Chapter 8.6

Yuuki had been caught in a deep melancholy since departing as if pulled along by the tide of people receding down the hill until returning home.

It was foolish. ---Truly foolish. There's no way The Risen could exist. Thinking himself outrageously foolish for having believed if even an instant, he couldn't even work up the energy to mock himself. 

He sat in the living room at wits end with the disgust he felt in himself. When the doorbell rang, Yuuki realized he was in the living room without the lights on.

"----Coming!"

When he came to the entryway, there were the Tanaka siblings. Yuuki's brows furrowed. It felt like he was confronting a physical incarnation of the imbecilic nature that nested in this village.

"Uhm... How is Yuuki-san?"

"He's sleeping now, sorry to say." Yuuki's own voice was, he would have to admit, curt. Kaori looked towards her little brother as if troubled. The little brother spoke all the more cheekily.

"We came to pay a sick visit. Do you think that we could see Onii-chan's face to see how he is at least?"

Yuuki wavered but eventually nodded. He didn't have any doubt that the siblings were worried. The two went towards Natsuno's room. Yuuki followed behind them. When they entered Natsuno's room, Natsuno was asleep. His breathing was wild. He'd had a terrible fever since that morning. His turn for the worse was plain to see.

The siblings neared the bed looking worried, then they flickered their glances to Yuuki. Yuuki didn't move from where he was. He stared fixedly at the siblings, watching them, then called out: "That's enough isn't it? As you can see, he's not well."

Kaori bit her lip, and Akira hesitated as he looked between Natsuno and Yuuki. 

"I'm thinking of having him hospitalized. Natsuno needs a doctor's touch after all. So if you two do come tomorrow, I don't think Natsuno will be here."

Suddenly Kaori looked up. She looked as if she were blaming him.

"Go on home."

"Uhm---We have something to talk about with Yuuki-san....With Natsuno-san."

"Natsuno isn't in any condition to be able to talk with you."

"But... Uhm."

"Go home, would you? Also, I'd like it if you'd stop bringing weird things into this room."

Akira rose up. Kaori grasped her little brother's arm to stop him. They'd noticed when they came in that the things they'd placed yesterday were gone. And that they'd been moved to the trashcan. And also that Natsuno's conditioning was worsening. Even the two of them could tell just by looking. They couldn't save Natsuno. ---Yuuki had gotten in the way of that.

"Uhm... We," Kaori started to say but what exactly to say beyond that she didn't know. How could she appeal to him in a way that would make him understand? This was so important and yet. She didn't think that she could tell him in a way that he would listen. ---Not based on what she saw in the trash can.

Kaori mustered her courage. This person didn't understand. She had the feeling they were the only ones who understood.

"Uhm, I would like to be allowed to nurse him. Could you allow us to stay by his side tonight? We will not be a burden. I beg of you."

"There's no reason for you to do that, is there?" Yuuki's answer was quite blunt. "Having novices nurse him wouldn't do any good. Could you stop talking nonsense and just go already, please?"

Yuuki's objection was merciless, enough to make one think it outright malicious. Having gathered and put her courage to work only to have it knocked down left Kaori without any further words. Yuuki prodded her with a "Let's go now," as she hung her head, and so she rose up without any other options. Pulling Akira's hand, Akira curled his body away.

"...No, I'm staying."

"Akira..."

"Nii-chan's in bad shape isn't he? I'm not going. I'm staying with Nii-chan."

"That's not necessary," Yuuki said as if to attack him, causing Akira to cower. Against a trembling Akira, Yuuki grew all the more ruthless. "I'm only going to say it one more time. You're a nuisance. Please. Leave." 

Akira hung his head and stood. Kaori pulled at his hand, leaving Natsuno's room as if fleeing. They went down the hallway and flew out the entryway.

"What the hell is with him..." Akira turned to face the house. "Nii-chan's sick! He doesn't know a damned thing!"

"...Akira."

"If Nii-chan dies, it's his fault. He's gonna be the reason Nii-chan dies!"

Akira's feet moved faster as if fleeing when Kaori gripped his arm. "Akira, wait."

"It's not my problem anymore!"

"Hold on, wait. ...You're not serious about that, right? You don't mean that Yuuki-san isn't your problem, that he can just die, do you?"

Akira grit his teeth. "I mean there's nothing else we can do is there?! The arrow you put down, Nee-chan, the rosary I put out were gone. He threw them out. That's why Nii-chan's getting worse. I'm sure they came last night. At this rate Nii-chan's gonna get killed."

"That's right. That's why we have to do something."

"Something? What're you saying we can do? He told us to leave didn't he? We're a nuisance. There's not anything left we can do is there?"

Kaori hung her head. 

"Nee-chan, you begged him to let us nurse him but he said he didn't need it. He won't let us leave anything to protect him and we can't even stay beside him to do it ourselves!"

"Wait..." Kaori remembered. "I don't think it's that we can't."

Akira blinked, with a face looking like even now he was about to cry.

"That's right. If we can't be in the house, we'll do it from the outside. Megumi went to look into Yuuki-san's room a lot. It faces the back yard. She said she could see into the bedroom window from the forest."

"...Kaori."

"If we go there, we can watch from the outside. If we put them outside, the charms might not be found, too."

"We're gonna do it? Go outside and wait at night?"

"That's right. ...Are you scared?"

Akira's mouth puckered. "I'm not scared of nothing!"

Kaori nodded. Akira was mad. And it was the same for her. Yuuki was so obstinate it made her angry. That was why for now they could forget their terror. It wasn't that they weren't afraid. But if Yuuki was going to be like that, they had the feeling that no matter what it took, they would have to protect him.

"Let's go, Kaori. Where is that?"

Yuuki watched the two of them leave and stood hesitating for a while before the phone. 

He thought about calling Toshio. He could ask for an examination or possibly even ask him how the situation was going. ---But, he thought. The day Natsuno had gotten worse was obviously different from the situation that Toshio had spoken about. 

...It was different, was what Yuuki thought. So he hadn't contacted Toshio then. Nor the next day. He had taken Natsuno's words at face value and had thought of it as a lack of sleep. It had only been since yesterday that he'd started to think it strange.

But that couldn't be, he thought. To be thinking it was that now after all of this. If Toshio examined him he could know for sure but Yuuki hesitated. What if it were that? Nevermind if he'd asked before, at this point Yuuki had wasted three whole days. The thing in question reached its conclusion within a few days. So there was no point in having a doctor see him if it wasn't after the immediate outbreak. What had toshio been saying? Hadn't he said that if three or four days had passed by the time he was contacted he couldn't do anything? Yuuki had passed that three day window.

No, even so, he thought. Even if it did outbreak, there was no cure. Even if Toshio had seen them the day of the outbreak, once he broke out, there was no way to save Natsuno. To this point there hadn't been a single instance of any one person being saved. 

He thought about calling him. He thought about how it would be useless even if he did. On the one hand it was worth at least confirming it, but he also thought about what confirming it would come to. Within another two days he'd know for better or for worse. 

While still wavering on whether to call or not, once more, he thought. Once more he went to see how his son was doing. That might have helped him make up his mind, and so he started towards Natsuno's room, stepping into the light of the lamp turned on in the room. 

He made sounds of shallow, superficial breathing. There was a faint wheezing in his throat. His pallor was as poor as ever. His lips were cracked with fever. 

Wavering again over what to do, that was when Yuuki heard a noise outside the window. It was in the yard outside of Natsuno's window. The mountain's edge drew near to the garden almost too thin to be a walkway. There was no reason for a person to go through it, no reason for a noise to be made, but indead he heard the sounds of something in the underbrush.

Yuuki held his breath and listened. The sun was already setting. The inside of the room was dark, without much light of the dusk coming through the window. There was the faint sound of the grasses parting, and a whispering voice. He thought he heard a shushing voice. Somebody was outside of the window. More than two people. 

Yuuki quietly approached the windowside, listening closely and then opened the curtain. He must not have had time to suddenly hide himself; immediately within the thicket, he caught sight of a stiff, half-bent Akira. Hurriedly bent down at his side, he could see half of the girl's face. 

Yuuki opened the window. "What are you two doing?" Yuuki's irritation was audible. "---Come out now."

Slowly the girl stood up, her little brother sulkily following suit.

"What are you doing there? Just what were you planning to do?"

The two looked down. They didn't answer. 

"Leave Natsuno alone would you? I told you before. Or do I have to call your parents and ask them to stop you before you understand?"

Yuuki's tone was cold, unforgiving. It was a reflection of Yuuki's own internal frustrations but of course Akira and Kaori couldn't know that. Akira scowled at the window. Just beyond Yuuki who was in the way was Natsuno, but Akira and Kaori couldn't get in to him. It was like they were the vampires, he thought.

"Please go home."

When told that, akira ran up to the window. "If you leave him alone like this, it's gonna become a disaster!"

Surprised by Akira's shouting, Yuuki's eyes widened.

"Nii-chan, he's gonna die. We're the only ones who know how to save him!"

Yuuki was startled. "That's more than enough of that kind of talk."

"It's true. But you're the one getting in the way!"

Akira was vexed. More at his own powerlessness than anything. Why weren't they adults? Why wouldn't the adults take anything Akira said seriously? Just because he was a kid, he was belittled and treated like he had nothing worth paying attention to to say. Even though Akira himself was the one who knew better than any of them.

"---It's The Risen! If you don't do something, Nii-chan's gonna be killed!"

Yuuki's mouth popped open, and then his face warped into a smile. The animosity dissipated, and the meekness of that expression was not forgivable. Akira knew that face. It was the proof of an adult determining that Akira was a child and taking in his words as simply childish nonsense. It wasn't very "adult" to scold a child over every little thing, and really wasn't it just precious in a way, said the expression looking down at him.

"I see," Yuuki smiled. "I'm thankful Akira-kun's so worried about my son, but since he's not going to be killed, go on home now."

"No! It's true!"

"You don't know what happened afterwards do you?"

Akira blinked. He didn't know what he was talking about.

"....Afterwards?"

Yuuki smiled. To Yuuki the situation was clear. This child had heard Itou Ikumi's accusations. Possibly from somebody else. Being a child he took them at face value and came running. No, he might have heard of it before this too. With the way Ikumi was acting she was probably screaming "It's The Risen!" for a while now. 

"It's not like that, Akira-kun. That was Ikumi-san's misunderstanding. The people of the Kirishiki family aren't The Risen or vampires or anythin like that. The doctor himself confirmed it."

Akira's mouth gaped open. 

"The Risen don't exist. You've been hearing about them since you were little, so you might have thought maybe they are real, but this isn't any kind of case like that."

"But---But still!"

"Kirishiki-san came out to the gates in broad daylight. He even had a shadow. Ikumi-san swung an onbe and chanted spells at him but they didn't hurt him at all. --Well, he did seem annoyed," Yuuki said with a laugh. "The doctor from the Ozaki clinic took his pulse and confirmed he's a full human being. It was really funny, actually." With a sarcastic laugh, Yuuki urged the two. "I really am thankful that the two of you are worried for Natsuno. But this isn't a case of The Risen. In a way it's even more scary. When Natsuno gets better, I'll be sure to have him call you, if he doesn't I'll call you myself, so the two of you go on home. I'm sorry for making you worry for him." Yuuki said and then closed the window. 

"...Akira." Kaori put a hand on his shoulder and urged him. With a face on the verge of tears Akira looked up at his sister. 

"...That bastard wouldn't let me get a word in!" His voice shook. "About Megumi, about Yasuyuki nii-chan."

"I know."

"He never planned to listen from the start, not to a word I said. He was making a face like he knew what I was gonna say, even though he didn't know at all, and he wouldn't let me talk...!"

The multiple forms of anger and the multiple forms of outrage Akira felt mingled together. Akira despaired himself that he was a child. 

Nodding "I know," Kaori burst out crying. Taking Kaori's hand and returning towards the slope, Akira cried too. If only he could at least take one last look at Natsuno's face, he thought all the while.

For a while, Yuuki looked out the window. Natsuno faintly opened his eyes and looked up at Yuuki. He seemed to have an honest pity in his eyes but whether that was towards Akira or whether whether it overlapped with Akira and was towards himself he didn't know. 

He just knew that the strong sadness at the forefront of his consciousness was slipping, unable to keep hold of his thoughts as they continued to slip away.