Portrait of the Setting Sun [kkm_wolframfans fanfic contest]
Written for the second fanfiction contest at kkm_wolframfans
Title: Portrait of the Setting Sun
Author: viper_duo
Prompt/s: Childhood dreams, AU, Sickness, Memories
Pairings: Yuuram
Rating: PG /Deathfic please don't let that scare you from reading it, just be prepared and do bring tissue paper
Summary: Luckless Shibuya Yuuri gets into a fight that lands in him in the Shin Makoku Hospital for a month but a chance encounter with a blond beauty teaches him more about life then any school could ever hope to achieve.
Portrait of the Setting Sun
In the hot summer of 95’, I, Shibuya Yuuri, spent my entire school vacation stuck in the confines of the Shin Makoku Hospital. I had tried my hand at playing Superman, attempting to save my classmate Murata Ken from his untimely demise at the hands of the school’s resident trio of bullies, we’d all like to call the Three Senior Stooges. Unfortunately, Clark Kent I am not and under my ordinary school uniform is just more ordinary underwear. Hence when you are seriously outnumbered and not really built for the fight, odds are the results don’t often end up really pretty….not for me at least. Not to mention whilst attempting to flee from my pursuers I had tripped down a flight of stairs in the hallway and rolled into a ditch and by then, rather merrily passed out from the excitement.
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When I finally came to a couple of hours later, I found myself lying on a strange cot dressed in my pajamas. I remembered feeling disoriented and nauseous, my body feeling as though it had been run over by an eighteen wheeler who then hit the reverse gear and went over me again. I tried to sit up only to have the whole world spin on me and the loud throbbing pain in my head come back with a vengeance. I grabbed my temple in pain and must have groaned rather audibly because the patient beside me yelled at me to shut up or rather “Shut up you stupid wimp! Can’t take a little pain without announcing it to the whole frickin’world?!”
I turned my head slowly to regard my neighbour and all I could see at that moment was the brightest and most beautiful green eyes, the colour of apples and emeralds was all I could remember. “What’s your problem wimp? Is there something on my face?”
I snapped my head up and immediately cringed as the pain came shooting back, but the feeling of cool hands on my forehead surprised me enough to alleviate the distress. Those green eyes were on me again, regarding me with concern. I thought to myself this had to be the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, with her short golden curls and the sweetest lips and the flattest chest I’ve ever seen dressed in the most delicate pink nightgown. “What’re you staring at you pervert?!” The blond angel cried, grabbing me by the scruff of my collar.
“I’m sorry miss!” I stuttered, hoping to make amends for my impolite behaviour earlier. Instead of pacifying the lovely blond I had somehow managed to make her more furious, her cheeks puffing up animatedly and her eyes narrowed as she glared at me dangerously. “I’m not a girl you wimp!”
“You’re a boy?” I accidentally let slip from my lips as all hell broke lose. And that was how I met Wolfram von Belefield, my neighbour and on occasion my worst nightmare…
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There were some times in the day when visitors were not allowed and the patients were forced to find some form of amusement to entertain themselves lest they be vexed beyond of manner of reason, like how I was the very next day. After the seventh round of counting my toes, I finally gave up and tried to make small talk with the boy next door, metaphorically of course, he’s only in the next bed after all.
“So what do you do around here?” I started lightly hoping to draw him into a conversation. No answer came and I started to feel slighted.
“So what are you here for?”
No answer again.
In frustration, I stalked up to his bed and pulled back the partition that hid his bed from my view. “Hey, I was talking to you!” I yelled at the figure that was curled up on his cot holding onto a sketchbook and a pencil. “What is it wimp? Can’t you see I’m busy?” he muttered tersely before going straight back to working on his sketchbook.
Partly out of curiosity and partly out of sheer mind-numbing boredom, I sat myself right on the side of his cot making him bounce up in surprise. He yelped and tried to hit me over the head with the book, which I decided was worth a peek at. I made a grab at his book which he undoubtedly fought off, cumulating into a five minute long brawl. In the end I won my viewing rights by wresting the coveted thing away from its owner and hurrying back to my own cot. I quickly opened the book before its screeching owner tried win it back and to my greatest surprise I saw the most realistic and well-defined drawings of the hospital room and the view from outside which could be seen from the window close to Wolfram’s cot.
“Woah these are beautiful Wolf!! Did you draw these?” I gasped in disbelief, as Wolfram quickly snatched the book back to his breast.
“Of course! Who else would have access to my book,” he snorted, wrinkling his little nose in disgust.
“You’re an amazing artist! I could never do something like that in a million years!” I gushed with excitement; it’s rare to meet friends with such talent.
“Of course! I come from a long line of artists after all!” he answered haughtily, lifting his nose to the sky though I could tell he was blushing from the compliment. “Anyway those aren’t the finished pieces. I still have to translate them onto a canvas and paint them.”
“You paint?!”
“Yes of course. This place is far too boring for someone to not develop a skill.”
“Do you have them here? Could you show it to me please!!? Pretty please!!” I pleaded with him hoping beyond hope that I would somehow flatter him enough to do my bidding.
Finally he sighed in surrender, “Alright, alright. I’ll show you some…” he relented and went to retrieve an 18 by 18 inch canvas from the far side of the bed. I ran to his cot and waited like a starving animal to be fed some form of civility. “This was my first piece so it isn’t much,” he confessed as he held it up for inspection. The painting in question was a landscape of the view outside done in an oil medium. Done in an impressionist style not quite unlike Renoir or Monet, he managed to capture the light of the setting sun as it set behind the hills in the far corner of the fields. It was professionally done and undoubtedly took a lot of patience and talent, traits rarely visible in teenagers.
“So? How is it?” Wolfram snapped, probably nervous from the wait. I turned to face him and fresh from the overwhelming artistry on the canvas I could only say, “It’s beautiful, Wolf. Just beautiful…”
He blushed at those words and took the canvas from my hands to return it to its resting spot. “I could teach you if you want?” he whispered so softly that if it had not been so quiet in that room I would not have picked it up. “Sure!” I grinned, “I’d like that very much!” And that was how I found Wolfram von Belefield, my teacher, in more ways then one…
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About two weeks later, the doctors had given me a good prognosis and told me that I would be able to leave the Hospital in a week or two. I was so elated by the news that I just had to share it with my new friend. As I was rambling on and on about the things I would do when I leave the hospital, I realized that Wolfram was starting to look more and more depressed. Trying to salvage the situation I tried to turn the conversation towards lighter things. “Hey! How about giving me your address or phone number so we can meet each other once you’ve been discharged!?” I asked hoping that he’d be less sad if he was looking forward to his coming release date.
“No need.” Wolfram answered flatly and turned his body to look out the window effectively hiding his face from me.
“Why not?! Aren’t we friends?” I was starting to get annoyed, perhaps I was the only one who believed this was a friendship.
“We are,” came the curt reply.
“Then why not?”
“Because I’m never going to be discharged.”
“What? How come?” I sat up with a start. Come to think of it I never found out why he was here in the first place.
“Because I’m going to die here.”
“Come now, don’t joke like that.” I whimpered, not quite trusting my own words.
“I’m not joking,” he sighed. “I have leukemia, I’ve been in and out of the hospital for years now but this time I don’t think I can leave.”
I didn’t know how to respond to the finality of that statement, I just didn’t know how to face a mortality I myself was not quite ready to understand. So I just sat there on my hospital cot facing his back crying my eyes and my heart out for Wolfram von Belefield, my best friend, who had no more tears to cry for himself…
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The next day was rather awkward for us and strangely it was Wolfram who decided to break the uneasy silence that surrounded us. He was painting by the window this time and casually slipped a comment or two my way.
“What do you want to do in the future?” he asked as he carelessly slopped on the paint.
“Me?” I pondered upon that question for a while. “I don’t really know actually…it’s too early to tell.”
“It’s never too early. It’s always good to have some direction in life,” Wolfram muttered as he continued to attack the canvas with his paintbrush.
“Fine then, what do you want to do, Little Lord Brat?”
“Ha! I’d be a world famous painter whose name is worth millions and one of my paintings will be worth far more then what you wimpy minions will ever earn in a lifetime!!” he playfully scoffed in falsetto, fanning himself with his hand. I laughed heartily at his ham acting and made him burst out into full fledged guffaws.
When we finally calmed down, I picked up on that conversation. “It’s wonderful to know what you really want to do? I was never really good at anything except baseball and even then I got kicked off the team for fighting in school.”
“Did you win?”
“Huh?”
“The fight. Did you win?”
“No! That’s why I’m here! But that not the issue!!”
“Wimp.”
“Hey it was 3 on 1!!”
“You probably didn’t want it enough. If you want something enough you won’t let anything stop you from going for your dream.”
“Like anything is stopping you…”
“They say that painting is dangerous,” Wolfram said in a dead serious manner. “They say that every artist only has one masterpiece in them and after that …. But since I don’t have much time anyway, I thought I might as well give it a shot. You know it’s like a race between me and the painting. At least if I go, I have something for others to remember me by.”
I was astounded that a sixteen year old could come up with such a statement and stood in awe of a boy that I hardly even knew at all. Sitting there in his frilly pink nightgown painting what could be his last portrait.
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The very next day I woke to find Wolfram absent from his bed next to the window and the first thing that popped into my mind was that he had died that night and they had taken him from me. I threw off my blanket frantically and ran to his hospital cot trying to feel for any sign of warmth. I ran through the entire room and corridor looking for him, hoping to catch a glimpse of gold, green or pink. But alas I found not a trace of my blond companion. In the end, I returned to my vigil at his bed burying my face into the bed sheets hoping catch the slightly floral fragrance that accompanied Wolfram’s presence. I could feel the fear and sorrow overwhelm me as tears start to prick at my eyes. “Wolfram….” I murmured into the sheets.
“Well hello! Who are you?” a cheery high pitched voice emanated from behind me and I turned around to find a vivacious blond lady with emerald eyes pushing a wheelchair towards me. “Are you Wolfram’s friend?” she chirped merrily. I followed her eyes down to the person in the wheelchair and to my horror I barely recognized my friend. His luscious blond curls were falling out in patches and his lovely bright green eyes were now so lifeless they seemed to have turned an ashen gray.
“I’m sorry honey but the chemo took a lot of darling Wolfie here, he won’t be able to speak for awhile shall we let him rest for now?” I just nodded dumbly as the lady beamed at me and asked me to help her carry ‘Wolfie’ to bed. I did as I was told all the while aching inside when I realized that Wolf felt uncomfortably light for a boy my age.
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The lady left soon after, she didn’t even inquire of my name and at that moment I didn’t care either way. I was in so much shock from seeing my friend like this for the first time. In my mind, Wolfram always looked like an angel. All bright and full of life and absolutely beautiful to behold. The Wolfram I saw that afternoon looked so dead and worn out like a gray rag that had seen service for too long.
Suddenly I could hear shuffling and noise coming from the cot next to me followed by a loud wailing. “I’m ugly! I’m so ugly…!!” I got out of my bed and ran to Wolfram’s side, catching him within my arms. I immediately turned him around to face me and away from the handheld mirror he was staring at. He pressed his face into my chest sobbing without care and for the first time in my life I felt so utterly helpless. I could do nothing for him, I could change nothing for him and I could not save him. That night I felt that Wolfram von Belefield was my greatest regret…
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I could not get a single word out of him the next day as he was completely consumed in his art and he remained that way until the night before my release. I had already drifted off to sleep that night when I felt a hard shake that jolted me into wakefulness. I felt a hand clamp over my mouth as a familiar figure motioned for me to stay quiet and follow him.
He led me through the hallway down the stairs and out the main building that I had resided in for almost a month and out into the very fields that Wolfram had painted before. He led me to a soft grassy spot and motioned for me to sit down, which I did. He then sat himself right down beside me pointing towards the brilliantly lit night sky.
“Wow I didn’t know we could even come here!” I whispered in surprise.
“We can’t idiot!” he chided. “This is a restricted area!”
“Oh!” I nodded, enlightened by the information.
“It’s a full moon tonight and I want to celebrate your release tomorrow!” he declared.
I lay down on the soft field next to Wolfram to fully appreciate the starry sky and the large moon that dominated the lapis lazuli background. “Wolf, I promise I’ll come see you even when I’ve been discharged.”
“I know you will, wimp.”
“You know since I’m out there maybe I can get you something you want?” I hinted to him, I hoped he’d give me a clue for a present.
“Hmm….,”he scrunched up his face and thought really hard for a long while, “I know! I want to get married!”
“Huh?”
“I want to get married before I die!” he grinned.
“How? We’re just sixteen!” I exclaimed.
“Propose to me!” he supplied helpfully.
“But then that would make you the bride!”
“I don’t care! Propose to me, you wimp!!”
“Okay, okay!” I consented and plucked a long grass blade from the ground and slowly twisted it into a ring. “Will you…”
“On your knee!” Wolfram interrupted.
“Fine!” And so I got down on one knee and help up his left hand, looked into those beautiful apple green eyes that I found so familiar now and said in all seriousness that a sixteen year old could muster, “Will you, Wolfram von Belefield, be my wife?”
At those words, Wolfram smiled the most amazing smile I had ever seen before breaking out into a sweet trilling laughter that I had sorely missed ever since the chemotherapy started. I felt like I’ve just been made a fool of and started to retract the grass ring from his hand when he yelled out a loud “yes” and eased the ring onto his left ring finger.
“Yuuri!”
“Yes?”
“Where is my kiss?” he demanded.
“Kiss!!! What?!!” I panicked I’ve never kissed anyone before, much less a boy.
“I want my first kiss from my fiancé!” he argued, “and not those half-assed ones on the cheek. I want a good long kiss on the lips like we see on tv!”
I was afraid of losing my first kiss to Wolfram, I wasn’t even sure whether I was serious or not. But then again what is a little kiss anyway, if it could keep Wolfram happy for just a little bit longer I really did not mind. “Okay, okay! But you got to close your eyes cause I’m really nervous!”
Wolfram gave an excited little giggle and closed his eyes, his breathing picking up slightly; I guess he was slightly nervous too. I watched as the moonlight highlighted his fair complexion and made him glow ethereally under the night sky, suddenly he looked just as breathtaking as those paintings he worked on before. I closed my eyes and gently closed the gap between us, sealing our lips in a gentle, lingering kiss. It was at that second, under the moonlit sky, I claimed, Wolfram von Belefield, my fiancé….
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Another month later, Wolfram passed away. He had gone peacefully after a long, hard struggle against the debilitating disease. I visited him twice every week then every other day then finally as his conditioned worsened, every single day. It was heartbreaking to see the once feisty blond beauty slowly become more emaciated and pallid as the days went by, but I still came to visit everyday, reading a book beside his bed or just talking about my day in school. I even got a real ring to replace that makeshift grass one even though it was just a cheap tin imitation.
I finally got to meet and know the blond lady that wheeled Wolfram into the ward that afternoon; apparently her name is Cheri, Wolfram’s mother. The family resemblance is uncanny though. I also met his two older brothers, Gwendal and Conrad, whose family resemblance is less distinct. Strangely, they all referred to me as ‘the fiancé’; I have no idea who told them but I kept forgetting to deny it anyway. And after Wolfram’s passing I kept the title as my only means of remembering him and keeping a little piece of him tied to me.
Wolfram’s funeral was small, apparently he did not have many friends in his lifetime and his family was not very close. All in all only his immediate family was there, me and oddly my family too. They said they were paying their last respects to their second son’s fiancée. All this was lost on me then, as I stood in front of the open casket and looked at the face of the angel I first saw when I awoke in that hospital ward a month ago. I couldn’t quite believe that he was gone and I will never ever hear him call me a wimp or even speak to me anymore. So I just stood there and stared afraid that if I take my eyes of him I’d forget all the memories I have of him.
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A week after the funeral, Wolfram’s mother, Cheri, came to my house for a visit. She said she came to take care of some unfinished business.
“Yuuri, I know that you don’t know this and all but Wolfram did leave a will and you were named in it,” Cheri said in a soothing fashion as though afraid I might break down and cry at any moment.
I was stunned when I heard the news; I didn’t think we knew each other that well that he would leave me anything at all.
“Wolfie-darling didn’t have much in this world to give but if you don’t mind Wolfram would love for you to have this last painting he did…” she said as she reached for a large canvas wrapped in brown paper.
I slowly freed the painting from the confines of its wrappings, what emerged was truly a work of art. It was a painting of Wolfram and I at the very same field and under the very same night sky as the night I proposed. This is the masterpiece that Wolfram was talking about, the one painting that resided within each artist that may have been freed at the expense of his or her life, the highest form of sacrifice for one’s passion in life. I was at a loss for words at the honour that Wolfram had bestowed upon me. I held that canvas close to my heart and treasured this beautiful gift for me to remember him by. I knew then that I will never forget that summer of 95 nor will I ever forget Wolfram von Belefield, my beloved…
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The End.
Epilogue...
It is now 2005; it’s been ten years since we’ve met, Wolfram. And don’t worry I still haven’t forgotten you. I keep a picture of you on my desk, courtesy of your loving mother, and I’ve kept the painting you’ve given me on the wall right next to the Renoir and the Manet. Yes Wolf, you’re looking at the youngest director of the prestigious ‘Belefield’s Art Gallery’. Believe me, you’ve become rather famous in the art circles now a days and one of your paintings is worth several millions today.
Remember the first painting you’ve ever showed me? We just sold it for a staggering three hundred and thirty billion dollars. It’s now the famous “Portrait of the Setting Sun”, I quote “a powerful and moving testament of the human will, expressive and highly emotional piece that thrills the senses beyond the realm of reason.” I guess your dream came true after all, Wolfram…
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A/N: I have to apologize for some things, I posted this at 4 am in the morning and hence had very little chance to BETA or even reread the fic. Please excuse the grammatical errors and what not. And I would like to add that I had really taken a lot of liberty with the timeline and the way Wolfram seems to defy the odds, running around and all. As anchan had pointed out this is not really factual, chemotherapy and even the leukemia itself would anyone too weak to move. I hope I have not offended anyone writing this story, only kind of realized that it may be very sensitive now... eeep! But thank you for reading and hopefully you'll share your thought on the story in a comment.