Karasu no Tengoku

Chapter Fourteen: No Regrets

“I guess the chase ends here…it’s the end of the game…”
(She entered the room suddenly, out of breath and prostrated herself in front of Makoto, he told her to stand up and sat on a chair near the window, it seemed as if he was ignoring her…)
“What do you want??”
“It’s HIM master! He’s come back! He’s found us again!”
“Who do you mean by HIM??”
“Sakano-san…”
(When he heard this name, he suddenly turned to look at her, quite apprehensively…she was still kneeled on the floor, a bit less agitated, it was broad daylight outside, and the curtains blocked the light from entering…he called her, and she went near him, he slid his hands behind the curtain a bit, feeling the sunlight eat into his skin but didn’t complain and unlocked the window…)
“Come here…”
(She was a bit suspicious, but she’d never disobeyed him, he embraced her and turned so that her back was to the window…he put his hands on her waist, but by the front and grabbed her dress, close to her ear he whispered…)
“I’m sorry…and thank you…”
(Right after that, he pushed her and she fell on her back on the balcony and the sun blinded her, and slowly began to reduce her to ashes, slowly, very slowly, and she cried in agony, so much that Makoto went out of the room and into the corridor…until the screams muted themselves completely…just then did Makoto went inside again, everything was darkness again, the curtains had closed themselves and he looked at his fingers, the skin was already healing…but still it hurt…he went downstairs, the stench of burned hair and flesh was too much…)

(Makoto went to the abandoned, run-down mansion in which he’d met Gin a while ago, and…in which he’d lived with Eiji centuries ago before leaving for London…he walked down the garden until the back yard…and entered the first story of the house from the back sliding door, there was the first stance, a long time ago, that room had been a tea room, you could use it for tea obviously, reading, or just being there relaxing or sleeping…then, to the left, another stance, that had been the library, not only books had been there, also tools for writing and painting, in the back of that room, another sliding door went into a big, court yard in the middle of the house, it didn’t have roof and there was a little ’pool’ there, or had been, when it rained sometimes they had to take out the extra water that fell, he went to the left and climbed up the stairs to the second story, to his left there was another stance, it had been used to store clothes and shoes mainly, and to his right, another stance, this with the other two next to it had been rooms for visitors who had to stay, and then at the end of the right side of the handrail was the stance that had been Eiji’s dormitory, the room next to it on the left had been his own, he walked to Eiji’s ex-room and slid open the door, his and Eiji’s were the biggest rooms, he saw a shadow sitting on the far left corner, next to the window, like it was night now, the moonlight went inside diagonally and didn’t reach the figure, Makoto thought it might be a ghost, it wasn’t uncommon for old houses to be haunted, he closed the door behind him and approached the shadow that didn’t move an inch, when he was close enough, a hand grabbed him and pulled him towards the shadow, when he fell, he felt it wasn’t a shadow, it was a solid body, not warm, actually cold, like a corpse, and that wore a black kimono, actually quite alike to the one of the Kurotenshi, but this kimono’s fabric was pure silk, it was softer, but didn’t have any lustre, the hand that had grabbed him let go and embraced him instead, Makoto settled upon the shadow, kneeling and then the shadow did something most shadows don’t do, it spoke)
“I see you came back home…”
(That voice, he knew it just too well, he didn’t pull away, he couldn’t move in fact…the voice continued…)
“Or should I say my house? Why did you come back here? Didn’t you leave me behind a long time ago?”
“Eiji…”
(Eiji pushed him and Makoto fell on his back)
“Don’t you DARE call me that!!!!”
“But it’s your name stupid!!!”
“Not for you anymore…why did you come here??”
“I…I…”
“You don’t know…how stupid of you…coming all the way to a place without even knowing the reason why…”
“Why are YOU here then??”
“I just came by to see how my house was…”
“Oh…did you come here all alone??”
“No…I brought someone…that helped me to find you…”
“Who??”
“You don’t know him…anyway, since you’ve come and I’m no longer interested in struggling with you about you coming back, I’m leaving…”
(Eiji was about leaving the room when he felt a tug on his sleeve and turned a bit too violently so that Makoto let it go…)
“Wait!”
“Now what do you want??”
“If you ask so upset then I won’t tell you…”
“Don’t be childish!!!!”
“Sorry…it’s just that…I’ve got tired of running away from you…I don’t think that I could go any further…”
(For a moment, Eiji’s face seemed to reflect a bit of understanding, but he shook it off…and kneeled in front of Makoto, smiling…if a bit cruelly…)
“Did you think…that I will forgive you by saying such sweet words Kidokawa??”
“No…”
“Then…tell me…clearly and quickly…WHY did you stop me?? And telling me you don’t want to be alone anymore won’t do…”
“Then I’ve no reason…”
“Fine…”
(Eiji stood up and left…outside the house, by the entrance door, there was Hideki reclining upon his car, waiting for him…when he saw Eiji coming out of the house, he got on the driver’s seat and ignited the car, Eiji got on the passenger’s seat and Hideki drove out of the area, after a while, Hideki spoke…)
“Is this the end of it??”
“The end of what??”
“You and Makoto…”
“I suppose…I was supposed to be his guardian…but I’m tired of always running after him…and besides, he said he was tired too…so I suppose it ends here…yeah…”
“Wow~~~…so…I suppose that my investigation ends here too…”
“Why?? I don’t see the necessity of such thing…you didn’t even see him…”
“I did…”
“Wha-what? When??”
“When you came out, I saw him clearly peeking out from behind the curtains of one of the windows on the second story…that’s proof enough to me of his existence…”
“A child remains a child…”
“Really??”
“Yeah…”
“Was there ever something more…intimate…between you and him??”
“No…nothing whatsoever…never…”
“You don’t lie??”
“Why would an old vampire like me lie??”
“That’s precisely why…”
“No, I’m sure I’m not lying…”
“Good…hey, I want to ask you something…”
“What is it?”
“Is it true that shinigami’s blood is black??”
“Where did you hear that??”
“My grandpa told me…once…”
“Ah…yes, it’s true…”
“Oh…where do you want me to drop you?? Gin’s??”
“Ah no…do you remember the park near the ’MidoriYama’?”
“Yeah, Shiba Park…want to go there??”
“No, actually to Hibiya Park…”
“There???? So far?!”
“Yes please…”
“Ok…”
(Hideki left Eiji at said park and then drove away…Eiji walked in circles in the park for quite a while, it wasn’t that late when he arrived but time flies when you’re brooding and thinking over and over again about your past actions and all the mistakes you’ve committed in your long life, he remembered the order that the Council and Heike Ikeda, his step-father in a way, had given him concerning Makoto, ’to guard him and seclude him for the rest of his existence, turn him into a vampire and keep him for eternity’, that wasn’t precisely the idea of companionship for eternity he’d had, but he’d never really believed in that concept to begin with…he remembered the first time Makoto’d escaped, it had been 3 months right after they’d left Japan and 6 since they’d arrived, exiled, into the human world, the Council hadn’t found out, otherwise he’d been killed, the Council had a bunch of ’special’ ways to finish a vampire, he remembered how he’d been found in the first place by his feminine counter-part and then by him, he stopped musing when he noticed that sunlight was beginning to rise in the horizon, he ran towards Sakurada-Dori and rang twice and thrice the bell of the house right next to the “MidoriYama”…after a while, a little while indeed, a sleepy Gin opened the door and saw Eiji’s kimono was drenched at his feet and that his umbrella was soaking wet too, Eiji looked tired and troubled…)
“Gin…”
(Gin saw the sun was almost completely up, the light was still blocked on its majority by clouds, but they were beginning to dissipate, right when Gin was about to say something, Eiji collapsed and Gin grabbed him quickly and dragged him inside, closing the door and settling on the living-room, on a sofa, with his sleeping brother’s dead weight upon him…fortunately, his house was pretty not well lit…)

(After about 4 or 5 hours, Eiji finally woke up, he uncovered himself, he had a flannel blanket upon him and a little pillow that was part of Gin’s sofa was placed under his head, he smiled a little and then sat on the sofa, he remembered arriving, but he couldn’t quite tell why he’d fainted…so he stood and saw he was still wearing the kimono, which wasn’t as drenched as it had been, but it was making his skin clammy and a bit sticky, so he went upstairs to the room he was staying in and searched for another one, took off that one, and put on another black kimono, for some reason he really loved black kimonos and had a lot of them, the one he’d been wearing had particularly long sleeves, the one he put on was particularly lose and the sleeves were long enough to cover his hands but not as long as the other one’s, he didn’t see Gin yet, so he went back downstairs and remembered that the house was connected to the “MidoriYama”, but before going there he checked the hour, it was approximately 10 am…)
“Way too sunny…”
(So he went to Gin’s room and saw that he had a futon…)
“You still stick into traditions…”
(So he lied there, and since it was daylight, and he was an old vampire, he fell asleep rapidly…)

(Hideki’d just woke up and quickly took a shower, he was thinking about going to Kaito, since he’d already seen Makoto and all, this was the end of the investigation, after that he quickly dressed and went downstairs to the kitchen, since it was the end of the investigation, he had some free time to have a decent breakfast, with coffee of course, he just couldn’t quit the caffeine….fortunately he’d not had a migraine as a wake up call that day…he took the metro and reached Kaito’s house, he rang the bell, and no one answered, he didn’t mind, he told himself that what had happened couldn’t happen again, what he didn’t know, is that he WAS right, it couldn’t possibly happen…when after five minutes of ringing the damn bell nobody came, he got impatient and grabbed the damned key from under the flower pot, opened the outer door and then inner one, there was the stance, Kaito’s shoes were there and all, his keys, his car-keys, his umbrellas, even his coat, so maybe he thought he was in the backyard or something, but Kaito’s house had a certain design that every sound was audible from wherever in the property you were, so he began to feel a LITTLE suspicious, he went upstairs and the corridor seemed quite…normal…there was the wall-clock, and the closet and the other two rooms that he didn’t remember what they were there for, and Kaito’s room, the door ajar and he then went inside, and…it was empty…’Weird, just WAY TOO weird…’, he thought of the possibility of Kaito going off in some trip and not telling him, so he went to the room next door, and opened the closet that was there, Kaito kept the suitcases and that stuff there, but…there were ALL, nothing missing, he began to feel a little exasperated, if not freaked out, then he went back to Kaito’s room and checked all the drawers on the bedroom, the closet, the drawers of the closet, even the bathroom!! There was ALL, nothing was out of place, nothing missing!!...NOW he was FREAKED OUT, VERY freaked out…but, he calmed himself down a bit and thought that maybe Kaito had gone out for a while to SOMEWHERE in the city and that he’ll eventually come back, and like he didn’t see any letters anywhere this time, he SHOULD calm down, so he decided to wait, he went downstairs and into the T.V. room and sat obviously to watch T.V)

(….the hours went by, noon, three o’clock, seven o’clock, and Kaito didn’t come back…Hideki kept telling himself that he could have gone, for example, to visit a friend he’d not seen in a long time, or even to a party!! Or shopping!! That usually took all day, so he kept on waiting, he was quite hungry by that time so he ordered a pizza, he’d been thinking about one for a long time now, he ate a quarter of the pizza, he loved eating but he didn’t really eat that much, he put the remaining pizza into a topper and into the fridge, and went to the little library that Kaito had upstairs…he read, he didn’t remember what but he did, and then the clock marked midnight and still no Kaito, he was beginning to feel uneasy about it and began playing with the idea of sleeping over there in case Kaito came back during the night, he decided to wait still a bit more and went back to watching T.V…)

(He didn’t notice when did he fall asleep, but he saw that the programming for the channel he’d been watching had changed, and that now was airing some program that he’d only seen at noon, so he checked the hour in his cell-phone, 4:30 a.m., he thought that maybe by now Kaito’d come back, so he got off from the couch and turned off the T.V. and went to Kaito’s room, when he approached the bed and saw it was empty, he began to panic…but then he controlled himself…maybe Kaito’d really gone to a party! He went to the other room next door, which was a guest’s room and undressed, he didn’t care if he had to sleep in his underwear he WOULD stay over and make sure that the stupid of his partner came back home, no matter how gay it seemed, so he got into the bed and fell asleep…)

(Gin had gone for a walk at about midnight and was coming just now back home, when he came back, he saw the house was all dark, he remembered Hikari wasn’t there now, she had gone to Osaka to visit someone, he entered, left his shoes and saw that Eiji wasn’t on the sofa anymore, he grabbed the blanket and went to Eiji’s room, he wasn’t there…)
“…maybe he went out too…”
(He dropped the blanket on Eiji’s bed and went to his own room, he went right into the bathroom and washed his teeth, when he came out, he was giving his back to his futon, and began undressing…the light sounds that Gin made woke Eiji up…Gin nearly jumped when he heard Eiji’s voice…)
“Good evening nii-san…”
“Waaaaah!! Eiji!!!”
(Eiji began to laugh at this, while Gin paused a bit and then continued undressing, a little less alarmed now…)
“Jajajajajajajajajajaa…THAT was funny!! THAT was seriously funny!!”
“Yeah, yeah…I’m deadly funny…”
(Gin put on something to sleep and sat next to Eiji…)
“Why did I faint??”
“I don’t know…maybe it was exhaustion…actually, it’s been a long while since the last time I saw you sleeping at night…”
“Yeah…soon it will be time for me to sleep again…I know it…it’s just the sensation I have when the sun comes out…it’s like if all your limbs went numb suddenly…”
“It’s only normal…hey, did you find him??”
(Eiji’s face suddenly went grim…)
“Yes…”
“And??”
“Apparently we both got tired of chasing around for each other…”
“No way…but your duty…what about the Council??”
“I don’t think I care anymore…”
“…well…I guess here it ends…”
“Yeah…hey, I thought…maybe I’ll go back to live in mom’s house…”
“You mean…”
“Yeah…mom’s REAL, TANGIBLE house, not the one in India…”
“That’d be great…she’d really like that…”
“Yeah…well, I’ll go to sleep already, my blood’s beginning to tickle…”
“Ok…sleep well…”
(Eiji went to his bedroom and changing into the sleeping yukata, fell asleep as the first sunrays began to fall upon this earth, Gin, was thinking that…his brother’s fate was a harsh one, but he’d always known how to handle it…it wasn’t going to begin to complicate just now…he decided he wouldn’t open the “MidoriYama” today…)