I Cry On No One's Shoulder
by Arisa

Chapter Six: Wings of Tears

~Let me take your hand, and guide you to paradise.
Let me wrap my wings around you, as you drift off into internal rest.
I will guide you… Do not be afraid…~

Shuuichi's eyes flew open as he released his tight grip on the bed sheets. His forehead was dotted with sweat beads, and his chest was rising and falling sharply, as if his lungs were being squeezed in an iron fist.

He did not remember what had happened well, everything flowed by in a blur. Shuuichi remembered nurses rushing about his room, his father comforting his mother. He caught a glimpse of his stepbrother in a corner, watching everything with a blank face. ‘I have seen, or been told, about that attitude before, but where?’ Shuuichi's last thought was before his world blacked out.

"We will have to keep him here longer then I thought…" Shuuichi heard.

"What happened to him? Why did that happen?!" Hatakana asked, slightly angered because no one ever seemed to tell him anything.

"We are trying to figure that out. He may have come in contact with a virus, reacted to one of the medicines. There are many possibilities," the doctor stated sullenly. "There was nothing that we could have done to prevent this." He then wrote some things on his clipboard in that illegible doctor handwriting that most doctors are famous for.

"What are you going to do now?" Shiori asked.

"We are going to keep him under close observation…" Shuuichi heard the doctor say, and then he stopped paying attention to the conversation his parents were having with a white-jacketed doctor. ‘I wonder where Shuuichi is…’ Shuuichi thought tiredly, ‘There he is… reading… I wonder why some times he reminds me…’ "Mom?" Shuuichi managed to whisper.

Shiori left the conversation and hurriedly walked over to her stepson’s bedside, "Yes, honey?"

"…I am scared."

"Aw, don’t be. Soon, you will get better," Shiori said confidently, even though her heart was shattered like an old stained glass church window.

"What if I don’t? What will happen then?"

"We will think about that if that is what it comes to be," Shiori answered softly as she held her stepson's hand.

"Do you want me to go home and check up on things?" Kurama asked around thirty minutes later, breaking the uneasy silence.

"Hum? Oh, yes, that would be great." Hatakana answered, looking up from a random hospital magazine and smiled the best he could.

"Could you also please bring us the mail?" Shiori asked, forcing a smile.

"Sure, is there anything else I can bring back for you?" Kurama asked, standing up and moving towards the closed wooden door.

"Can you please buy some flowers back? They will brighten up the room a little," Shiori asked as she opened her pocket book and handed Kurama some money.

"I’ll be back soon." Kurama promised, and headed out the door that he had been wanting to head out of for the past thirty minutes, so he could enclose himself in his thoughts without having his parents asking him what was wrong.

"Can I help you with anything, sir?" A salesman at the outdoor flower stand in the Tokyo park asked politely as Kuramas eye's skimmed over all the bouquets that looked fine and fresh to the bare eye. ‘Most of these without modern chemicals would most likely die within days to a week…’ Kurama mused. "Not right now, thank you," he answered curtly.

The strong golden sunrays touched upon each petal and leaf, making the mist that was sprayed on the cut flowers gleam with light that seemed to emanate from all of the fallen angels that were bound to Earth for some sinful deed they had achieved decades ago.

Kurama picked out a simple arrangement of sunflowers with cheerful yellow roses and springs of green ferns and scattered babies breath. "Umm… Sir? I would like to purchase this please." Kurama asked a little loud, to get the salesman's attention.

"Oh, yes," The middle aged, black-haired man moved over to where he had a chair, and beside it, a green, middle-sized money box.

Kurama fished around in his pocket, and then finally located a key ring that had about five or so keys attached. He looked at every key, in till he came upon a key that had a black permanent marker line across the top. Kurama then inserted it in the lock and turned it, then walked inside his dark house that seemed to be housing a dark, sticky, morose air that was piling up in each corner. It was as if the air was weaving cobwebs out of sadness, crisscrossing them across the room, anchoring them from the walls, and onto the furniture.

Kurama's eyebrow rose at the atmosphere of the room, but he was quite expecting it to be like this. He laid down the bouquet of flowers on the maple coffee table, drew back the shades on the windows, and then proceeded to raise the glass window to let in the fresh air it was keeping out. He then picked up the cheery bouquet, and proceeded towards the kitchen.

The air in the kitchen was worse than that of the living room. It was like molasses, evilly sweet and sticky, wanting to suck out all the happiness out of your very bones. The room smelled faintly of broken dreams and promises, freshly shed blood and tears, all mixed up in a blender.

Kurama also opened the curtains and windows in hopes of airing out the room. He then walked over to the kitchen counter and took the flowers out of the paper they were in, and then placed them on the counter. Kurama then opened the overhead cabinet and took out a green glass vase, and filled it with water. While he was doing this, the colors of the sunflowers, yellow roses, and ferns grew more intense, vibrant and healthy looking. The white babies breath turned more pure, innocent looking. Then, the single stemmed yellow roses grew a few branches, and yellow budded roses appeared.

After Kurama had placed the flowers that he had doctored a little, he crossed the room and brought the window down a bit, till there was a slight crack left to let air circulate the room. He then went back to the counter and picked up the vase, and walked back to the living room, also leaving those windows with slits to let the air in, and left.

Before going back to the sidewalk, Kurama stopped and got the mail out of the mailbox with his spare hand.

On Kurama's way back to the hospital, scattered amounts of dreamy-eyed girls started whispering in little huddles wondering whom the flowers could be for. Kurama did not pay any attention to them; he was inside his own head, thinking about many things at once.

"I wonder who the lucky girl is…" A girl whispered to her best friend.

"I say we follow him and see where he goes." The girl’s best friend whispered back and smoothed out her long dark bluish-black hair.

The strawberry blond girl nodded back at her best friend and they started walking quite a distance behind their hero, whispering and giggling back and forth between the two of them.

A warm spring wind picked up, playing gleefully with everything that got in its way, "I wish I had brought my camera…" The strawberry blond whispered to her friend.

"I know! Just look at him!" The blue-black haired girl replied dreamily.

The two girls stopped at the entrance to the hospital, blinking and bewildered, "The hospital…?" The strawberry blond haired girl voiced her thoughts, and then grabbed her friend’s hand, "Let's let him be." And the two friends walked away.

"Those look wonderful!" Shiori commented brightly as Kurama set the vase down on the wooden nightstand that was next to his stepbrother's bed. Kurama smiled weakly and crossed the room over to his father, and handed him the mail.

"Thanks for getting it," Hatakana thanked Kurama, who in return, nodded, "I opened the windows a little, to let air in. The hose was quite musty."

"Thank you, Shuuichi," Shiori smiled.

"Do you know when he will be able to come home?" Kurama asked, starting a conversation.

"Not yet, but as soon as he gets well enough, we are going to take him home," Hatakana answered.

"But we will most likely have a nurse come visit us daily, to check up on him. She will teach us how to change his IV bag just in case he starts to feel worse, and she is not able to get to our home quickly," Shiori stated with a shadow falling over her face.

"Oh," was all Kurama could say, for no words could help heal the spiritual wounds his mother was enduring.

It was like an unseen ball, bouncing off of people. But this ball was not a ball made to have fun with, when it bounced into a person, it made them sad, bleak, dolorous, and woeful. This invisible ball was constructed over centuries of bloodshed, and tears. Of hate and sorrow.

After hitting one person, it did not stop till it hit another. Some times it stayed in gropes of people, and some times it went to solo people. The result was the same. That ball was like a crazed ball game between innocent children, bouncing a ball back and forth in glee.

Hatakana and Shiori left for a nearby restaurant to grab takeout lunch, leaving Kurama with Shuuichi.

"Hey, Shuuichi?" Shuuichi's strained voice registered in Kurama's ears.

Kurama got up out of his chair that was in front of a window, and walked up to his stepbrother's bed. "Yes? What can I get you?"

"I… I was just wondering. This might sound foolish, but… I have never seen flowers like that come from a flower store."

At that moment Kurama remembered, the closer a person gets to death, the deeper their spiritual insight grows. "I must admit," Kurama lied, "that they were different, that is why I bought them."

Shuuichi's brow furrowed as his gaze was still on the bouquet. "For some reason… I don’t think that is possible."