http://clampfix.fanworks.net/ss-fix/leaves06.txt </head><body><pre>here's the next chapter which is also at: http://www.hiddencache.com/projecthachimitsu/tbx.shtml Leaves by the Candle Light Chapter VI By Hachi Mitsu I love candles. They smell warm like spring. During the winter Hokuto-chan use to light them all around the house. We had all sorts of candles. Once Hokuto-chan found some candles with blue swirls dancing around the white wicks; she exclaimed with a certain delight only she had that it looked like the waves of the ocean were singing with the sea foam. No one was quite sure what she was talking about, so we all just smiled and nodded. Hokuto-chan always spent an outrageous amount of money on those beautiful sources of luminance. During that year we spent with Seishirou-san, she bought a tall golden brown candle that had a dozen of those glittering amber colored stones embedded at the bottom. I still remember the single small, translucent brown leaf frozen in the candle; it seemed to hover over the pebbled floor of its hazy miniature world. I liked it because autumn always felt like death, but that little leaf would never have to die. After Seishirou-san left, I was like that little leaf. I couldn't move because I was trapped in my own heart. But, that meant that I couldn't fall either. That last candle Hokuto-chan lit was a simple off-white candle made of pure beeswax. She placed it on a small round table across the room from where I sat motionless, and walked out of my life forever. Just like Seishirou-san. I watched the candle flicker and waver, and finally, twelve hours later, die. I think that some part of me must have died with that flame. Sometimes I wonder why Hokuto-chan never burned that golden brown candle I loved so much. After she died, I found it lying in a corner covered with dust. I brushed the fine layer of gray off like cobwebs of memory, and lit it with a lighter that Seishirou-san must have left in our apartment. I held it while it burned, and when it got to that little leaf, forever in its motionless descent, it burned too. The wax melted and melted, and trailed down my hand like thick tears. It smeared across the inverted pentagram on the back of my gloveless hand, then trailed down my arms like fire. It hurt, but the pain in my chest hurt more. I use to think that I was like that little leaf. And Seishirou-san was like the candle around me, trapping me in his world, burning me when he left. The candle died, like my world, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't put it back together again. After the candle burned itself away, I took the lighter and lit a cigarette from the pack that was left on the kitchen counter with the lighter. The smoke hurt my chest, but in the process, dulled the ache that was already there. There's a lesson to be learned here, I'm sure. I just haven't figured out what it was yet. *** Subaru walked along the quiet street that hugged the edge of Tokyo Bay. It was late afternoon and the onmyouji had just finished performing an exorcism at a nearby dock. The thick sunlight slanted over the shadowed pavement. It still hurt him a little to think that the girl drowned herself in the cold water because her boyfriend left her on the shore for someone else. Subaru felt sorry for her, watching the last of her spirit fade away like the last of the smoke from a dead wick. But, in a way, he envied the nameless dead girl even more. If he had been able to do something so simple as throw himself off a bridge or even just into Seishirou's arms, he would not have had to suffer through nine years of endless pain. But he couldn't; his grandmother sacrificed her legs and Hokuto her life... for him to live. He could not die yet. Subaru frowned in his thoughts. Somehow his mind kept wandering back to Seishirou. The older man had disappeared again after their oh-so-touching reunion. When Subaru woke up the second day to find him gone, he wasn't sure whether to be thankful or to throw himself back into bed in uncharacteristic tears. He had debated for a while, and then wondered who the hell he was kidding and promptly threw himself, not into tears because that would have been just too humiliating, but rather, a state of passionate depression. That had worked well. He was thoroughly miserable at this point and still had no idea what he was going to do. One would think that after spending nine years suffering from Seishirou-deprivation, he'd have developed a way to cope. Yes, well, humans do have a way of learning so quickly. Subaru sighed. It wasn't fair. / It wasn't fair. / Really, it wasn't. How could Seishirou just leave him like that without a word of explanation? Subaru felt a wail of frustration rise up his throat. And that was the state the object of his obsession found him in as he turned around at the sound of casual footsteps coming up behind him. "S-Seishirou-san!" Subaru blinked in surprise, then blinked again as he started into a pair of mismatching pair of amused eyes. "Hello, Subaru-kun." His voice was an irritatingly calm. Before Subaru could regain his mobility, he felt a pair of warm arms wrap around his chest, and promptly blushed two shades deeper than the impending sunset. "I thought you left..." Subaru wondered half to himself, fingering the small elegant bouquet of yellow roses that Seishirou had pressed into his arms. Suddenly, he felt rather foolish for saying that... for...for everything. After nine years of being devoid of emotions, he suddenly felt like burying his face into Seishirou's shoulder and crying his eyes out. And the worst thing was, he wasn't even sure why! "I'd never leave you," Seishirou whispered soothingly, taking his thoughts back to the present. "Really?" He smiled, though Subaru couldn't see it from where he stood. "Yellow roses are supposed to symbolize eternity." Seishirou murmured by Subaru's ear, savoring the feel of his fine black hair brushing against his lips like a raven's feathers. "Does this mean that you think we have eternity?" Subaru whispered back, a small smile touching his own lips. "We only have as long as we live." Subaru didn't answer immediately, but instead ran his long graceful fingers along the fragile edges of the creamy yellow roses; darting around the snow white baby's breath that dripped between the yellow velvet like silk lace. "But," he finally replied, almost in a playful tone, "you're the invincible Sakurazukamori, and I am your prey. Therefore, I conclude that you meant to say we have as long as you want us to have." Seishirou laughed. "Subaru-kun. I think you're overlooking a rather large piece of the puzzle." "...and that would be?" Seishirou answered matter-of-factly. "The world is ending." Silence reigned the next few minutes. But it was almost the peaceful kind of silence that spoke of warm evenings spent with the one you loved. Subaru closed his eyes, leaning back against Seishirou. Even with his eyes closed he could still see the brilliant orange of the sunset as it slid over Tokyo Bay. At some points, when the sun passed between the bars of the bridge that stretched high above the water, it flickered and dulled, but always came back seconds later. Maybe they didn't have forever. But then again, who did? So maybe...they didn't need it. If they could make the most of the time they did have, maybe...it would be enough. Subaru opened his eyes in time to watch the last of the light disappear. The certain calm settled with the sun was almost tangible, like fog. Subaru gazed with half lidded eyes into the soft waves of the water, watching the light from cars on the bridge nearby glitter off the perpetually shifting waves. Suddenly, Subaru smiled. The waves looked like they were singing. The ocean and the sea, two entirely different, yet similar, bodies of water washing over each other like the harmonies of a song. So that's what Hokuto-chan meant. The world smoothed itself out as two souls sighed. The waves were singing. A pure sirenic song, meant for their ears alone. --- End of Chapter VI</pre><p><a href="./">Back</a></p><p><a href=http://www.dreamhost.com/donate.cgi?id=216><img border=0 alt="Donate towards our web hosting bill!" src=https://secure.newdream.net/donate1.gif></a></p></body></html>