[Yami no Matsuei] "Attending Angel" (PG)
Author's Note: Written for love_bingo's 'funeral'; featuring a young Muraki, references to his grandfather Yukitaka, also Muraki/Ukyou.
Word Count: 678
The double funeral of Kazutaka's parents had left him numb and hollow, the final result of three days of madness, three days of witnessing things that no young person of any age, even one at the threshold of adulthood, should have to witness. And Saki's burial had, according to Sakaki's account when Kazutaka had recovered from his injuries (more to his mind and soul than to his body), been undertaken quickly and quietly with as little fanfare as possible, in a bid to protect the family pride, particularly given the crimes to which Saki had been linked. Kazutaka accepted this news with relief: the monster who had made his days nerve wracking and his nights hellish could torment him no longer.
But his grandfather's death, though it came as no surprise since the old man had been ill for so long, opened a void under Kazutaka's feet, and the burial truly felt like a parting. He could mentally recite comforting platitudes such as "the deaths of my parents, Naritaka and Yukiko, hastened my grandfather's collapse" and "the old man lived a long and productive life, his death came as a release from his illness", but the words served as wallpaper covering the mouth of hell. His grandfather had died and now only he remained of the family, unless one counted the useless cousins from Nagasaki.
His grandfather's former colleagues and students came in droves to pay their respects to the old man, but most of those faces that filed through the shrine meant little to the young man. Kazutaka spoke with them, accepting their condolences, introducing himself as Yukitaka's grandson, protege, and heir to the family fortune, establishing himself as a potential successor, but he found himself feeling that he viewed them from the wrong end of a telescope. They politely mourned the loss of a colleague, albeit a highly esteemed one, but he had been the one who had witnessed the old man slipping beyond the pale, tearing a wide, gaping hole in the fabric of his world.
"You must be Kazutaka-kun; we're sorry that we could not have met in better circumstances," some of the more observant among the unfamiliar faces noted. The ones who knew him remarked, "You've grown so tall." He favored both parents in that respect, but his mother in particular. During the reception that followed the internment, his grandfather's solicitor insisted that he mingled with the gathering and made himself known. But the most he wanted to do was linger by the burial site, watching the graveyard workers finish sealing the alcove in the family vault. He knew the old man's soul had passed on, and the sight of the crematory urn that contained the cremains had made for a profound anti-climax: he thought that it would give him the release he needed from the loneliness, but it only left him feeling more bereft.
And then a hand reached out and touched his arm, a small hand, gentle, feminine; he looked down to find Ukyou at his side, her hand on his arm.
His light in the darkness and here she had come to enlighten his darkest night.
"Kazutaka?" she asked. "How are you holding out?"
"By a thread," he admitted.
"You can cry on my shoulder, if you need to," she offered.
He glanced to the gathering. "Not here, not now. But later, when they have gone." All in the name of saving face. He had little left but that, and at that moment, he very nearly did not care. But the solicitor's eye was on them both, from across the room, and that left them both unable to make that move.
But she cared enough to let him, even if society and social order did not leave room for such gestures. His grandfather would have privately scoffed at those mores, just as he had scoffed at other rules about what was proper and what improper, and it was as if the old man's spirit had nudged an angel to attend to his grieving heir.
It was enough. It would suffice.
Word Count: 678
The double funeral of Kazutaka's parents had left him numb and hollow, the final result of three days of madness, three days of witnessing things that no young person of any age, even one at the threshold of adulthood, should have to witness. And Saki's burial had, according to Sakaki's account when Kazutaka had recovered from his injuries (more to his mind and soul than to his body), been undertaken quickly and quietly with as little fanfare as possible, in a bid to protect the family pride, particularly given the crimes to which Saki had been linked. Kazutaka accepted this news with relief: the monster who had made his days nerve wracking and his nights hellish could torment him no longer.
But his grandfather's death, though it came as no surprise since the old man had been ill for so long, opened a void under Kazutaka's feet, and the burial truly felt like a parting. He could mentally recite comforting platitudes such as "the deaths of my parents, Naritaka and Yukiko, hastened my grandfather's collapse" and "the old man lived a long and productive life, his death came as a release from his illness", but the words served as wallpaper covering the mouth of hell. His grandfather had died and now only he remained of the family, unless one counted the useless cousins from Nagasaki.
His grandfather's former colleagues and students came in droves to pay their respects to the old man, but most of those faces that filed through the shrine meant little to the young man. Kazutaka spoke with them, accepting their condolences, introducing himself as Yukitaka's grandson, protege, and heir to the family fortune, establishing himself as a potential successor, but he found himself feeling that he viewed them from the wrong end of a telescope. They politely mourned the loss of a colleague, albeit a highly esteemed one, but he had been the one who had witnessed the old man slipping beyond the pale, tearing a wide, gaping hole in the fabric of his world.
"You must be Kazutaka-kun; we're sorry that we could not have met in better circumstances," some of the more observant among the unfamiliar faces noted. The ones who knew him remarked, "You've grown so tall." He favored both parents in that respect, but his mother in particular. During the reception that followed the internment, his grandfather's solicitor insisted that he mingled with the gathering and made himself known. But the most he wanted to do was linger by the burial site, watching the graveyard workers finish sealing the alcove in the family vault. He knew the old man's soul had passed on, and the sight of the crematory urn that contained the cremains had made for a profound anti-climax: he thought that it would give him the release he needed from the loneliness, but it only left him feeling more bereft.
And then a hand reached out and touched his arm, a small hand, gentle, feminine; he looked down to find Ukyou at his side, her hand on his arm.
His light in the darkness and here she had come to enlighten his darkest night.
"Kazutaka?" she asked. "How are you holding out?"
"By a thread," he admitted.
"You can cry on my shoulder, if you need to," she offered.
He glanced to the gathering. "Not here, not now. But later, when they have gone." All in the name of saving face. He had little left but that, and at that moment, he very nearly did not care. But the solicitor's eye was on them both, from across the room, and that left them both unable to make that move.
But she cared enough to let him, even if society and social order did not leave room for such gestures. His grandfather would have privately scoffed at those mores, just as he had scoffed at other rules about what was proper and what improper, and it was as if the old man's spirit had nudged an angel to attend to his grieving heir.
It was enough. It would suffice.