Tokyo Babylon Fan Fiction / X/1999 Fan Fiction ❯ Lost Souls ❯ XXIII ( Chapter 23 )

"I see you're still bandaged up like a mummy from the nose up," Kamui said lightly, after Subaru sat down. "Bandages seem to be in this year...all the rage in certain circles."

"I'm pleased to see you again too, Kamui," Subaru said with a small grin. Kamui noted that his smiles were getting smaller and smaller lately, and came less and less often. Then again, so had the crying spells and overwhelming rages. He had told Kamui that he'd been staying with Seishirou again, finding familiarity within the walls of the apartment they'd shared for so long.

"I got good news today--both Yuzuriha and I are getting out tomorrow. It's a good excuse for a party, right?"

Subaru just nodded. "Sorata-kun already invited me. It was supposed to be a surprise though."

Kamui grinned. "I thought I'd come up with an original idea. I'll just have to try harder next time."

"You're trying to cheer me up," Subaru observed with a small twist of his lips.

"You look like you need it more than I do," Kamui agreed softly. "You have the same look in your eye that you did when we first met."

"I've been remembering things."

That's all Subaru needed to say, and Kamui understood. "When you told me about your past...and I saw things that had happened to you in your memories...I didn't know what to think. It was too much for anyone to bear, I thought. Just like me. But, you did it anyway, and I knew it could be done. When you said you'd been living with Seishirou for years, even after all that happened, I even had hope that I could find a happy ending. That I could save Fuuma somehow, and everything would be okay."

Subaru looked down at his hands. "Things are different though. Seishirou-san is the same person he has always been. And...I can not save him from who he truly is. That person killed my sister. That person lied to me and betrayed my trust. That person tried to get me to kill him and force me to take his place. No matter how much I love, no matter how much I try, no matter how much I hope, that person is who he is."

They were both silent for a time, lost in their respective thoughts. Kamui twisted his hands in his lap, frowning. "Then...you think there's no hope?"

"I didn't say that." Subaru started to smile a little now, and when he looked up there was still the shadow of an idealistic teenager in his faded blue eyes. "I was saying that everything is different between the two of us."

"Then...things aren't going well between you and Seishirou-san?"

"I don't know." Subaru frowned in thought and looked upward. "They might still, but I just don't know. All the things I wished to forget are coming back to me...it was an insidious wish to have made...and to have granted."

Kamui nodded in silent understanding.

"I'm starting to think I can do this though," Subaru said softly, voice full of hope. "It's like everything changed, and I can remember why I fell in love in the first place. It wasn't just the lies like I thought, but there were other things. I'm still trying to figure it out, but I'm starting to. I want to, and I didn't before."

"Why not?"

"The memories choked me. Not my sister's death...but the years after that. The loneliness. Thinking that I was worthless to him. It ate at me. I still don't remember it very well, but it's enough to know that it's those years that I could not forgive him for even more than anything else."

"You can forgive him?" Kamui's question was more than just curiosity. If Subaru could forgive....

"That was never the problem," Subaru said. "It was that I could never forgive myself."

"Yourself?" This one was completely beyond Kamui. What did Subaru have to forgive himself for?

"Yes. I couldn't forgive myself for just letting things happen. I couldn't forgive myself for being weak when I should have been strong. Most of all, I couldn't forgive myself for falling in love...for wanting to forgive Seishirou-san for what he'd done."

Kamui nodded his understanding. There was a part of him that felt the same every day he remembered Kotori's death. He'd been too shocked to move. Too scared to use the powers he had to face someone he cared so much about. He couldn't believe that Kotori would actually die--that was Fuuma up there doing this to her and he--

"I know what you mean," Kamui said, shaking his head to clear it. Even now the memory was too vivid and painful when he let it surface.

Subaru smiled that same weary smile that he had always given to try to reassure Kamui before he'd lost his memory. It had meant a lot to him at the time, but now that Kamui knew the brilliance of Subaru's true smiles it seemed like a poor substitute. "I hope you don't know what I mean. Fuuma has no choice in what he's doing. Seishirou-san does."

"Does he?"

Subaru blinked. His face went blank and unreadable. "You think he doesn't?"

Kamui sighed. "I don't know. Maybe the same kind of choice I had...because if he didn't do it, someone else would have to. Right? But, you told me yourself that he was raised this way. That he gained the position by killing his mother. Maybe the only choice he had was in what he's done with you."

"Which part of what he's done with me?" Subaru asked bitterly. "The part where he lied? The part where he almost killed me, or where he did--"

Kamui cut him off with a shake of his head. "The part where he was sixteen years old and hoped he'd be able to love someone some day so much that he turned against the strongest tradition of his family's history."

Subaru's head snapped upward, locking his gaze upon Kamui's face, staring at the mouth that had said those words, then looking into Kamui's clear blue-violet eyes. "I don't know," Subaru said after a while, spreading his hands hopelessly. "Maybe...I just don't know."

Kamui nodded. He didn't know what he expected, but he hoped he gave Subaru a chance to find peace. "Good luck," he finally said softly, when neither of them could think of anything else.

"Thank you," Subaru murmured. "I...have a lot of things I need to think about."

"Go think then. I'll see you at the party tomorrow," he laughed.

Subaru stood with a distracted look on his face and left.