Jinpachi was startled when, late one warm summer day, he saw the face of his long lost
                 lady love swimming toward him through the rain. The illusion lasted for only a moment
                 before her features, which, in life, had alway seemed to him to be ethereal, resolved
                 themselves into another girl's face, leaving his heart in his mouth, and her name trapped
                 painfully in his throat.
                     "What's wrong?" Sakura asked as she reached his side. "You look spooked."
                     "N-Nothing," he said, as he dragged a hand shakily through his hair. "It's just - for a
                 minute there, I didn't recognize you." He laughed nervously. "I don't know, maybe I was
                 expecting to see, you know, Shusuran."
                     "I see," she said gravely, pushing back her long hair. "Look, Jinpachi. I came here to
                 talk to you about Issei."
                     Enju
                     Jinpachi sighed. "Yeah,  know. It's... it's awkward, Sakura. I know he still cares
                 about me, even though he says he's just joking. But," and here he spead his hands out in
                 a gesture of supplication, "what am I supposd to do about it? Even if he is Enju...he's
                 also Issei - and I can't just-"
                     "I know," she said quickly, uncharacteristically somber. "Just... be careful with him,
                 okay?"
                     Please... don´t hurt her again.
                     He nodded his head and turned away.
                     The warm rain continued to fall, drumming a sweet, melancholy beat on the tree
                 branches, where the cherry blossoms, miraculously, still bloomed.

 
                 "Come on, Haru," said Mr. Tamura as he held out a loaded plate.
                     The boy just shook his head, his long-empty stomach clenching with nausea.
                     "Listen to me, Haru," Tamura said softly, setting down the plate and using both hands
                 to gently tilt the Haru's face upward, forcing the boy to look him in the eye. Haru's eyes
                 were full of tears, and he quickly shifted his gaze downwards. Tamura dropped his
                 hands to the boy's shoulders, where he could feel just how painfully thin he had become.
                     "Listen to me, kiddo. If you keep this up much longer, we'll have to put you back in
                 the hospital. And you worked so hard to get well, remember?"
                    It was true. He was little more than bones, and even as he tried to push Tamura's
                 hands away, beginning to weep once more, every movement betrayed a frightening lack
                 of strength.
                     Tamura held on until he felt both the sobbing and Haruhiko's remaining strength ebb
                 away, leaving him spent, unable to support his own weight. As Tamura eased the slight,
                 still body back onto the pallet, he could tell by the heaviness, and the slow shallowness
                 of the breathing, that Haru was unconscious once more.
                     This couldn't go on. The kid was wasting away into nothing, and his family was
                 frantic. Perhaps the hospital would be the safest place for him; at least then they would
                 be able to keep him alive.
                     Tomura eased silently out of the bedroom, and closed the door. Haru's mother stood
                 outside, looking as though she was holding back tears
        .            "Mrs. Kasama," he said, keeping his voice low.
                     "Thank you so much for continuing to visit," she said, and he could hear the strain in
                 her voice. "I know if anyone can get through to him, it would be you."
                    Or one of the other moon people, he thought, but how on earth could he find them?
                 And would Haru only react with terror if he did?
                    "Mrs. Kasama," he said, admitting something truer than he himself realized. "I don't
                 think I could not visit Hal. I only wish it was doing him some good. I think it might be
                 time to seriously consider hospitalization, for Haru's own good."
                     She nodded, and this time she really did cry, because she was familiar with hospitals,
                 was a woman who understood what it meant to worry constantly over the health of an
                 ailing child. A child in full possesion of her heart.
 

                 Lonely. It was ironic, Issei thought, how he could be one with nature, a participant in the
                 Earth's great dance of life, who shared a rare and precious connection with six other
                 souls, and how he now felt more alone than he'd ever felt before in his life.
                      His telepathy was a little stronger now than it had been at its onset, not much, but
                 enough to sense Alice's love, her joy in the Earth and her newly found Shion, Shusuran's
                 strong concern, and Jinpachi's discomfort. So he had been staying far away from them,
                 all of his closest friends, because it was all getting just a little too much to bear. He was
                 Issei Nishikiori, and he would have to build on that, start anew, and make new friends
                 with people whose pity for him was not so clear in every glance, every falsely
                 lighthearted gesture.
                     Walk down the street. Just another ordinary high school junior on his way home.
                 Uniform, schoolbag. Everything normal. One foot in front of the other. Step after step
                 after...
                     The sky was beautiful. A cloudless, vibrant blue, as empty as his heart, sterile and
                 scrubbed clean after the recent rains. The streets of Tokyo were as noisy and crowded
                 as ever, but everything seemed muffled somehow. He felt as if he would die soon. Step
                 after step after...
                     You've got to snap out of it, Enju! And it was Shusuran's voice blowing after him in
                 the city streets. He turned his face away from the wind and sat down on a bench. He
                 closed his eyes, hoping that the bright sunlight would wash over him, illuminate him,
                 chase away the shadows of his memories, fill him with somethng bright. Wash him clean.
                     I want to be with Gyokuran
                    The dead woman's yearning no longer flooded his heart, but every thought, every
                 breath was tinged with her loneliness. The sunlight did nothing to lull her.
                     Rest now, Enju, he willed her. Sleep. This is not your time.
                     He opened his eyes again at the sound of a car door slamming, and the sun had
                 grown larger and moved westward in the sky. He stared at it, dumbfounded and dazzled
                 by its brightness.
                     Did I fall asleep? How long have I been here?
                     His chest filled suddenly with a pain and grief so heavy, it was all he could do to keep
                 on breathing. But this time it was not the heartbreak of that long-ago far away ghost
                 woman he knew so well.
                     There were three figures that had exited the car, an attractive, middle aged woman
                 with dusky skin, and two men, one of whom he recognized. All converging around the
                 backseat, lifting someone out.
                     Issei clutched at his heart as another wave of pain flowed through him in sympathy.
                 Lurching to his feet, he saw and recognized the fourth passenger, in spite of how pale
                 and changed he had become. "Shukaido!" he said, rushing forward to touch the other
                 boy, to make sure he was still alive.
                     The three adults stiffened and froze at the sound of the intruder's voice; only one of
                 them understood what he had said.
                     ...and Shukaido, kneeling in supplication before the goddes Sarjalim, begging
                 for forgiveness somewhere in the darkness of his soul, heard someone calling his
                 name. He did not know if he turned toward her or cried out, but suddenly, there
                 she was, pale faced and pale haired and almost as miserable and wretched as
                 himself. He opened his mouth to speak
                     And, through the distance of a lifetime, Haruhiko found the strength to open his eyes.
                 She was still there, her heartbroken, compassionate face as he remembered it, her hand
                 on his chest, trying to do something, anything to ease the pain that was in both their
                 hearts.
                     He was losing consciousness again. She was blurring around the edges, coming apart,
                 coming back together as somebody else. Only the expression remained the same: silently
                 grieving, pleading, just this once, for hope to remain unbetrayed.
                     "Enju," he gasped, reaching out to grasp weakly at Issei's arm before he passed out.
 

                 Tamura eyed the boy cautiously as they waited in the hallway outside of Haru's hospital
                 room.
                     Another person from Haru's past, he thought. Another moon scientist, like that little
                 abomination, Shion. But this was also the boy who had once saved Haru from drowning
                 in the river. And Haru didn't seem to fear this boy as he had feared Shion, had, in fact,
                 reached out to him in that brief moment of lucidity. Mr. Tamura cleared his throat.
                     "Enju," he said.
                     The other boy winced as he turned to face him.
                     "Issei, sir. Issei Nishikiori."
                     "Issei. It looks like I owe you a second time."
                      Issei flushed. "But I didn't do anything."
                      "You got him to say something." Tamura searched for more words. "I don't think you
                 realize just how important that is. Haru hasn't said a word in several weeks."
                     He just cries. Tamura thought, almost feeling the chill of his long dead brother
                 somewhere close behind him. It's like he waiting to die.
                     "Waiting to die... " Issei murmured, eliciting a look of surprise from Mr. Tamura. "Oh,
                 Shukaido... "
 

                 Gyokuran  Enju whispered the name in her mind, watching him, his beautiful eyes, as
                 they were so often now, dazzled and overflowing with Mokuren's brilliance. Impossible
                 to resent her for that; she was love itself given form, the spirit of all that made life
                 beautiful. In her presence, you became more than what you were, what you were meant
                 to be, like a flower bud, unfurling its hidden glory in the warmth of Mokuren's light.
                     If only she could sit, quietly, and bask in that light, letting it fill her, banishing all of
                 those little darknesses, fears and sadness, and the pain of being alone.
                     Someone was crying, sotly, despairingly, and she wondered who it was. It couldn't be
                 Gyokuran. She could feel that he was all right. And it couldn't be Shion, because, as
                 angry and hurting as he was, even he was beginning to become whole under Mokuren's
                 healing influence. And neither Shusuran nor Hiiragi had any reason to weep. Shukaido?
                     And so it came as a great surprise when she met her own reflection in one of the
                 massive station windows, and saw that it was her own face that was contorted and
                 tearstained. She saw the hands of the reflection reach up, slowly, disbelieving, and the
                 her own hands were touching dampness, the tears still sliding, inexorably, over her
                 flushed cheeks.
                     "You've got to snap out of it, Enju," she whispered shakily to herself, trying to dry her
                 eyes on the sleeve of her lab coat. It was what Shusuran would say if she ever saw her
                 like this.
                     But when she looked back up to see if she looked presentable again, her own
                 reflection was gone, and there was a stranger staring back at her. A boy, young, with
                 sad eyes and a desperately serious manner. He was speaking to her, trying to tell her
                 something, but she could only hear the sound of her own ragged breathing. She leaned
                 closer.
                     "Sleep," he mouthed. "This is not your time."
                     Enju fainted.
 

                 Even unconsciousness was restless and full of dreams. Someone was crying, but it
                 couldn't be her. She was feeling nothing now, and lightened by this lack of feeling,
                 remote and insubstantial, as if someone had opened her up and scrubbed out her insides,
                 and then swathed her in cotton. Whoever it was was crouching on his hands and knees
                 in the darkness, sobbing his heart out. Shukaido. She had always felt sorry for him, with
                 his gentle manners and daydreaming eyes, because he too was lonely, another man who
                 could never capture or fill Mokuren's heart. She drew strength from him too. Because if
                 he could go on, living through each day without breaking apart from the pain, then so
                 could she.
                     She knelt down beside him without knowing why, and enfolded him in her arms. And
                 with this motion, the numbness flees from her, and she can feel her own pain and his,
                 engulfing and terrible, full of darkness...
 

                 Shukaido was surprised when Enju's first act, upon awakening, was to take him into her
                 arms and hold him tightly.
                     "Hey, now," he said, amused and a little bit worried. "It's all right. Everything's all
                 right."
                     She only tightened her grip in response, burying her face in his chest. He held her
                 gingerly, embarrassed, and glanced at Gyokuran, who was looking on with concern and
                 just a shade of jealousy. Shukaido shifted his position a bit so they could switch places,
                 and then Gyokuran was holding her, stroking her hair and asking what was wrong. She
                 held on for a while, hiding her face and shaking from suppressed sobs. Finally, she
                 looked up, smiling, her eyes full of tears.
                     "I... I guess it was all a dream... " she whispered.
 

                 And Issei awakened, exhausted, the light of the new day heavy on his closed eyelids.
 

                 Jinpachi was halfway across the street when he noticed Issei walking toward him. Too
                 late to pretend he hadn't noticed and walk another way. Taking a deep breath, he
                 waved, smiling. Issei waved back slowly.
                     "Hey, how's it going?" Jinpachi asked when they were face to face, followed by a
                 truly concerned, "Jeez, are you okay?"
                     "What?" Issei returned his gaze uncomprehendingly.
                     "You look like hell!"
                     "Oh," Issei said, rubbing his eyes. "I just had trouble sleeping last night, is all."
                     "If you say so... So, how come you're up and about so early?"
                     Issei's hesitation seemed more due  to distraction than secrecy, which was
                 uncharacteristic and worrying. When he finally answered, it was as if he was speaking
                 from a great distance.
                     "On my way to the hospital. I thought I'd stop by and visit Shukaido - I mean,
                 Haruhiko Kasama - and see how he was doing."
                     "Shukaido's in the hospital?"
                     Issei nodded. "They brought him in yesterday... they think his heart's giving out."
                     They walked together in silence for a bit, both knowing that it was really shame, that it
                 was really guilt that was killing Haru, straining his heart past all human limits of
                 endurance.
                     Jinpachi felt his own chest tightening a little at the thought of the Kasama boy dying.
                 After all they'd been through just to be here. He couldn't die...
                     "Mind if I come with you?" he asked gruffly.
                     Issei shook his head.
 

                 Mr. Tamura was already there, sitting at Haru's bedside when they arrived. He rose
                 when they entered the room.
                     "This is my friend, Jinpachi Ogura. But on the moon, we called him Gyokuran," Issei
                 said quietly, without choking once on the name.
                     "Pleased to meet you," said Mr. Tamura, bowing.
                     I guess it's true, he thought. Haru was only afraid of Shion.
                     "I'm glad you came," he said. "Thank you."
                     The boys nodded and sat down.
                     Maybe your heart was always weak, Shukaido, Jinpachi thought, feeling troubled.
                 And maybe Shion will never forgive you. I don't know if I could, if I were him. But
                 you can't die now - we just found you - we were supposed to give each other
                 strength, damnit, not tear each other apart! And isn't Sarjalim supposed to be
                 infinite forgiveness? What good will you do by dying? Shukaido... don't die...
                     Shukaido, please. These were Enju's thoughts now, and Issei was too tired to fight
                 them. At least they were true thoughts, and full of love. I drew strength from you on the
                 moon, even though I never told you. I used to watch you, and think that I could
                 bear living my life if you could bear living yours. So, please. Take strength from me
                 now. Let me repay you for what you gave without knowing.
                     Haru, you've got to pull yourself out of this. You've got your whole life ahead of
                 you. I've tried to protect you so you could have a chance, but how can I protect you
                 from yourself? Haru - people here care about you - your family loves you, and... so
                 do I. Please, be strong. Please, find the strength that you need... not to leave us all
                 behind. If you're doing this to atone for what you've done in the past... Listen,
                 death isn't redemption, life is the redmeption. You can't change the past - the
                 past is the past - you can only change the future... by living...
                     The day waned, dusk fell. The birds sang sweetly, and visiting hours were over. Issei
                 and Jinpachi walked home together in silence, each lost in his own thoughts.
 

                 Shukaido was sobbing, shamed and disgusted by his own weakness, both the deed, and
                 his inability to bear the consequences with dignity. Catching his breath, he struggled to
                 contain his grief in silence.
                     Someone else was crying. But who else would be here but him? This was his own
                 punishment, his own purgatory. Unless the goddess Sarjalim herself wept for his
                 disgrace.
                     But it was Enju. Poor, innocent Enju, who had suffered so much grief when Gyokuran
                 died. Who had suffered even when he lived, because he had loved another.
                     No, Enju, don't touch me! You shouldn't be here - this is a place for punishment -
                 Enju, you don't deserve to suffer. Not now, and not then either. Enju... please... let
                 go of me...
                     But she only embraced him tighter, holding onto him as if both their lives depended on
                 it. Shukaido struggled, but she would not let go. In the end, he could only free himself by
                 being somewhere else, as only he and Shion had the power to do. Because if he were
                 somewhere else, then she would have no reason to stay...
                     It's because Enju was a telepath, Haruhiko said/thought, wherever this new place
                 was. Sometimes she felt the others' pain as if it was her own.
                     No, Issei answered. Did you know her so little? It was because she cared.
                     She cared?
                     Haru felt his heart spasm a little, but it didn't hurt as much as he thought it would. He
                 looked own at his hands and tried not to hate himself as Issei looked quietly on.
 

                 Dawn was breaking as Haru opened his eyes and inhaled deeply. He felt stronger today,
                 almost rested, even though the night had been filled with strange dreams, as always. He
                 was blinking sleepily at the ceiling of the hospital room, trying to figure out where he was,
                 when Mr. Tamura woke in the chair beside his bed.
                     "Mr. Tamura... where am I?"
                     Mr. Tamura was trying hard not to cry. "Oh, kid. Oh, kid." was all he could manage
                 to say.
 

                 Half  town away, Issei Nishikiori smiled, only slightly sadly, in his sleep.
 

                                                                         - The End -
 

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