X from Asuka 2, 2001
Color page: Kakyou looking melancholy in the rain.
A dragon of the Dragons of Heaven unwinds across the page. Kamui gazes straight ahead, his expression unreadable.
He is standing before a set of closed doors in the mansion on CLAMP Campus, hesitating. At last he rallies his courage and pushes on the door handle.
Inside the room is a chair. Sitting in it is a figure shrouded in darkness.
Kamui: ...Subaru.
He enters, leaving the doors open behind him to cast light into the room, and comes to stand before Subaru, hands held at his sides.
He looks down at Subaru. Subaru looks up at him, his expession nearly blank, then closes his eyes.
Subaru: ...You don't have to worry. I'm not broken.
Kamui looks at him hard, then steps closer. He reaches out to brush Subaru's blood-spattered coat.
Kamui: ...You didn't change clothes?
Subaru: ...I didn't want to.
Kamui leans in, placing one hand on each arm of the chair.
Kamui: ...Because it's his blood?
Subaru does not look up, and lifts a hand to touch the stains on his lapel. Kamui watches him closely for a moment, and then bows his head.
Kamui: ...I'm sorry...
Subaru: If you're apologizing for pulling me out of that place, there's no need to.
Kamui: BUT--!
For a moment, something like concern colors Subaru's face as he looks down at Kamui.
Kamui: ...But you didn't want me to!
He rests one hand on Subaru's knee, as though to support himself.
Kamui: ...You told me before, that time when you were helping me with my homework, about the cigarettes. You said that smoking cigarettes would increase your power. That if you didn't, you wouldn't be able to defeat the Sakurazukamori. So in spite of that... why did you try to die?
Subaru: You don't understand...?
His blank eye goes hazy with memory.
Subaru: ...A long time ago, that person almost killed me. But then he didn't. And the whole time after, I'm sure that he knew where I was. Because of these seals.
He lifts up his hands to display the Sakurazukamori stars gleaming on his skin.
Kamui: Those are...
Subaru: Proof that I am the prey of the Sakurazukamori. Seals placed on a person who would be killed by him.
Kamui stares at the five-pointed stars.
Subaru: I didn't understand it. If he knew where I was, why didn't he come to kill me? I thought about it for a long time, and then I remembered. Those eyes.
Kamui: Eyes?
Subaru: His eyes, that time when he didn't kill me. They were... full of disdain. They were the eyes of someone looking at a thing, a thing not even worth killing. Because of that... I wanted to become stronger.
He stares straight ahead, his eyes empty of emotion.
Subaru: To at least become something that might bother him. Something that would make him think, "I might as well kill it."
Kamui looks downward, stricken.
Subaru: But... I was wrong about all of that, too.
Kamui looks up. Subaru's eyes are closed, as though to contain something desperate within him.
Subaru: ...I wonder whether the words people say before dying are lies or truth. I have no way of knowing. And I can't ask him anymore.
Kamui takes Subaru's starred hand between his own.
Kamui: ...Subaru.
Subaru strokes his hair, lightly.
Subaru: The only thing you should be thinking about is how to fulfill your wish.
Kamui closes his eyes.
Kamui: Even if it's going to make someone unhappy?
When he answers, Subaru's eyes are blank, without compassion.
Subaru: There's no such thing as a way to make everyone happy.
Kamui stares at him.
Subaru: ...Your eyes are red. You should get some sleep.
Kamui: Yeah.
He rises to leave, but is slow to let go of Subaru's hand. In the brightness of the doorway he pauses and turns as if to speak, a slight frown on his face, but the expression is repaced by simple worry, and he closes the door behind him.
Alone in the darkness, Subaru gazes at the gleaming stars on his hands.
He lifts one and brushes it against his lips, exactly as Seishirou had done long ago during the year of the bet. Then he rises, walks to the tall windows, and throws them open. Light pours into the room as the curtains billow in a sudden fierce wind.
And then the room is empty.
To be continued.
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