Reality
By Kouri Arashi
I am dying.
I'm not quite sure when this happened or why it is happening. I don't remember. I lift my head as much as I can to see the bloody mess that is me. Just like Hokuto. How tragic. How utterly and completely . . . right.
My eyes wander as my mind wanders and I see Seishirou. He is kneeling beside me, his eyes hidden by those sunglasses.
I know he has killed me, though I can't seem to remember when it happened.
I open my mouth and try for speech. "Seishirou-san . . ." And then my voice drifts, as I drift. What can I say to him anyway? Suddenly, I have a nagging longing to see him again, as I remember him. Without those sunglasses. His eyes. Only one left now. But it would still be beautiful. I reach up, strength fading fast now, and tug on the sunglasses until they come off and fall to the ground with a clatter.
He looks a little surprised. He wasn't expecting me to do that. His eye is clouded, and I can't see the emotions behind it. If he has any. If he ever had any. I'd like to believe he does, but somehow . . .
Drifting.
What was I thinking?
Seishirou is just looking at me.
I try to speak again. Open my mouth, cough. There is blood in my mouth; I can taste it. I suddenly remember that I have no idea what to say, and the first words that come to my mind tumble out of my mouth. "Thank you . . ."
Confusion again. I can see it in his face. In that one eye. He still doesn't speak, and I wish he would. To hear his voice again, that would be . . . and yet the unspoken question is in his eye. Thank you for what?
It echoes in my soul. What am I thanking him for? I didn't mean to say that, yet it somehow feels right.
"For . . ." My voice doesn't sound like my own, filled with blood and pain. "For making . . . my Wish . . . Reality . . ."
Fading.
And then he finally speaks. Not much, one word, my name. The most precious sound in the world, him speaking my name.
"Subaru . . ."
I reach up with my last strength and trace the scar on his cheek. My hand is covered in blood, and it comes off on his face.
And as everything fades to black, I see one slow tear making its way down his cheek.
~ ~ ~ Subaru sat up with a gasp.
Tears were running down his face, which he quickly wiped away and put a stop to. No reason to cry. Nothing had changed. He'd had a nightmare, that was all. All right, a particularly vivid, gruesome nightmare. But it was only a dream. It couldn't hurt him.
He remembered Kamui mentioning that Kotori had received prophetic visions of her own death, and brushed that aside with a shudder. Kotori was a Dreamwalker, sort of, so of course she would get visions of her death.
Subaru got out of bed and fumbled for a pack of cigarettes. He was no prophet, and it hadn't been a vision. Just a dream, that was all.
For making . . . my Wish . . . Reality . . .
He shivered and lit the cigarette. It had only been days since he had spoken those very words to Seishirou, but under such a different context.
His Wish was to kill Seishirou . . .
Wasn't it?
He shivered again. It had been a long day, that was all. A long, horrible day, what with Fuuma killing Kotori and nearly killing Kamui and then having to go Within Kamui and tell him about Hokuto and Seishirou and get him to come back and . . . a long day.
Would he really cry? Subaru continued to shiver. If he really killed me, would he cry?
He wanted so badly to believe . . .
He needed more sleep.
He crushed the cigarette out and lay back down. Then he stared up at the ceiling. Why did it have to be this way, Aneki? he wondered. He liked speaking to his sister; it made him feel comforted somehow. Why did I have to end up so alone? Without you, and without . . .
He closed his eyes.
Seishirou . . .
He was tired to his very core, and he thought he would drift off quickly, but he did not. Instead, he lay and stared at the ceiling all night long.