Ukyou
“She isn’t feeling well today.” The nurse is a sweet matronly type, wholly unimaginative, the kind that Tsuzuki could easily imagine baking cookies for her children. She’s enchanted with him – they all are, really. Of course, Tsuzuki is used to this by now.
“It’s all right. I’ll just be here a moment.” Tsuzuki’s come on a pretext – first he lied to his partner about getting a slice of pie up in Chijou. Now he’s lying about being sent by Muraki to check up on Ukyou.
For all he knew Muraki was dead. The curse might not have faded on Hisoka, but he had felt the knife slip in, scraping along a rib, the lifeblood gushing out…
It had taken him weeks to stop remembering the blood. Even now, he can almost feel the splatter of…no. He can’t think like that. Tsuzuki shakes his head. Hisoka wouldn’t like it.
Then again, he doesn’t like it either, but it doesn’t mean that he can easily dismiss the memories.
Finding Ukyou has been much easier than forgetting Muraki’s blood.
He walks into the little house. It’s pleasant and cozy; the walls are hung with cheerful paintings and pictures. There’s a walled garden in the back.
He walks by the mantel and flinches as something catches his attention. It’s a portrait framed in heavy silver. He picks it up.
He’s never seen Muraki this young before. Muraki looks to be in his early twenties. He still has both of his eyes; he even has a different haircut, one that doesn’t mask the right side of his face. He’s sitting with Ukyou in his lap, a vibrant young woman with her arms around his shoulders and long dark hair. They’re smiling at each other as if they’re sharing a secret; their eyes focused upon each another, the camera forgotten.
It’s love. They’re in love. Tsuzuki swallows. He’s never known that this side of Muraki existed. Now he never will. Pictures now are the only things that remain.
In the picture, their fingers are twined together. A promise.
Tsuzuki sets the picture back down as if he’s touched fire.
Fire. And he left Muraki to burn.
Tears tremble in his eyes. He hated Muraki, but still, it was wrong to do it. It was wrong, he didn’t deserve…
Tsuzuki shakes his head. No. Don’t think like that. Just…keep going.
Keep walking forward.
She’s out in the garden, in a recliner that’s been moved there for the purpose. It’s perhaps the last warm day in autumn; soon it will be too cold for this. But there’s a blanket tucked around her to protect her from the elements.
Tsuzuki kneels down beside her.
“Ukyou-san?” His voice is soft. She doesn’t hear him, staring blindly ahead as falling leaves swirl around her. She’s beautiful, or would be if she weren’t suffering so. Bruised flesh along the hollows of her eyes as if she’s haunted by something that no one else can see, the face of insomnia, of restless sleeplessness. Her expression is pinched with a lingering fear that does not fade. Tsuzuki wants to take that unseen pain away from her, and chase away the shadows for her so that she doesn’t have to suffer so.
But perhaps it’s better this way. Better that she doesn’t know that the man she is promised to marry is dead by his hands. If there was a future for her beyond these walls, he’s destroyed it. Tsuzuki’s stomach knots with guilt.
“It’s me. Tsuzuki Asato.” He’s gentle, yet she doesn’t hear him. She’s elsewhere, somewhere far away.
Tsuzuki recognizes that look. Once, in a lucid moment, he had seen himself like that, staring blankly into a mirror.
The glass was broken in the end, and he had used it to rip a gash in his right wrist. He had smiled when the blood flowed.
In the end it all returns to blood, doesn’t it?
Tsuzuki touches her hand. It’s cold. He clasps it in his own. “Ukyou-san?”
Nothing. But for her breathing, she could be dead, a doll that has no life of its own. Her dark eyes, they don’t see him or anyone else anymore.
Tsuzuki stands up. It has been a mistake to come here.
He resolves to set this incident away from his mind. As far as he’s concerned, this never happened.
As the nurse comes into the garden to offer this charming young man of the doctor’s some cookies and a drink, he’s already gone, disappeared like a wisp of smoke in the autumn air. She makes sure that Ukyou’s tucked in comfortably and goes back inside to clean, clucking to herself about the hastiness of youth, never mind that Tsuzuki would have had to scale a ten foot wall to leave without her noticing.
After she’s gone, Ukyou blinks, a momentary lapse of consciousness. She moves her hand just a little where the Shinigami had touched her. She looks at the fingers curiously as they close, as if to clasp another’s hand.
“Muraki?” It’s a whisper, drowned in the rasp of leaves that crackle against the pavement as a strong gust brushes them aside.
No one notices this. And soon, Ukyou doesn’t either.