Disclaimer: I don't own X/1999. Clamp does….damn it.
WARNING: A very dark fic. Kinda graphic and really depressing.
Author's Thanks: to my beta, Cait! And the other go to my cat for sitting on the computer screen and doing cute faces at me
Physiotherapy
When Kamui woke from the slumber he had after emerging from the depth of his heart, he discovered that he was not only wounded by the glass shards, the shinken and the long metal pipe Fuma stabbed him with; he was also crippled by them.
Only a small number of his wounds were scratches or shallow cuts; most of the things that stabbed him went all the way through to reach the concrete slab behind him. He was like a butterfly pinned to a board on those little boxes you see in school science rooms and collectors' walls.
The majority of Kamui's grave wounds were on his upper body; his arms mostly, with nothing but bruises on his back and several on his chest.
This posed a major problem to the fate of the earth: The ceremony to lock Kamui's shinken in the Heart of the Divine Protection was due as soon as possible and Kamui had to be in shape to do it properly.
Kamui couldn't walk without a crutch, he couldn't even support himself on his crutch without severe pains in his right shoulder and he couldn't move his fingers on both hands to grab things properly.
From a hidden spot behind Kamui's sickroom's half closed door, Imonoyama Nokoru observed the nurses changing Kamui's bandages. "This is going to be problematic; he's not even fit to get out of bed!"
"The shinken must be locked as quickly as possible." His longtime bodyguard, secretary and (since high school) lover, standing at Nokoru's side, had noted the obvious.
Nokoru turned his head to the blue-haired man with grave eyes. "Bring the best physiotherapist here, we have to get this kid in shape as soon as possible."
Suoh nodded and disappeared down the corridor, leaving Nokoru to stare at Kamui some more.
The tunnel-like wound in Kamui's right shin was infected. The metal pipe used to pin Kamui's leg to the concrete slab was rusty and dirty after having been a part of a concrete wall the Dragon of Earth smashed in his remodeling of Clamp Campus' hospital's little decorative pool. His glass shard induced wounds were also infected from the same source.
Infection was the least of Kamui's problems. Clamp Campus was one of the world's most advanced medical facilities and a few infections were nothing for them.
It was the restoration of Kamui's body to a state where he could move properly that bothered Nokoru, along with every doctor handling the newly minted Dragon of Heaven.
A physiotherapist was found and flown to Clamp Campus the very day Nokoru ordered his lover away with the assignment.
He was Dr. Lucas Waverly from England, the only highly recommended physiotherapist who was also an orthopedist capable of joining Clamp Campus' surgeons to re-operate and bring Kamui's body to the best of shape might the need come up. He was also the only one with a good enough recommendation in both occupations and could speak and read Japanese fluently.
Three days after his awakening, Kamui was brought before Dr. Waverly. Kamui stared at the tall gaijin with a great deal of doubt and fear.
"Shiro-kun, this is Dr. Waverly Lucas. He will be your physiotherapist from now on and will help you regain your health fully. Please cooperate with Dr. Waverly."
Kamui stared at the man a little longer; he never saw a real life gaijin, only on the television.
Lucas Waverly was about two heads taller than the rest of the doctors and nurses in the hospital. He had a broad back and strong arms, shortly cropped curly dark red hair and an empty circle of skin at the upper back of his head where his age began making him bald.
He had tiny red eyes squeezed between his heavy, bushy, curly eyebrows and the sack-like bags under his eyes. His eyes were very sharp and completely unreadable to Kamui from his position on the bed.
The strangest thing Kamui noticed about Dr. Waverly was his freckles, Kamui never saw something like that. They were like a leopard's skin; all over Dr. Waverly from the receding hairline to (probably) his feet. Kamui could see them on his palms as well, hiding beneath the slightly brighter red curly hairs reaching all the way to the doctor's knuckles on each palm.
Kamui shuddered. It's as if he didn't have enough on his mind with trying to analyze what the hell happened to Fuma, dealing with Kotori's death and the death of his aunt, comprehending what he is now and what he's supposed to do, and comprehend the extent of his injuries, now he has to have this huge hairy gaijin as his physiotherapist?
Pretending to be exhausted, Kamui turned his head away and faked a sleepy moan. He closed his eyes and slowed his breaths to imitate sleep.
Kamui's head doctor, the gaijin and Imonoyama-sama stayed in his room to talk about him, thinking him asleep.
"How old are the injuries," Kamui heard the foreign man ask in perfect Japanese.
"Three days old."
Lucas stared at the Japanese physician, forgetting what he learnt about Japanese manner forbidding such obvious glaring.
"Three days? Are the wounds properly healed? Are they closed? Are there no signs of infection?"
Hutoki sensei nodded patiently. "The wounds are now clear of infection and are completely closed, the patient is showing an amazing healing ability."
Amazed, Lucas turned his head to the sleeping boy. He could tell Kamui was not really sleeping but chose to ignore it.
"When do you want me to start?"
1. Lift your right arm:
Glass shards pierced Kamui's right shoulder, tearing flesh, bone, tendons and nerves. Kamui's enhanced healing ability allowed his bones to heal quicker and his flesh to close on the wound leaving only a scar behind. But his arm still hung limply at his side like the limb of a rag doll and moving it properly lead to pain. The movements he managed were stiff and imperfect.
Kamui received a dose of steroids to pump his body's healing up. There were side effects; Kamui grew edgy, if not paranoid at times.
He glared at the big-bodied gaijin as the man held his right arm and, slowly, moved it inch by inch to practice the body's flowing motion and flexibility.
"You're hurting me," Kamui burst out when his physiotherapist moved his arm an inch too far.
Lucas stared at the boy with soft eyes. "I'm sorry. Please tell me when you're starting to feel pain, as tiny as it is, so that I will know when to stop next time."
Kamui looked away, angry.
"I have to say that your healing rate is amazing, you're quite a healthy boy." The doctor laughed lightly. "What's your mother feeding you?"
"My mother is dead," Kamui spat back, glaring at the gaijin at full force now.
"…I'm so sorry…"
Once again, Kamui shot his head sideways, pretending that he was not attached to the arm in the gaijin's hairy clutches.
The next day Kamui was already fit to move his arm on his own in the slow little circles Dr. Waverly practiced yesterday. The question was whether Kamui wanted to do it.
This time Kamui was deep in the murky pool of depression. He sat slumped on his wheelchair and refused to move. Whenever the doctor tried to ask him to do something Kamui shrugged and refused to cooperate.
"Are you not feeling well? Is something wrong?"
Kamui didn't think this gaijin had any right to ask him such a thing. On the other hand he didn't want the man to start prodding him to answer and so he raised his tear-covered face to the red haired physician.
It did the trick; the little face so besmirched by agony took Lucas aback.
"I'm sorry, are you in pain?"
Mental pain, yes, Kamui's chest was exploding over and over again as the heartache of Kotori's death finally seeped in fully. The picture of the moment when the shinken entered her chest would not leave Kamui whenever he closed his eyes, even to blink.
Damn right he was in pain.
He hung his head once more, turning it sideways slightly and resumed his crying.
"Well…" Lucas hung his hands, held together, between his legs and sighed. "I guess we can have another session this afternoon after you've had your tea and a bit of a nap?"
Kamui shrugged.
Lucas called a nurse to roll Kamui out of the room.
Kamui crushed onto his bed, wiggled under the covers with amazing pain stabbing all over his body, and fell into a violent sobbing fit.
Halfway through it Subaru walked into the room and placed a comforting hand on Kamui's back. The boy under his palm stopped sobbing and relaxed.
Subaru stayed there, sitting on the bed's edge with his palm softly rubbing Kamui's back, without saying a single word, until he could feel that Kamui had fallen asleep.
When the nurse rolled Kamui into the physiotherapy room that afternoon Dr. Lucas was in the middle of a tea break. He hurried to brush the biscuit crumbs off his white robe and gulped the rest of his tea down.
Kamui stared at the big man fumbling around to clear the tea set away from the table.
He didn't quite feel like doing this again; he felt like ending this as quickly as possible. He was feeling better now, having a good long sleep this afternoon and a big meal for lunch. The gentle hand that rubbed his back worked a lot of courage and mental strength back into him.
He'll think about Kotori later, right now he better get this over and done with as soon as possible.
"Well then, how are you Kamoi?"
'Gaijin-sensei' said his name wrong all the time, despite the other doctors and nurses who said his name properly and from whom he surely could have picked the right pronunciation from. Besides saying 'Kamoi' he pronounced it with a stress on the penultimate syllable; saying 'kaMOI', instead on the last syllable; saying 'KAmui'. It pissed Kamui off but he let it slide for now.
For now he would get this ridiculous thing off his schedule. Kamui straightened his back, leveled his spiteful stare at Dr. Waverly and began rotating his right arm, rising it all the way up, then lowering it to his side from time to time.
Lucas stared at the boy, speechless. A huge smile spread on his lips. "That's amazing Kamoi-kun, amazing." He clasped his hands together, mumbling to himself in English, "Brilliant, my god, simply brilliant, amazing."
Satisfied and relieved, Kamui called for the nurse to roll him out of the room.
"Wait," the gaijin called out. "If your arm is moving properly now, we can start working on your right leg, correct?"
Kamui turned his head to glare fire and brimstone at the doctor.
2. Walk properly.
The wound in Kamui's leg was by far the most difficult to handle. The pipe the Dragon of Earth used had penetrated the bones in Kamui's leg, shattering them into tiny little fragments.
The first thing on the minds of the surgeons who worked on Kamui was to clean the wound of all little rust crystals, then to somehow put all the little bone splinters back into one piece. They used a titanium implant to support the fragments in the right position.
The leg itself was still pretty much out of use, having to undergo a great deal of healing that took time even with Kamui's great healing ability.
Kamui hated the wheelchair; it made him feel helpless. What he hated most about the wheelchair was the fact that his hands were still in no shape to function properly and so he had to be pushed around on the chair by a nurse whenever he wanted to move and it shrunk his privacy to a tiny little fragment.
If he wanted to find a secluded spot in the hospital's garden and weep his eyes out he had to first ask a nurse to roll him there, and then have the nurse hanging around there until he finished crying so that she could roll him back to his room.
He could ask Subaru to do it but that would lead to the bigger man' presence and attention while all Kamui wanted was a bit of privacy.
What made it even worse was the fact that these bunch of strangers he now had to lead were always visiting him and when he wanted to run away from them he had to call a nurse over and hear them asking him what's wrong and is he alright and if they could do something to help him so the nurse won't be needed.
Yuzuriha, the little girl who made a remark about his height, brought him a little bunny toy to keep him company, which was the least of what Kamui needed. If he wasn't so depressed that he could hardly breathe, Kamui would surely throw the silly stuffed animal at her face. But she was nice, she knew what to say and when to say it and not really that annoying, so Kamui let it go.
The rest of the Seven Seals were nicer, quieter and better mannered. There was the editor, Aoki Seiichiro, who brought him the latest Asuka magazines whenever he had the time to visit the boy. It was nice to have something to read even if it was shoujo, Kamui guessed, but if only he was in a condition to hold the magazines right and flip the pages! He hated having to have a nurse over to do it for him.
And so, Kamui sank into another miserable depression and preferred to stay in bed all day and wallow in his pain.
He wanted Fuma here to talk to about…about anything, just to be there. He wanted to have Kotori here to bring him tea and her homemade cookies like she used to whenever Kamui got the flu when they were little.
Kamui remembered the sight of Kotori running around her home's kitchen bustling over the making of the cookies as her mother guided her through the stages.
But Kotori was dead and never again will he taste the sweetened, accidentally half-baked cookies or the warm comforting tea.
Kamui cried himself to sleep. He woke up feeling like the most redundant, ridiculous, useless thing in the world.
So, when Dr. Waverly told him they might as well start working on his leg, despite Kamui's great uneasiness around the doctor, he was more than willing to do so.
Lucas rolled Kamui's wheelchair back into the room and asked the nurse to bring a crutch.
"Now…" Dr. Waverly reached out his hands and crouched before Kamui. "Hold on to my hands."
Kamui stared at the big, white, hairy and freckled hands with suspicion. He hated physical touch with anyone other then the Monous, now he had to do it to recover…great.
He looked into Dr. Waverly's encouraging eyes. Shrugging, cursing inwardly, Kamui placed his stiff palms in the doctors'.
With a soft gentle tug, Lucas pulled the boy to his feet. Immediately Kamui's body tipped sideways and his arms pulled instinctively from Lucas' hands to try and stabilize himself independently. But the doctor did not give up; he placed his left arm at Kamui's right side and stabilized him.
"Good, you can stand. Now, straighten your leg Kamoi-kun, place your foot on the floor. That's right."
Kamui's right leg was shaking under him with the effort of trying to keep himself standing. The doctor's hand served nothing but a stop to keep him from falling down to his side, it did not support him fully on his legs.
After a few minutes Kamui came crashing back into his chair, swearing under his breath now.
"Very well. You can rest for now and then we'll do it again."
"What?"
Lucas remained unchanged, despite the angry tone his young patient shot at him. "The more exercise we give your body the faster you'll heal."
"But I'm exhausted." Now Kamui was pleading, just a little bit. More like a little child whining.
"I know that Kamoi-kun, but we have to get you back together again…and as fast as possible, apparently." Now it was the doctor's turn to lose some of his spirit.
Kamui scrutinized the freckled face, studying the various meanings of its little wrinkles.
"What do you mean 'as soon as possible apparently'?"
Waverly sighed. "The young blond guy, the one who runs this hospital…"
"Imonoyama-sama, he runs the whole campus."
"Yes, him. He informed me that you have to be in good shape again as soon as possible; something about a ceremony that has to be held or something. Do you know what he's talking about?"
Kamui knew he just didn't know if this gaijin should be informed about it. With a shrug he shook his head.
"I see…very well then."
Kamui stood up a few times more, each time with a definite improvement in his ability to firmly place his foot on the ground and stabilize himself.
With a great deal of pain and a lot of hardheadedness he managed to stand alone, without Waverly's help. That had ended his day; he crashed into the chair and waved for surrender.
"I think you've had amazing progress Kamoi-kun, you're a stubborn kid."
Kamui refused to respond. Instead he called the nurse over to help him roll out of the room.
"Tomorrow I'm starting to walk," he said, eyeing the crutch that stood leaning against the wall by the door.
"Have a good night, rest well." Dr. Waverly waved his goodbye. "You're doing wonderfully, Kamoi-kun."
"It's KaMUI, god damn it," Kamui hissed as the nurse rolled him away, ignoring the obvious tug at his wheelchair as the nurse cringed.
Kamui would have come the next day with a fresh spirit, full of hope to start walking already but he didn't. Nighttime was hell.
His mother was burning to ashes before his eyes and all Kamui could do was shake himself out of the nightmare.
The fact that he managed to open his eyes to his hospital room instead of the view of the burning did not help his mother come back from the dead. It didn't help the fact that he was an orphan and that he was watching it as he became one.
When he closed his eyes again it was his aunt's turn to remind him of her death. The blood splattered walls, the bits of torn flesh, his aunt's head in Kotori's hands spilling blood and gore all over Kotori's soft white pajamas.
Kamui shook himself out of sleep again and found that he was shaking violently. His body was covered in sweat and he felt terribly cold, even under the heavy soft duvet.
He called a nurse over, who found that he had a fever, probably induced by the stress of his nightmares (although that was left for Kamui to assume, the nurse was clueless). He was given a fever-reducing shot and a sleeping pill to help him sleep better.
The shot worked miracles; his head, which started to feel like a lump of lead, was better now, and he was not cold anymore.
The sleeping pill proved to be a disaster.
The next nightmares were of Kotori, of her death, her body shattered into torn flesh bits, her detached head spilling blood and gore on his clothes.
And with Fuma hissing those hateful words at him. "Kamui, mark my words; I will be the one to kill you," his eyes so filled with cold hate.
Kamui tried shaking himself out of sleep but he could not; he was chemically bound to sleep, unable to flee from the nightmares.
And so, for the rest of the night Kamui was watching the nightmares over and over again. His mother, Tokiko, Kotori, Fuma's wrath. At morning time Kamui felt groggy and miserable…unwilling to keep himself alive.
With his head heavy and fog-filled from the sleeping pill's residue, Kamui looked over to the little food tray on his bedside cabinet.
There were fruits on it and a knife for slicing them. Kamui eyed the knife with sleepy eyes.
He rolled over to the cabinet and leaned on one elbow, cringing at the pain in his arm. He reached out and placed his palm on the knife. His fingers would not move; they were stiff and numb. Fumbling with his thumb, Kamui managed to somehow grab the knife and bring it into the bed with him.
He brought his left wrist to the knife, and with a violent jerk, slashed at his flesh.
The knife was not very sharp to begin with; it was only a fruit knife. Kamui's arm was still a bit numb as his shoulder could function, but not such complicated maneuvers, so the jerk was not very powerful.
The slice in his skin was superficial, not deep enough to pose any threat to his life. The blood from his wound trickled down his arm and then stopped. Kamui watched with horror as his healing ability sealed the wound like lips closing.
Kamui burst into tears again, whimpering like a wounded animal and pounding the bed around him with his hands. He was so useless; he couldn't even end his miserable existence.
Subaru walked into the room, slow, silent and elegant, as usual.
Kamui stared at him with fear. If he finds out he tried to kill himself what will Subaru do? Will he warn the others? Will he rebuke him? Will he call a doctor?
Subaru sat on a chair by Kamui's bed and stared peacefully at Kamui, a small comforting smile on his pale lips.
Kamui stared back, sweating nervously "G…good morning Sumeragi-san."
"Subaru, please."
"Subaru-san."
Subaru nodded and bent forward to pick the fruit knife out of Kamui's crippled clutch. Without a word or a single change in his expression, he placed the knife back on the tray where it belonged. The he retrieved a hand towel from the nearby bathroom and cleaned Kamui's blood off his arm.
Kamui blushed and turned his head to look away from Subaru.
"How are you this morning?" Subaru was eyeing the big windows behind him with nicotine-induced giddiness.
Kamui sighed and told Subaru about his hellish night.
As Kamui spoke, Subaru got to his feet, opened the huge French windows in the boy's room and lit a cigarette. He nodded at Kamui whenever he could hear the boy was wavering, questioning his concentration on his words.
Smoking silently, still nodding, Subaru leaned against the wall by the window, his cigarette hand hanging outside the window to keep the smoke out of the room.
Kamui was crying as he spoke. It wasn't the violent sobbing, heart wrenching kind of crying; it was slow dripping of tears as he talked.
When he finished he hung his head and took long deep breaths to calm himself.
Subaru finished his cigarette and walked over to Kamui's bed. He sat by the boy and wrapped his arm around the thin fragile shoulders.
Kamui began crying harder, curling up into Subaru to rest his head against a chest as thin as his and only a little bit broader with masculinity.
Half an hour later Sorata walked in accompanied by Yuzuriha and Arashi. This time Karen came to visit as well and offered her services in a small massage. Kamui couldn't say no though he was having just about enough of people he doesn't really know touching him all the time.
Sorata was talking to them all, half to himself actually; reading Clamp campus information from a brochure Imonoyama-sama gave him. The monk told them about their enrolling to the campus as students and about the types of dorms offered to those who wish to live on campus.
Kamui couldn't care and shrugged under Karen's long gentle fingers. Her massage was actually very good: gentle and completely painless while reviving and helpful.
What Kamui most appreciated about Karen's presence was her silence. Like Subaru, she too sensed that what Kamui needed most was not a constantly cheerful company, but a quiet one that needs only to be there to listen to him might he need their advice.
Yuzuriha spoke to Inuki, offering him a bit of the Pocky she shared with the rest of them.
Kamui didn't feel like any.
Arashi took one stick out of good manners and held it in her hands staring at it like it was a menace to her.
Sorata took about half the packet and was stuffing it into his mouth as he talked. Kamui stopped watching him when the first biscuit bits started launching from his mouth as he spoke too quickly to chew along with it.
Karen sniggered and took a single stick, saying she needs to keep her girlish figure.
An hour later Subaru looked at his wristwatch and excused himself saying he had a job to do. The room felt a lot emptier once the onmyouji wasn't there. Suddenly, Kamui started feeling cold again.
Two hours later Kamui was too exhausted from the lack of proper sleep and tried showing signs of it. After another half an hour Karen picked the signals up and herded the rest of the Seals out of the room. She blew a kiss at Kamui and wished him a good rest.
A good rest Kamui did not get. He lay in his bed and cried some more until the nurse came in to call him for his physiotherapy session.
Kamui washed his face, changed to a different shirt (with the awkward help of the nurse) and moved to Dr. Waverly's room.
The task he expected to complete yesterday now seemed a shady goal. Kamui stared at the crutch, then at Dr. Waverly.
He couldn't tell the gaijin about his night could he? What good would it do? He's a physiotherapist, not a psychologist and Kamui wasn't sure he'd like to meet one of the latter either.
He took a deep breath, grabbed the crutch with his numb palms and (with some effort) pulled himself up on his feet. His right leg did not show any signs of protest to standing up and so Kamui placed the crutch under his right shoulder and began trying to drag himself across the floor.
His knee would bend perfectly, his foot arched the right way to finish the step but somewhere between his pelvis and his knee there was a block of stiff muscles and a titanium slab that would not comply to Kamui's will.
"Wow, hold your horses boy." Dr. Lucas rose to his feet and hurried over to Kamui. He took the fragile body in his arms and stabilized it. "First, try to move your leg back and forth to make the first stepping movements, and then start trying to make complete walking movements."
Kamui did as he was told, encouraged by the soft strong touch at his sides. He swung his right leg back and forth, imagining he was kicking something.
He imagined he was kicking Fuma's stray soccer ball back to him.
The first memory he had of older Fuma was of him standing in his P.E clothes, holding a soccer ball and staring at him transfixed.
Kamui's eyes began tearing. He didn't care; he hung his head a little to hide the tears from Gaijin-sensei and kept kicking.
"Good, now lean your body weight on the crutch and use that as a right leg, don't try standing completely." Lucas was noting Kamui's every reaction with a sharp eye. Of course he noted the boy was crying, but he chose to disregard it at the face of Kamui's stubbornness to keep going. Besides, despair and frustration was something almost every patient he had experienced; it was natural. If Kamui wished it, Lucas would be here for him, he was here for him.
"Now, slowly, lean on your left leg and move the crutch a step forward."
Kamui obeyed.
"Very good, now move your right leg, slowly, to the place where the crutch is."
Kamui managed it.
"Excellent! Now take a step with your left leg and repeat the moves you just did with the crutch and your right leg."
They repeated this over and over again until they almost reached the room's door.
"This is wonderful! Great progress Kamoi-kun!"
Kamui flashed a tearful glare at his physician through the hairs falling on his face.
"Can you turn around?"
Wordlessly, Kamui turned around with slow clumsy movements.
"Okay, now I want you to walk with the crutch alone like we just did. I'll be here if you feel exhausted. If you feel like you're about to fall, I'm right here behind you, okay?"
Kamui nodded and took off before Dr. Waverly told him. The pain was excruciating and Kamui had had it about three steps into their exercise, but he was determined to get this right and start walking again.
Every step he took sent sharp stabs up his leg, through his back and all the way down to his foot but Kamui brushed it off. He was panting as he limped across the room, sweating and hissing through his clenched teeth. His palm would often slip off the crutch's side and almost send him tumbling forward, but Kamui fought on.
A treacherous thought snuck into Kamui's mind like a little devil; trying to slit his wrist as a way to end his life was ridiculous.
Kamui ignored the thought and concentrated on moving his right leg the proper way.
But the thought kept going: this is a high-tech hospital, they'd be in his room in seconds, and they'd probably find a blood transfusion for him in a little bit more. They'd probably force him to go to a psychologist for it. No, slitting his wrists was a bad idea.
Kamui had no more strength to keep fighting the thought. He could feel his right arm's muscles starting to protest the activity he made it do. He should concentrate on the task before him!
The thought spread through his mind again: he should find a high spot in the city and leap off the building, and then he should explode himself. That'd be a good way to end his life! This way no one would suspect he'd try to harm himself.
The vision of how it will be hit him full force.
He saw himself leaping up to the clear blue sky above Tokyo and turn into a big red bubble of energy, blood and torn flesh. It would rain blood and flesh on that part of Tokyo. He imagined it very vividly, in exact details, the way his limbs would fall back to the ground and land all over and around people.
Would someone recognize him? Would someone care? Would they scream in horror and run away? Would they call an ambulance? The police? Would they remember it for the rest of their lives or would they let the miserable end of a single tormented youth's life slip their minds and move on with their happy lives?
Another powerful vision hit Kamui: his palm, torn out of its place and bleeding, laying on a sidewalk with splattered blood all around it. There were people walking in the background; pairs of feet hurrying each to their own destination. But no one stopped by his hand, no one stared, tried to pick it up, nothing. It lay there, its fingers halfway curled, its stump slowly starting to congeal and darken. It was lonely and sad and horrifying.
It was like an icy fist to Kamui's chest.
He lost his concentration as he sank into his vision and another depression.
His eyes shut powerfully, Kamui crushed to the floor tearful and shaking. He lay there like a cast off doll and wept powerfully.
Someone hurried over to his side. Powerful palms grabbed his shoulders and raised him to sit down. Kamui kept his head hanging, refusing to look around and register where he was and who it was holding him.
Lucas held the boy to his chest and patiently waited for the boy to stop crying. He had a son Kamui's age; he had his tantrums and teenaged depression and Lucas was there for him each and every time. From his earlier patients Lucas knew what it was like to be in Kamui's position and worse.
Kamui was building up a fever again and he was shaking. Lucas carried the boy back to his wheelchair and called the nurse.
"You did great today Kamoi-kun, well done. I'll see you tomorrow then?" No answer from Kamui. "Good, good night then Kamoi-kun."
He watched as the wreck of a boy was rolled out of his room. Lucas closed the door after them and turned around. Leaning on the door, he chewed on his lower lip in thought. Then he walked over to his desk where his phone was and called Kamui's head physician.
"Ah, good evening Hutoki-sensei, how are you? I'm good as well, thank you for asking. Listen, there's something I'd like to ask of you, yes, it's about Kamoi-kun…perhaps you could add some antidepressants to his prescription…yes it's vital, he's very down and it's in the way of his full and quick recovery."
Lucas scratched at his cheeks to test his need to shave, contemplating on Hutoki's positive answer's nature. He knew Japanese were completely incapable of saying 'no' and wondered if all these 'hai's actually 'meant' a great big 'no'.
"Well, anyway, please consider my recommendation positively, thank you for your time." He hung up and sighed deeply, trying to stretch his long body in the relatively small chair.
That evening Kamui received another pill along with the steroids and fever reducing shots. He didn't inquire about it, he'd prefer it if he didn't know what they were stuffing him with.
Looking at the doctors and nurses buzzing around his bed made Kamui feel like they were attaching strings to his limbs and soon Imonoyama-sama and Hinoto and every Seal will hold these strings and make him move like a marionette to operate as a proper Dragon of Heaven.
Dragon of Heaven…whatever. Kamui only wanted to sleep.
He sank into sleep with the smell of tea and homemade cookies in his nostrils.
The next morning Kamui's head felt surprisingly light and fresh. He looked out the window and inhaled the clear morning air.
He was feeling better! Kamui called the nurse and asked to move his appointment with Gaijin-san to an earlier hour.
Gaijin-sensei was scrutinizing him strangely this meeting, Kamui decided, as if he was trying to see if something in his complexion had changed.
Kamui ignored it and immediately began limping around the room on his crutch. He did it perfectly!
Encouraged, Kamui cast the crutch aside and began walking around without it. Slowly, stiffly at first and often slipping forward a bit, Kamui began walking properly again.
The session began at 09:00 and ended at 17:00 with Kamui walking around perfectly, even standing on his right leg alone and skip hopping a bit.
Dr. Waverly gave him a hug and a few manly pats on the back. "You've made amazing progress today Kamoi-kun, I'm proud of you. It's when you make up your mind that you are going to get better that change is really made." He cleared his point by tapping his finger on his temple.
Kamui stared and allowed himself the trace of a shy smile.
"What will we do next? Your palms, I should think; what do you think?"
Kamui nodded and began walking out of the room after dealing a small kick to his now redundant wheelchair.
Lucas stayed behind and stared after the teen. Perhaps Hutoki sensei really ordered the antidepressants into Kamui's prescription, which would be very nice. What would be even nicer is for Kamui to talk back to him and for the two of them to have a normal conversation; it'd help the healing process a lot.
Sighing, Lucas sat back into his tiny chair and resumed his random paperwork while sipping his freshly brewed cup of tea.
3. Grab the ball.
This, Kamui decided, was the most annoying and awkward of tasks he had before him.
Save the world, keep Tokyo safe from earthquakes, be He Who Wields the Authority of God, wrap his fingers around squishy little silly yellow ball. Guess which one of these tasks Kamui was incapable of doing…
Kamui swore loudly and concentrated on his slim white fingers refusing to wrap around the ball. On the other side of the ball was Gaijin-sensei who gave him the annoying yellow thing.
Both of Kamui's palms were stabbed right in the middle, one by a large glass shard and the other by Kamui's shinken. The wounds were nothing but a pair of long scars on his delicate palms now, but within there were sinews and nerve centers that needed exercise to regain operating fitness.
Kamui sighed and switched hands, concentrating on his shinken pierced palm to operate normally with only a little more success. This could be attributed to the fact that, unlike the glass shard, the shinken was relatively clean and Kamui did not suffer any infection from that wound, unlike with his other palm. His fingers began curling yet failed to close down all the way on the ball.
It was the same the next day, this time with Kamui contemplating blowing the damn ball up. He had a little more success with both hands this session but they still failed to properly hold the ball stably and then lift it and carry it for a few minutes. His palms would always un-clutch with fatigue and release the ball. His muscles were burning and stiff and often Kamui needed Dr. Waverly's assistance with soothing them.
Dr. Lucas did this by taking Kamui's palm in his and slowly rubbing the pain out of them.
Kamui felt awkward in this pseudo-romantic position and fought his blushes off. All he needed for that was to stare at the gigantic hairy and freckled palms which seemed to be devouring his tiny pale palm in their depth, and he'd lose every tiny trace of thinking that this was anything but a doctor-patient relationship.
Kamui's third attempt to properly grab the ball and keep it in his palm that day was suddenly interrupted by a big happy Sorata bursting into the room.
"Hey-ho Kamui! How are you?" He dealt a heavy pat to Kamui's back and almost sent the boy splattered on the table.
"Uh, excuse me young man but we're in the middle of a session here."
Dr. Waverly stared at the big teen looking around the table filled with pipes and balls in various sizes.
"Oh, you are? I'm so sorry." The teen bowed deeply and hurried out of the room.
He was back in a second later, calling for Kamui's attention.
Sharing a glare with Dr. Waverly, Kamui spun around to look at Sorata.
"Remember Kamui, if you can't bend your fingers properly you won't be able to do this!" Sorata raised both his palms to the same place in the air which happened to be directly in front of him and squeezed the ethereal breasts meaningfully. "Ja ne!" Sorata disappeared as soon as he noticed Kamui comprehended the message.
"He's one cheeky little bastard, isn't he?"
"You can say he's a bastard again." Kamui turned to the ball, his face red with anger. "Well, Sorata can be at times, he's a good guy in general, but sometimes he hasn't the faintest clue that what he's going to say won't sound right…"
Lucas laughed. "Very well then Kamoi, here's a new exercise." He rolled the ball back into Kamui's open palm, "pretend this is Sorata-kun's neck."
Kamui squeezed so hard his knuckles turned white. He tried it with his other hand and got the same result. Next, with a great war cry, he threw the ball at the wall where it bounced almost all the way back to their table.
Dr. Lucas laughed happily, picking the ball up and placing it again on the table. As usual, Kamui was showing amazing recovery once he put his mind to it.
"Alright, let's start practicing a little dexterity, shall we Kamoi-kun?"
Kamui sighed "Sensei…" He looked at the gaijin.
Stunned at this initiation of a conversation at Kamui's behalf, Lucas smiled "Yes?"
"Please, it's KaMUI. It's driving me mad that you can't say my name properly…"
Lucas stared at Kamui for a while, calculating his answer, "Well, why won't you try saying my name?"
Kamui frowned, "Uebadlyu sensei."
"Ah, but it's 'W-a-v-e-r-l-y', not 'Uebadlyu." He smiled half cunningly.
Kamui glared, "But I can't properly pronounce your name! I've never tried to pronounce syllables like that!"
"Then you know how I feel."
They stared at each other for a while.
"U…wwwabaaaalyyy," Kamui managed to pronounce.
"Very good! That's close enough, I guess. So you said its KaMUI right?"
Kamui nodded, awkward now.
"Bloody good! So, KaMUI, let's see you holding a pencil and writing a few words."
Smiling shyly, Kamui grabbed a pencil and began scribbling.
At first he had a bit of difficulty to press the page down firmly enough to stabilize the pencil on it. Then there was the difficulty to keep his fingers firm on the cylinder while his wrist manipulated the pencil on the page.
After enough concentration and several attempts, Kamui managed to write his name correctly. The page was filled with squiggles of attempted 'Shiro Kamui's' all around the newly well written name.
"Brilliant, now, take the eraser and clean the page from what isn't your name."
Kamui gave Dr. Waverly a glance and immediately began his new task. This was a bit more difficult; he either let the eraser slip out of his fingers or pressed it too roughly between his thumb and forefinger leading to aching muscles.
Finally he managed to clean the page. He shook off the string-like shreds of eraser that shed off the white bulk while he toiled and stared down at his name proudly. It must have been at least ten years since he was so proud of his ability to write perfectly.
Lucas let a soft smile take over his lips. Kamui was adorable; as he toiled he let his tongue slip out a bit and he frowned at the page as if calculating the amount of rocket fuel needed to fly to the moon safely.
"Alright, now write something."
Kamui gave him a questioning look. There was something about this basic task, and its success especially, that made all his patience suddenly gleam with pure childish innocence as if they were taken back in time to their grade school days.
"I can write anything?"
Lucas nodded, trying not to scare the boy with the paternal pride he must be beaming at this random patient.
For a few minutes Kamui chewed the butt of his pencil (holding it perfectly, Lucas noted) when suddenly he bent above the page and began scribbling. He laid his pencil by the page as he finished and looked at Dr. Waverly, awaiting his next command.
"Hold the page up so that I can see what you wrote."
Kamui blushed and began fumbling with the thin paper sheet. That, actually, was the most difficult of all missions for patients with Kamui's type of injury. The table seemed to be reluctant to allow Kamui's fingers to lift the page off of it. It took Kamui some time before he managed to manipulate his fingers to follow the gentle movements needed to pick the page.
Holding the page up, Kamui's blush deepened and his eyes moved away to escape the doctor's red gaze.
'To Dr. W-a-v-e-r-l-y (there was a typo here where Kamui chose the wrong pictogram to properly represent the name's pronunciation)
Thank you very much for helping me to recover from my injuries. I hope I wasn't too much of a bother to you and didn't waste your precious time. Most of all, I wish to apologize for thinking you were a stupid gaijin when I first met you. I am terribly sorry; please forgive my rudeness and spitefulness. You are not a stupid gaijin, you are kind and funny and a very good doctor.
I will always remember you,
Shiro Kamui'
Lucas held back his tears, as he felt his heart's wild beating. It was hard for anyone living on this earth to resist getting emotionally attached to someone like Kamui, especially when the boy was vulnerable.
"Thank you very much Kamui-kun, I will never forget you either. And don't worry about thinking I'm a stupid gaijin, at least you didn't say it behind my back like several people I've met during my stay here."
Kamui nodded, his head hung still to try and hide his burgundy blush.
"I have to say I've never met anyone who heals quite as quickly as you, it's simply amazing."
"Please, don't mention it," Kamui managed to stutter out through his embarrassment.
Lucas sighed, it was obviously going to be their last meeting and he felt bad about it. Kamui struck him as a terribly lonely young man, a boy who kept all his pain in a little ball in his chest and desperately needed company that could allow him to release that pain, if not sooth it away.
Kamui reminded Lucas of his son that only made him in a bigger need to help Kamui out as much as he could. Obviously, he won't be able to stay; he had his own clinic and earlier commitments. It didn't seem like the blond chairman of this facility would appreciate him staying so close to this mysteriously healing young man who has a secret ceremony he needs to attend.
Lucas took another paper sheet and his own pen and wrote down two addresses: his home address and his email address. He handed the page to Kamui who grabbed it just a little too hard.
"This is for keeping in contact with me, if you ever need to talk about something."
Kamui blushed again, minutes after he managed to grab hold of his body's reactions. He stared down at the page as if it was a declaration of peace from a race of aliens.
"I don't know my new address yet…"
"That's alright lad, you can write to me and I'll know the address immediately."
Kamui nodded and managed to crack a tiny smile. The childish innocence still beamed from him.
Somehow, looking at Kamui like that while bearing in mind the great need for this ceremony and the boy's miraculous healing ability, Lucas came to grasp half of what Kamui really meant for this world. He was a boy with powers beyond the regular human qualities and he was needed in order to save something.
But a boy as small and fragile as Kamui? So scarred by whatever made him cry bitterly in their meetings and whatever it was that caused him these ghastly injuries? Lucas wondered if it was possible for him to kidnap Kamui and take him home to Britain to hide him from whatever destiny he had to follow.
Somehow Lucas had the feeling that Kamui would not survive this duty of his. The thought opened a huge gaping hole in his heart. The feeling that he could do something to save an innocent life, but couldn't, or didn't, have the courage to.
He had to tear his eyes off of Kamui's wide amethyst deeps, get up and away from the table, fold the letter from Kamui and hide it deep in his work bag. He closed the bag with his back to Kamui. "Alright Kamui-kun, then I guess our meetings are over." Was he repeating it to himself to detach himself emotionally? "I'll probably leave tomorrow or the day after tomorrow…"
"May I escort you to the airport," the shy boyish voice asked behind Lucas' back. Thin ethereal fingers clutched at the edge of his shirt begging to be taken along with him.
Lucas turned around and plastered a smile on his face where sadness was. "Of course you can, if they'll let you, that is."
Kamui nodded, not paying enough attention to the full meaning of what Lucas said to realize the man understood Kamui's position.
At the airport Lucas allowed himself to impose a bear hug on Kamui, who didn't seem to be resisting at all. In fact, Kamui melted into the hug without a single word or objection or resentment. They stood like that for a while until the PA system in the hall asked all the passengers of Lucas' flight to head towards their plane. Lucas drew Kamui a little away from him and gave him a few fatherly pats on the shoulder.
"Don't forget to write."
Kamui nodded, tears in his eyes. He had another ghastly nightmare tattered sleep but, despite the fatigue, he insisted upon escorting Lucas to his flight.
Lucas stared at Kamui a little bit longer. "Try to…uh…try to live, boy."
It was Kamui's turn to stare. As he blinked the tears in his eyes rolled down his cheeks. He nodded with pain in his chest and watched as Dr. Lucas disappeared into the crowd gathering to board their flight back home.
Then he turned around on two perfectly balanced legs, and folded his arms on his chest protectively with his right arm functioning remarkably. When he reached it, Kamui opened the door of the Clamp Campus car Imonoyama-sama sent him and Lucas to the airport with, his long slim fingers curling around the silver handle and yanking it effortlessly.
(The End)