Aya breathed evenly as he sat down at one of the couches, staring right ahead of him and tried to avoid thinking. At the moment breathing was enough for him. His cheeks felt burning, however, his face was unhealthily pale.
It wasn't real. It couldn't be.
He stole a glance towards the door where he had walked in just a moment ago and winced. Hell, he'd want it to be real. So much it would hurt. So much he would bleed for it. He begun to understand why Yohji had felt so temped...
Swallowing, he returned his gaze back to his hands. No, it wasn't true, and that fact would never change. Sena was dead. Aya-chan... was safely back in Tokyo, living in old Koneko. Then he pulled out the letter from his pocket and stared at it. He couldn't bring himself to open it.
He probably wouldn't have left the waiting room at all, had the nurse not gently urged him to his feet and ushered him to the sun room, all the while encouraging him quietly, telling him that accepting that he was sick and needed help was the first and biggest step to recovery. Now that he was cooperating, he'd be home in no time, she said
( ... )
Aya looked up when he heard Omi speak his name, brows furrowed miserably and eyes blank. Omi seemed... confused, off somehow. Since when had he started stuttering? All this registered to Aya calmly, like in a dream.
Maybe the boy had had a visitor as well. Aya should have been more alarmed, considering the possibilities that line of thought brought up, feeling like the ground he walked was crumbling away. And yet he couldn't feel a thing.
"Omi," he said silently, finding himself surprisingly grateful for the company. "How...how are you?"
Wrong. Wrong, wrong, this was all so wrong. Aya wasn't supposed to look like that. He was supposed to be ready with an answer for anything, maybe yell at Omi for being stupid enough to believe all of that, but not...
He'd have to play along, try to remember. Something had to start making sense eventually, right?
He forced a smile, wobbly though it was. "I'll be okay. What about you?"
Aya swallowed as he eyed that hesitant smile, then he returned his gaze back to his lap and the letter.
"I... am not sure," he said silently, already a small voice at the back of his mind whipping him for sounding so weak and distracted. How hard would it be to lie? He did so every day. Omi obviously thought it was okay.
"It's fine," Aya finally forced himself to say. "You had a visitor?"
The smile seemed to have gone over okay, so he forced himself to move, sitting down in a chair near Aya. Well, sitting for a few moments before the vulnerable, open feeling got to be too much for him, and he pulled his knees up to his chest.
He eventually nodded in answer to Aya's question, not really noticing whether Aya was looking to see it or not. "You did, too?"
"Yeah," was all Aya managed for an answer. He laid another blank gaze at Omi, looking at him idly. He looked so much like Sena, big eyes and that same confusion riding heavy on the slim shoulders.
Aya didn't want to think about it. He shook his head slightly and winced when the brand new shoulder wound protested violently to the gesture, sending stabs of pain down along with his arm and spine, up to the stiff arch of his neck. He hissed under his breath and stilled his shoulders, slowly letting them relax again. It reminded him about last night, this morning and what happened around here when the darkness fell.
Just another cruel spell.
It was as if seeing Omi for the first time since walking into the sun room. The boy seemed small and vulnerable. Something was horribly wrong here.
"I guess we're not okay, huh? What happened?" he asked softly, trying to catch Omi's gaze.
Trying to catch Omi's gaze would probably have been easier if Omi hadn't been so studiously avoiding Aya's.
What was real? Was this real, all of this fear and uncertainty and pain and darkness and-
Please help me!
He took in a sharp breath, biting his tongue to stop himself from crying out, eyes going the tiniest bit unfocued as another random memory followed along the ends of that line of thought. Okay. So, they were triggered by similar thoughts, right, so he just had to avoid thinking those things. Right.
Get yourself together, he told himself sternly. Things like that weren't going to get him out of here, no matter which memories were true. "Nothing." He took a deep breath, centering himself as his-
assassin, killer, pulling the wings off butterflies, NO!Calm. He had to be calm. Whether the memories were right or not, they existed, so it wasn't wrong to use them... right? "Nothing happened, really. We... talked. About a lot of things. What about yours?" He nodded at the letter in Aya's lap. Sometimes, a good offense was the
( ... )
"Omi..." Aya started as the boy struggled with himself. He had a front seat to this show, and it wasn't difficult to see and hear what was not said aloud. Whoever had been visiting Omi was not good news. And as Aya had just witnessed, it could be anyone from his late brothers to his late sister and then back to uncle Persia or whoever practically
( ... )
He didn't quite duck away from Aya's hand, but the aborted twitch said he might have liked to. It wasn't that he didn't want the contact, didn't want that comfort. Far from it, really. Even this morning, he'd been more than happy for the attention. Now...
Well, it felt like a betrayal. Turning around from crying on his brother's shoulder to letting someone who might as well be a stranger be equally as intimate, or was it the other way around? If he could just remember, just figure things out...
"A letter from your sister? That's great, right?" He sounded a little more uncertain than he would have liked, but Aya-chan was part of Omi's world. If Omi wasn't real, was she?
"I don't really know," Aya murmured, even cracked a sad smile to company his broken tone of voice. He had not talked with her in length since she fell in coma. He was a bit afraid to open the envelop.
Understatement of the year, he was scared stupid to open it.
Even if Omi flinched, Aya reached for him determinedly, laying a warm hand over the soft hair and ruffling the blond bangs gently. He was hellbent on keeping what had been there this morning. And Omi seemed almost ready to fly away like a scared bird, cut all communication channels and be gone. If it was any way possible to avoid that, he'd go for it.
"But it made me wonder..." he begun slowly, studying Omi as he spoke. "Who did you meet?"
He tensed up under Aya's hand, not sure anymore how to react. So much had happened since last night, he wasn't even sure who he was, anymore, let alone who he was supposed to be to all these people who wanted things from him.
After a second, though, he gave in to the part of him that was telling him to just take comfort where he could get it. With a sigh, he let his eyes fall closed. "My brother."
Aya couldn't help tensing up as Omi confirmed what he had been fearing all along. But he made a point about not withdrawing his hand right away. He might as well do it right this time.
"So, you remember your brothers now?" he asked quietly. He wished he had known how to handle this one. He felt utterly lost, which never failed to irritate him. At the moment he was short on any emotion even vaguely related to anger, however, borderline depression playing a merry game of tag with his sense of duty and responsibility.
He finally leaned back and brought his hands together in his lap. What was the point? He was talented in murder, not in keeping his friends together when they seemed to fall apart.
He didn't open his eyes again, instead squeezing them even tighter shut and burying his face in his knees. He didn't need to look at Aya for this.
"I don't know." And he didn't. Not really. He remembered Mamoru's brothers. Probably. Maybe they were Michael's brothers, too, but how could he know? Some of the things Hirofumi had told him made sense or clicked with things he vaguely remembered. Like Masafumi playing the piano, or Mother loving flowers or...
But how did he know? He was starting to remember things, so many things, but how could he know?
Omi's and Aya's visions about Masafumi's musical talents might have been completely different. Aya knew Omi's knowledge about his family would be limited, even if he would regain his memories. But how could he bring himself to say any of those things aloud when Omi looked like this?
"Eventually you'll remember everything," he said quietly. "There's no need to push yourself."
What else could he say? It seemed something was coming back to Omi. How and what? It remained to be seen. Until then he'd just have to remain quietly supportive.
Aya breathed evenly as he sat down at one of the couches, staring right ahead of him and tried to avoid thinking. At the moment breathing was enough for him. His cheeks felt burning, however, his face was unhealthily pale.
It wasn't real. It couldn't be.
He stole a glance towards the door where he had walked in just a moment ago and winced. Hell, he'd want it to be real. So much it would hurt. So much he would bleed for it. He begun to understand why Yohji had felt so temped...
Swallowing, he returned his gaze back to his hands. No, it wasn't true, and that fact would never change. Sena was dead. Aya-chan... was safely back in Tokyo, living in old Koneko. Then he pulled out the letter from his pocket and stared at it. He couldn't bring himself to open it.
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Maybe the boy had had a visitor as well. Aya should have been more alarmed, considering the possibilities that line of thought brought up, feeling like the ground he walked was crumbling away. And yet he couldn't feel a thing.
"Omi," he said silently, finding himself surprisingly grateful for the company. "How...how are you?"
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He'd have to play along, try to remember. Something had to start making sense eventually, right?
He forced a smile, wobbly though it was. "I'll be okay. What about you?"
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"I... am not sure," he said silently, already a small voice at the back of his mind whipping him for sounding so weak and distracted. How hard would it be to lie? He did so every day. Omi obviously thought it was okay.
"It's fine," Aya finally forced himself to say. "You had a visitor?"
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He eventually nodded in answer to Aya's question, not really noticing whether Aya was looking to see it or not. "You did, too?"
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Aya didn't want to think about it. He shook his head slightly and winced when the brand new shoulder wound protested violently to the gesture, sending stabs of pain down along with his arm and spine, up to the stiff arch of his neck. He hissed under his breath and stilled his shoulders, slowly letting them relax again. It reminded him about last night, this morning and what happened around here when the darkness fell.
Just another cruel spell.
It was as if seeing Omi for the first time since walking into the sun room. The boy seemed small and vulnerable. Something was horribly wrong here.
"I guess we're not okay, huh? What happened?" he asked softly, trying to catch Omi's gaze.
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What was real? Was this real, all of this fear and uncertainty and pain and darkness and-
Please help me!
He took in a sharp breath, biting his tongue to stop himself from crying out, eyes going the tiniest bit unfocued as another random memory followed along the ends of that line of thought. Okay. So, they were triggered by similar thoughts, right, so he just had to avoid thinking those things. Right.
Get yourself together, he told himself sternly. Things like that weren't going to get him out of here, no matter which memories were true. "Nothing." He took a deep breath, centering himself as his-
assassin, killer, pulling the wings off butterflies, NO!Calm. He had to be calm. Whether the memories were right or not, they existed, so it wasn't wrong to use them... right? "Nothing happened, really. We... talked. About a lot of things. What about yours?" He nodded at the letter in Aya's lap. Sometimes, a good offense was the ( ... )
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Well, it felt like a betrayal. Turning around from crying on his brother's shoulder to letting someone who might as well be a stranger be equally as intimate, or was it the other way around? If he could just remember, just figure things out...
"A letter from your sister? That's great, right?" He sounded a little more uncertain than he would have liked, but Aya-chan was part of Omi's world. If Omi wasn't real, was she?
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Understatement of the year, he was scared stupid to open it.
Even if Omi flinched, Aya reached for him determinedly, laying a warm hand over the soft hair and ruffling the blond bangs gently. He was hellbent on keeping what had been there this morning. And Omi seemed almost ready to fly away like a scared bird, cut all communication channels and be gone. If it was any way possible to avoid that, he'd go for it.
"But it made me wonder..." he begun slowly, studying Omi as he spoke. "Who did you meet?"
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After a second, though, he gave in to the part of him that was telling him to just take comfort where he could get it. With a sigh, he let his eyes fall closed. "My brother."
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"So, you remember your brothers now?" he asked quietly. He wished he had known how to handle this one. He felt utterly lost, which never failed to irritate him. At the moment he was short on any emotion even vaguely related to anger, however, borderline depression playing a merry game of tag with his sense of duty and responsibility.
He finally leaned back and brought his hands together in his lap. What was the point? He was talented in murder, not in keeping his friends together when they seemed to fall apart.
Reply
"I don't know." And he didn't. Not really. He remembered Mamoru's brothers. Probably. Maybe they were Michael's brothers, too, but how could he know? Some of the things Hirofumi had told him made sense or clicked with things he vaguely remembered. Like Masafumi playing the piano, or Mother loving flowers or...
But how did he know? He was starting to remember things, so many things, but how could he know?
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"Eventually you'll remember everything," he said quietly. "There's no need to push yourself."
What else could he say? It seemed something was coming back to Omi. How and what? It remained to be seen. Until then he'd just have to remain quietly supportive.
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No need to push? He couldn't remember. It... He... He just...
He curled even tighter, shaking with the effort of not crying, and unconsciously echoed his earlier statement to Hirofumi. "I just want to go home."
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