that there was no other option. How Ryo didn't see himself going back to his old life while there was a chance Touma was out there all alone. How he still blamed himself, in some way, for everything that had happened. How his hands missed the feeling of Touma's skin. But he never had to.
"He knows I'll be here." Ryo smiled wanly. "So he might."
Shin studied his younger friend silently, leaving objections unsaid. In the end he just nodded.
The apartment was large, and lonely. There were too many memories. On quiet nights Ryo couldn't help but recall the times they spent together, laughing at inane things, sitting under the stars and sharing memories, talking about everything, or not talking at all.
He would think that he heard Seiji or Touma's voice call his name - and that would make him stop whatever he was doing.
Sometimes, Mrs. Nakajima knocked, and Ryo let her in. And sometimes, if he was in need of human company, he would head over to Mrs. Nakajima's, where - in a grumbling, pretend-resentful way - he was always welcome.
Mrs. Nakajima's gossip wasn't always to Ryo's liking, but it passed the time. And she certainly needed help around the house. Sometimes she was too proud to ask for help changing light bulbs, carrying laundry baskets, or tilting heavy furniture back so she could vacuum underneath, and it was a good thing Ryo was around to notice.
It was as if Ryo was discovering the other tenants of the apartment for the first time, though he'd lived there for several months and had greeted almost all of them at one point or another, as he passed them by in the hall or in the lobby at the ground floor. At one point he realized they made good models for photographs, which provided its own share of amusement. Mrs. Nakajima herself was a frequent subject.
Daily life photography was proving surprisingly lucrative. It put him in touch with his old contacts, and new contacts as well, who opened doors for him. He was told early on that he had an "eye" for finding the beauty in everyday things: this "eye" got him places, allowed him to search for Touma when it seemed everyone else had already stopped searching.
The world was vast. There were so many people to talk to, and no one to confide in.
So, at night, Ryo stepped out into the balcony, and looked up.
Touma had said once that he liked to stay in high places, because if you were close enough to the sky, you could hear the stars, and the stars had stories.
Ryo often wondered about them, staying so far out of reach, and at the same time watching over everything. Wasn't it lonely out there, watching as the little creatures of the little world below loved, lost, died and were born?
But if all the stars were living things, it was impossible to feel alone.
When he was little, his father told him that when people died, they became stars. And you could talk to them just like you could to regular people, because they were still human souls, only taking on another body after they were done.
He closed his eyes and felt the presence of these souls over and all around him. He spoke to them because he knew they could hear: Look after him. Keep him safe. If he was out there. If he was all right.
Help him remember how to listen.
(end)
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edited 30 Dec 2011: So it ends. My heartfelt thanks to everyone who read this far! It's been a long year and a half, and writing for this story provided me much-needed distraction.
There was originally an epilogue here, but I took it down. After rereading it, and after receiving feedback in public and in private, I realized it still needed a lot of work. I suppose I just wanted to finish something in time for Christmas, and it came out subpar.
I apologize for everyone who had to suffer that. Sometime in the future, I may decide to revise this fic, but probably not anytime soon. I'm not sure the epilogue is ever going back up, either. For now I hope the conclusion of the story, open-ended as it is, provides a decent enough tie-up to everything.
I'm truly grateful to everyone who left feedback, positive or otherwise. It's humbling to know that other people have become invested in this story as well, and I do apologize to everyone I may have disappointed with my crappy writing. As said in the fic: It's not my story, it's just my words.
Finally: Happy Holidays! I hope that everyone else is also looking forward to the coming new year :)