[fic] [yst] At the Stars 8/?
sorry for the long wait. i hope people still remember this ^^;
At the Stars
Part 8
"Shuu and I were supposed to meet up before coming here," was the first thing Shin disclosed, as he started the car. "But at the last minute, one of his sisters called and said he couldn't come. He was sick."
"Eh? Shuu's sick?!" Shuu was never sick. Whenever he caught a fever he worked up a sweat and then rested so his skin would cool. He took pride in never having to see a doctor for any illness in his entire young life.
Shin shrugged. "Sick enough not to come here, even if he really wanted to. He was fine when we talked over the phone about coming here, though." They turned a corner. Shin continued in a slightly quieter voice, "I asked, but Rinfi didn't give any details. She just said he's very sorry, and he's instructed her to wire us the money we need for Seiji's hospitalization. One of us just needs to tell her how much."
"Didn't he call you up himself?" Ryo asked - because Shuu would do that, even at his sickest.
Shin shook his head thoughtfully.
During the brief silence, it occurred to Ryo to ask, for the sheer sake of asking, if maybe Shuu had not wanted to come. But he stopped himself.
It was nowhere near the right thing to say.
Though unable to visit most of the time because of family responsibilities, Shuu called the apartment now and then - to check up on all of them, to talk to Ryo about the money he insisted on sending, and to speak to Seiji himself if circumstances permitted it. He always sounded positive, even as he said things that were already depressing for him - things like "hang in there" or "it just doesn't get any easier, huh?"
But thinking back to that day they all got together at Touma's apartment, Ryo remembered Shuu was the one who had asked if what was happening to Seiji, was going to happen to the rest of them. It was impossible to read the expression on his face, then. Fear was nowhere except in the quietness of his voice as he spoke.
Touma had made it clear then: No. Seiji's affliction was his alone. And Shuu had only nodded grimly.
To even consider that Shuu might not want to see Seiji at a time like this felt strange. Ryo knew in his heart that Shuu would want to race out the door as soon as he heard the news.
They were near the apartment now. It wasn't a very long drive. There was only enough time to change the subject once. "Ryo," Shin began, "what really happened to Seiji? What did the doctors say?"
"I'm not sure I get it," Ryo confessed. "But from what I remember, Seiji stopped breathing for a long time. They sounded like it was to be expected, because his lungs were already barely functioning. He shouldn't have survived it, but he did." Ryo looked away. "They called it a miracle."
"A miracle." He heard the smile in Shin's voice. "I wonder what Touma would have to say about that..."
Ryo did, too. But it was best to shut up about Touma, for the moment. He was grateful Shin didn't ask.
"Ryo... when Seiji was at the hospital. Did you tell him anything?"
Ryo knew what Shin meant. He didn't answer. He wasn't allowed to visit Seiji too long while he was in intensive care.
For some reason, he couldn't find it in himself to speak while he stood beside Seiji's bed. A hundred goodbyes went through him, and none of them left his lips. It just didn't feel right to be the only one standing there. To be the only one who had anything to say.
"I've been thinking about what I would say to him. If he wasn't going to wake up." Shin sighed. "But forget about that. Everything will be fine now, right?"
Ryo looked out the window, at the steady rainfall that looked like it wasn't going to end anytime that night.
"Yeah," he numbly answered.
He didn't know why he was expecting to see Touma's shoes at the entrance to the apartment. They weren't there, of course.
There were a couple of other things missing: an umbrella from the rack, for example - the dark blue one, the one he most frequently used. Also missing were Touma's car keys, which he often carelessly left on the countertop by the dining room, instead of anywhere safe.
What was there was Touma's suitcase, the old frayed canvas one, which was stuffed with hastily scribbled medical notes. Ryo frowned. It seemed Touma wasn't headed for any of the laboratories where he worked on Seiji's medicine - otherwise he would have brought that suitcase along.
So where was he?
"You don't have any messages," Shin pointed out. The phone was his first destination. "Someone must've checked the machine recently."
"Or nobody called," Ryo suggested. "Everyone knows Touma's cell phone number. The landline hardly gets used, except when you guys call."
Shin was about to say something about Shuu, and how he might have tried to leave a message. It might have gotten deleted if someone had checked the machine while Ryo was out of the house, he was about to suggest. But Ryo was already disappearing into the large bedroom that Touma and Seiji shared.
When he emerged, a short while later, it was with a puzzled look on his face. "...It's not here."
Shin looked at him. He had passed the time waiting for Ryo by looking out at the lights of the cityscape, slightly blurred by the night and the rain. "What's not here?"
"Seiji's notebook. It was in their room..." He walked past Shin on the way to the kitchen, looking around all the way.
Shin looked around as well. The largeness of the living space hit him again, like it did the first time he set foot in it, just a few weeks ago. This apartment was really a good find, but too big for just two people to share.
A heavy feeling came over him, as he remembered that Touma and Seiji had been living together for around five years, in this large, sad place.
If one of them was gone... how could the remaining one continue to live here alone?
Ryo was giving the place another sweep. Shin got the bright idea to look outside the apartment. He stepped out into the balcony, which was by this time mostly wet from the rain. Thankfully the notebook wasn't anywhere there.
But there was still the greenhouse.
"Ryo," Shin called as he made his way back into the apartment. "Is this it?" He closed the glass door to the balcony behind him.
Shin handed Ryo a hardbound notebook. It looked to be dry and in one piece, and was exactly what Ryo had been looking for.
"It was in the greenhouse," Shin reported. "Maybe Seiji left it there?"
Ryo shook his head. "I remember it was on the bedstand when we took him to the hospital..."
"Can anyone else enter here?"
"As far as I know, only Touma and I have copies of the key... and we locked up before we left."
"So I guess Touma did come back and -"
Shin stopped himself. Ryo had frowned, put the hand that held the notebook back down to his side. Shin sensed that Touma's name had just popped up one too many times.
"Thanks for finding it," Ryo muttered.
"Hey, we're not taking it to Seiji tonight, are we?" Shin said, to try and lighten the mood. "It's almost past visiting hours. It's raining. And best of all, the bags under your eyes look heavier than your head."
"He was asking for this," Ryo started to counter, holding the notebook up again. Shin laid a hand on his shoulder and smiled.
"Keep it safe for him," he said, pushing the notebook and the warm hand that held it, back against Ryo's chest. "Just for tonight."
Sleep didn't come easy for Ryo, even after a meal cooked by Shin (five stars, of course, even if in his words it was "just something he whipped up") and a long hot bath.
He wondered exactly what was keeping him awake - if it was the fact that he hadn't dropped off the notebook at the hospital as he was asked, or if it was the fact that he was being forced to sleep in Touma's bed.
As the one who wasn't technically staying in the apartment, Shin had the privilege of being granted the guest room, the one that Ryo used while he was staying there. Ryo interpreted that to naturally mean he got the couch, but Shin wouldn't hear of it.
"You're sleeping somewhere comfortable tonight," he'd insisted. "There are three western-style beds in this house. Two of them are in the same big room. You're taking one of them, or I am, or we're taking both."
In the end, Ryo relented. Shin could be a real force of nature when he was in his element, and "in his element" meant three things: around water, in a domicile such as this, and in the company of his childhood friends. Ryo didn't stand a chance.
It was still better to let Shin have the guest room, even if it had all of Ryo's things in it; if anyone was going to stay in Touma and Seiji's room, it had to be Ryo. It would just feel like less of an imposition that way. The smell of medicine over everything was something Shin was not yet used to.
Ryo looked over at the empty bed beside the one he was lying on. He had seen Seiji asleep a number of times, but at that moment he tried to imagine how he would look like from this angle. From where Touma slept.
Again, his photographer's mind was working. Scenes and still shots from his imagination threw some light and color into the emptiness.
Seiji looked so much weaker. So much more frightening to watch, with his thin chest barely rising and falling as he tried to rest. At any moment, he could stop breathing here. At any given time he could open his eyes, look over and smile and say "Good morning" in that low voice that had broken hearts before.
He couldn't help but think back to those nights when he heard Seiji waking up catching his breath, Touma saying words of soothing and encouragement in a voice that sounded weary and at the same time at the edge of panic. The perpetual silence of the apartment made the walls seem paperthin.
And then, he couldn't help himself from imagining how the world would look like from the view of Seiji's bed - "the world" being the ceiling, the window by the bed Ryo was lying in, and Touma.
He would be lying here now, if all was well. Maybe he would be awake but on his side, poring through his notes with that familiar look of concentration. The lamp on the bedstand between the two beds would be on. He would be wearing his reading glasses, his downward-turned eyes stubbornly squinting behind them.
Maybe it wouldn't be his notes he would be reading. Maybe it would be a detective novel, if he still had time for those. Or one of the books Seiji had written. He'd have the sense not to read against the light.
The light wasn't such a bad idea. Maybe it was actually the darkness of this unfamiliar room that felt so oppressive. Ryo reached over to turn the lamp on. As he did he noticed Seiji's notebook on the bedstand.
That's right - he'd left it here, because this was its rightful place. Moreover, he wouldn't forget to bring it to Seiji if it was one of the first things he saw upon waking up.
Ryo reached for the bedstand again, but for the notebook this time. Seiji had warned Ryo and Touma that it wasn't ready to be read yet, it was still a work in progress.
Ryo grunted. What, he didn't want to be embarrassed in front of his "fans"? Well yeah, Seiji would be that proud...
But he never explicitly said that he didn't want Ryo or Touma to read it, right...?
There was no room for hesitation. No one was looking. And Ryo probably wouldn't understand what was going on in it, since he hadn't even finished reading up to the latest installment.
He just wanted to see.
The general was tired. But there was still such a long way to go, down this strange and narrow path. And he had never felt so tired in his young life.
There was no one else on this path. He could no longer remember when he left for this path, with no one to remember for him. Had it been weeks? months? years? His past had become a vague memory - his family, his friends, his country, a distant dream.
But he still had his armor. He would not abandon it - not the thing that had carried him so far. Not the thing that bore marks that reflected his battle scars, and carried his history, the history of his clan, and the history of his lord. But on this path, it behaved strangely. The longer he wore it, the more it weighed on him. The harder it was for him to walk.
Still, he walked, fueled with the faith that his armor would bring him to the end of this journey, as it had brought him to the end of all long roads. And he had to reach the end of this. He knew, somehow, that if he did, the darkness too would come to an end. And when that happened, he would be allowed to have one wish.
He knew what that wish would be. He repeated it to himself over and over so despair would not consume him, so he would not forget:
If the end is coming, let it only be for myself.
Love, follow me not into this.
This was the last entry; one of many. Seiji's shaky but meticulously neat hand had put down notes of a similar vein: unfinished, barely coherent snippets of adventures of the heroes of the story he had been working on, the Sengoku-era one that Ryo had come to like. There were some of the kid general, the impulsive feudal lord, the loud but good-hearted captain of the guard and the quietly eccentric seafaring admiral.
Most of the snippets involved the young general. And reading those entries, Ryo realized that the whole thing seemed more like a dream journal than a work of fiction.
So there was a reference to "love" - who was that? In the Sengoku-era novels, there were some remarkable women (among the more notable ones being the Lady Naoko, a respected doctor, and the Lady Ayame, the misguided assassin) and certainly the young heroes had potential love interests... but as far as Ryo had read, genuine attachments had not yet been formed. The love stories were for side characters; the heroes were too busy keeping their people safe to bother with such things.
Ryo didn't know how novels worked. Maybe this collection of snippets was going to come together into something that made sense. Maybe many of the snippets would not see publication.
And if it was nothing but a dream journal after all - what would Seiji write on it this time? Why did he ask for this notebook right after -
(Right after asking for Touma, he said to himself. He was still upset about that: Touma wasn't there for Seiji when he woke up.)
What did he dream about, during those three days he slept?
Dream journal or not, it was still a good read. Ryo found himself reading through each entry. But weariness reminded Ryo of its existence and before he knew it, he was already nodding off.
He deposited the notebook on the bedstand. Then he turned off the lamp and sank back into bed.
His last thought, before he surrendered to sleep at last, was how strange it was to be in this room, which smelled the most strongly of Seiji's medicines, with all the images he had invented still fresh in his head - and how strange it was to find himself falling asleep on this bed, on the pillow that still held the scent of Touma's hair.
In the morning, Ryo called the hospital. The attending physician came to the phone and told him that Seiji was recovering at a rapid rate, and was asking if he could be allowed to leave later that day.
The physician mentioned that he had asked Seiji to stay over for tests; they wanted to find out how he was able to recover from the brink of death (pardon the phrase, he said to Ryo: there was just no medical term that would describe it so well) so quickly. Seiji had refused. Then there was nothing to discuss, Ryo had said. After a long pause, the physician had sighed loudly in frustration and agreed. Clearly he had been through a similar discussion before, most probably with Date Yayoi.
Seiji was getting discharged in the afternoon. Over breakfast, Shin and Ryo discussed how best to bring him home. There was Shin's car, but if Yayoi had a car as well, hers might be the better option. It was a good time to welcome her into the apartment, if it was going to be her first time there - and even if it wasn't, they owed her some hospitality.
Shin listened quietly, fingers linked together loosely in front of his lips, as Ryo laid out the facts: he had tried calling Touma's mobile a number of times before breakfast, and all he got was the voice mail. It looked like they would have to bring Seiji home without Touma, and the doctors' questions and remarks regarding Seiji's health would have to wait.
What were they going to do if Seiji had another attack, while Touma was away? What information were they going to give the doctors, so they could do their best to help Seiji get better in record time?
"Ryo," Shin said, as they pondered all these questions. "I'm leaving my car with you."
Ryo sat up. This wasn't in any of the suggested answers he was expecting. For one thing, it did not sound at all like a suggestion. "What?"
"I'm presuming a well-traveled wildlife photographer would know how to drive?" No matter how serious the discussion, trust Shin to find a way to insert a bit of snark.
"Yeah, I do, I just mean - why?"
"Touma's coming home sooner or later. And then he's going away again. When that happens, you have to follow him. Find out where he goes."
"I just have to pin him down and talk to him," Ryo argued. "What are you going to use to get around? Anyway, what makes you so sure he's going away again when he comes back? He's needed around here, now more than ever."
Shin was quiet. His brows were knitted, and his green eyes seemed darker in hue this time, almost black, as they avoided Ryo's gaze.
"I don't know exactly what's going on with him," Shin said reluctantly, "but I think I have an idea. And if I'm right, he'll never tell you. Not even if you pin him down."
(tbc)
At the Stars
Part 8
"Shuu and I were supposed to meet up before coming here," was the first thing Shin disclosed, as he started the car. "But at the last minute, one of his sisters called and said he couldn't come. He was sick."
"Eh? Shuu's sick?!" Shuu was never sick. Whenever he caught a fever he worked up a sweat and then rested so his skin would cool. He took pride in never having to see a doctor for any illness in his entire young life.
Shin shrugged. "Sick enough not to come here, even if he really wanted to. He was fine when we talked over the phone about coming here, though." They turned a corner. Shin continued in a slightly quieter voice, "I asked, but Rinfi didn't give any details. She just said he's very sorry, and he's instructed her to wire us the money we need for Seiji's hospitalization. One of us just needs to tell her how much."
"Didn't he call you up himself?" Ryo asked - because Shuu would do that, even at his sickest.
Shin shook his head thoughtfully.
During the brief silence, it occurred to Ryo to ask, for the sheer sake of asking, if maybe Shuu had not wanted to come. But he stopped himself.
It was nowhere near the right thing to say.
Though unable to visit most of the time because of family responsibilities, Shuu called the apartment now and then - to check up on all of them, to talk to Ryo about the money he insisted on sending, and to speak to Seiji himself if circumstances permitted it. He always sounded positive, even as he said things that were already depressing for him - things like "hang in there" or "it just doesn't get any easier, huh?"
But thinking back to that day they all got together at Touma's apartment, Ryo remembered Shuu was the one who had asked if what was happening to Seiji, was going to happen to the rest of them. It was impossible to read the expression on his face, then. Fear was nowhere except in the quietness of his voice as he spoke.
Touma had made it clear then: No. Seiji's affliction was his alone. And Shuu had only nodded grimly.
To even consider that Shuu might not want to see Seiji at a time like this felt strange. Ryo knew in his heart that Shuu would want to race out the door as soon as he heard the news.
They were near the apartment now. It wasn't a very long drive. There was only enough time to change the subject once. "Ryo," Shin began, "what really happened to Seiji? What did the doctors say?"
"I'm not sure I get it," Ryo confessed. "But from what I remember, Seiji stopped breathing for a long time. They sounded like it was to be expected, because his lungs were already barely functioning. He shouldn't have survived it, but he did." Ryo looked away. "They called it a miracle."
"A miracle." He heard the smile in Shin's voice. "I wonder what Touma would have to say about that..."
Ryo did, too. But it was best to shut up about Touma, for the moment. He was grateful Shin didn't ask.
"Ryo... when Seiji was at the hospital. Did you tell him anything?"
Ryo knew what Shin meant. He didn't answer. He wasn't allowed to visit Seiji too long while he was in intensive care.
For some reason, he couldn't find it in himself to speak while he stood beside Seiji's bed. A hundred goodbyes went through him, and none of them left his lips. It just didn't feel right to be the only one standing there. To be the only one who had anything to say.
"I've been thinking about what I would say to him. If he wasn't going to wake up." Shin sighed. "But forget about that. Everything will be fine now, right?"
Ryo looked out the window, at the steady rainfall that looked like it wasn't going to end anytime that night.
"Yeah," he numbly answered.
He didn't know why he was expecting to see Touma's shoes at the entrance to the apartment. They weren't there, of course.
There were a couple of other things missing: an umbrella from the rack, for example - the dark blue one, the one he most frequently used. Also missing were Touma's car keys, which he often carelessly left on the countertop by the dining room, instead of anywhere safe.
What was there was Touma's suitcase, the old frayed canvas one, which was stuffed with hastily scribbled medical notes. Ryo frowned. It seemed Touma wasn't headed for any of the laboratories where he worked on Seiji's medicine - otherwise he would have brought that suitcase along.
So where was he?
"You don't have any messages," Shin pointed out. The phone was his first destination. "Someone must've checked the machine recently."
"Or nobody called," Ryo suggested. "Everyone knows Touma's cell phone number. The landline hardly gets used, except when you guys call."
Shin was about to say something about Shuu, and how he might have tried to leave a message. It might have gotten deleted if someone had checked the machine while Ryo was out of the house, he was about to suggest. But Ryo was already disappearing into the large bedroom that Touma and Seiji shared.
When he emerged, a short while later, it was with a puzzled look on his face. "...It's not here."
Shin looked at him. He had passed the time waiting for Ryo by looking out at the lights of the cityscape, slightly blurred by the night and the rain. "What's not here?"
"Seiji's notebook. It was in their room..." He walked past Shin on the way to the kitchen, looking around all the way.
Shin looked around as well. The largeness of the living space hit him again, like it did the first time he set foot in it, just a few weeks ago. This apartment was really a good find, but too big for just two people to share.
A heavy feeling came over him, as he remembered that Touma and Seiji had been living together for around five years, in this large, sad place.
If one of them was gone... how could the remaining one continue to live here alone?
Ryo was giving the place another sweep. Shin got the bright idea to look outside the apartment. He stepped out into the balcony, which was by this time mostly wet from the rain. Thankfully the notebook wasn't anywhere there.
But there was still the greenhouse.
"Ryo," Shin called as he made his way back into the apartment. "Is this it?" He closed the glass door to the balcony behind him.
Shin handed Ryo a hardbound notebook. It looked to be dry and in one piece, and was exactly what Ryo had been looking for.
"It was in the greenhouse," Shin reported. "Maybe Seiji left it there?"
Ryo shook his head. "I remember it was on the bedstand when we took him to the hospital..."
"Can anyone else enter here?"
"As far as I know, only Touma and I have copies of the key... and we locked up before we left."
"So I guess Touma did come back and -"
Shin stopped himself. Ryo had frowned, put the hand that held the notebook back down to his side. Shin sensed that Touma's name had just popped up one too many times.
"Thanks for finding it," Ryo muttered.
"Hey, we're not taking it to Seiji tonight, are we?" Shin said, to try and lighten the mood. "It's almost past visiting hours. It's raining. And best of all, the bags under your eyes look heavier than your head."
"He was asking for this," Ryo started to counter, holding the notebook up again. Shin laid a hand on his shoulder and smiled.
"Keep it safe for him," he said, pushing the notebook and the warm hand that held it, back against Ryo's chest. "Just for tonight."
Sleep didn't come easy for Ryo, even after a meal cooked by Shin (five stars, of course, even if in his words it was "just something he whipped up") and a long hot bath.
He wondered exactly what was keeping him awake - if it was the fact that he hadn't dropped off the notebook at the hospital as he was asked, or if it was the fact that he was being forced to sleep in Touma's bed.
As the one who wasn't technically staying in the apartment, Shin had the privilege of being granted the guest room, the one that Ryo used while he was staying there. Ryo interpreted that to naturally mean he got the couch, but Shin wouldn't hear of it.
"You're sleeping somewhere comfortable tonight," he'd insisted. "There are three western-style beds in this house. Two of them are in the same big room. You're taking one of them, or I am, or we're taking both."
In the end, Ryo relented. Shin could be a real force of nature when he was in his element, and "in his element" meant three things: around water, in a domicile such as this, and in the company of his childhood friends. Ryo didn't stand a chance.
It was still better to let Shin have the guest room, even if it had all of Ryo's things in it; if anyone was going to stay in Touma and Seiji's room, it had to be Ryo. It would just feel like less of an imposition that way. The smell of medicine over everything was something Shin was not yet used to.
Ryo looked over at the empty bed beside the one he was lying on. He had seen Seiji asleep a number of times, but at that moment he tried to imagine how he would look like from this angle. From where Touma slept.
Again, his photographer's mind was working. Scenes and still shots from his imagination threw some light and color into the emptiness.
Seiji looked so much weaker. So much more frightening to watch, with his thin chest barely rising and falling as he tried to rest. At any moment, he could stop breathing here. At any given time he could open his eyes, look over and smile and say "Good morning" in that low voice that had broken hearts before.
He couldn't help but think back to those nights when he heard Seiji waking up catching his breath, Touma saying words of soothing and encouragement in a voice that sounded weary and at the same time at the edge of panic. The perpetual silence of the apartment made the walls seem paperthin.
And then, he couldn't help himself from imagining how the world would look like from the view of Seiji's bed - "the world" being the ceiling, the window by the bed Ryo was lying in, and Touma.
He would be lying here now, if all was well. Maybe he would be awake but on his side, poring through his notes with that familiar look of concentration. The lamp on the bedstand between the two beds would be on. He would be wearing his reading glasses, his downward-turned eyes stubbornly squinting behind them.
Maybe it wouldn't be his notes he would be reading. Maybe it would be a detective novel, if he still had time for those. Or one of the books Seiji had written. He'd have the sense not to read against the light.
The light wasn't such a bad idea. Maybe it was actually the darkness of this unfamiliar room that felt so oppressive. Ryo reached over to turn the lamp on. As he did he noticed Seiji's notebook on the bedstand.
That's right - he'd left it here, because this was its rightful place. Moreover, he wouldn't forget to bring it to Seiji if it was one of the first things he saw upon waking up.
Ryo reached for the bedstand again, but for the notebook this time. Seiji had warned Ryo and Touma that it wasn't ready to be read yet, it was still a work in progress.
Ryo grunted. What, he didn't want to be embarrassed in front of his "fans"? Well yeah, Seiji would be that proud...
But he never explicitly said that he didn't want Ryo or Touma to read it, right...?
There was no room for hesitation. No one was looking. And Ryo probably wouldn't understand what was going on in it, since he hadn't even finished reading up to the latest installment.
He just wanted to see.
The general was tired. But there was still such a long way to go, down this strange and narrow path. And he had never felt so tired in his young life.
There was no one else on this path. He could no longer remember when he left for this path, with no one to remember for him. Had it been weeks? months? years? His past had become a vague memory - his family, his friends, his country, a distant dream.
But he still had his armor. He would not abandon it - not the thing that had carried him so far. Not the thing that bore marks that reflected his battle scars, and carried his history, the history of his clan, and the history of his lord. But on this path, it behaved strangely. The longer he wore it, the more it weighed on him. The harder it was for him to walk.
Still, he walked, fueled with the faith that his armor would bring him to the end of this journey, as it had brought him to the end of all long roads. And he had to reach the end of this. He knew, somehow, that if he did, the darkness too would come to an end. And when that happened, he would be allowed to have one wish.
He knew what that wish would be. He repeated it to himself over and over so despair would not consume him, so he would not forget:
If the end is coming, let it only be for myself.
Love, follow me not into this.
This was the last entry; one of many. Seiji's shaky but meticulously neat hand had put down notes of a similar vein: unfinished, barely coherent snippets of adventures of the heroes of the story he had been working on, the Sengoku-era one that Ryo had come to like. There were some of the kid general, the impulsive feudal lord, the loud but good-hearted captain of the guard and the quietly eccentric seafaring admiral.
Most of the snippets involved the young general. And reading those entries, Ryo realized that the whole thing seemed more like a dream journal than a work of fiction.
So there was a reference to "love" - who was that? In the Sengoku-era novels, there were some remarkable women (among the more notable ones being the Lady Naoko, a respected doctor, and the Lady Ayame, the misguided assassin) and certainly the young heroes had potential love interests... but as far as Ryo had read, genuine attachments had not yet been formed. The love stories were for side characters; the heroes were too busy keeping their people safe to bother with such things.
Ryo didn't know how novels worked. Maybe this collection of snippets was going to come together into something that made sense. Maybe many of the snippets would not see publication.
And if it was nothing but a dream journal after all - what would Seiji write on it this time? Why did he ask for this notebook right after -
(Right after asking for Touma, he said to himself. He was still upset about that: Touma wasn't there for Seiji when he woke up.)
What did he dream about, during those three days he slept?
Dream journal or not, it was still a good read. Ryo found himself reading through each entry. But weariness reminded Ryo of its existence and before he knew it, he was already nodding off.
He deposited the notebook on the bedstand. Then he turned off the lamp and sank back into bed.
His last thought, before he surrendered to sleep at last, was how strange it was to be in this room, which smelled the most strongly of Seiji's medicines, with all the images he had invented still fresh in his head - and how strange it was to find himself falling asleep on this bed, on the pillow that still held the scent of Touma's hair.
In the morning, Ryo called the hospital. The attending physician came to the phone and told him that Seiji was recovering at a rapid rate, and was asking if he could be allowed to leave later that day.
The physician mentioned that he had asked Seiji to stay over for tests; they wanted to find out how he was able to recover from the brink of death (pardon the phrase, he said to Ryo: there was just no medical term that would describe it so well) so quickly. Seiji had refused. Then there was nothing to discuss, Ryo had said. After a long pause, the physician had sighed loudly in frustration and agreed. Clearly he had been through a similar discussion before, most probably with Date Yayoi.
Seiji was getting discharged in the afternoon. Over breakfast, Shin and Ryo discussed how best to bring him home. There was Shin's car, but if Yayoi had a car as well, hers might be the better option. It was a good time to welcome her into the apartment, if it was going to be her first time there - and even if it wasn't, they owed her some hospitality.
Shin listened quietly, fingers linked together loosely in front of his lips, as Ryo laid out the facts: he had tried calling Touma's mobile a number of times before breakfast, and all he got was the voice mail. It looked like they would have to bring Seiji home without Touma, and the doctors' questions and remarks regarding Seiji's health would have to wait.
What were they going to do if Seiji had another attack, while Touma was away? What information were they going to give the doctors, so they could do their best to help Seiji get better in record time?
"Ryo," Shin said, as they pondered all these questions. "I'm leaving my car with you."
Ryo sat up. This wasn't in any of the suggested answers he was expecting. For one thing, it did not sound at all like a suggestion. "What?"
"I'm presuming a well-traveled wildlife photographer would know how to drive?" No matter how serious the discussion, trust Shin to find a way to insert a bit of snark.
"Yeah, I do, I just mean - why?"
"Touma's coming home sooner or later. And then he's going away again. When that happens, you have to follow him. Find out where he goes."
"I just have to pin him down and talk to him," Ryo argued. "What are you going to use to get around? Anyway, what makes you so sure he's going away again when he comes back? He's needed around here, now more than ever."
Shin was quiet. His brows were knitted, and his green eyes seemed darker in hue this time, almost black, as they avoided Ryo's gaze.
"I don't know exactly what's going on with him," Shin said reluctantly, "but I think I have an idea. And if I'm right, he'll never tell you. Not even if you pin him down."
(tbc)