Chapter 3: Man with a Conscience

At Ueno's exit, Doumeki and Watanuki cross paths with a young man holding two bouquets of red camellias close to his heart. He is standing elegant and sober across the street, dressed much like Yuuko's former client, but no sunglasses.

Instead, he wears the saddest pair of eyes Watanuki has ever seen - one greenish, the other dark.

Closing his own mismatched eyes, Watanuki bends down and throws up all over the sidewalk, shaking in agony as Doumeki dashes forward and wraps his arms protectively around him.

"Is he okay?" asks the young man solicitously as he crosses the street, a worried look on his face.

"He is fine." growls Doumeki, as if daring him to get near.

"Are you sure?" The young man asks gently and then his expressive eyes land on the sakura shrub in Watanuki's hands. Something changes: the man's face, the temperature, the light .Watanuki watches as he reaches into one of his sleeves, swiftly bringing out what looks like cards, but don't feel, don't smell and don't move like cards at all.

Domeki is already shelteringWatanuki with his own body, glaring defiantly while the other boy tries desperately to push him away, save the idiot's life before it's too damn late.

And then the young man stops that gesture in midair, head tilted to one side. Over his own coughing, Watanuki hears whispers in the wind like tree leaves mumuring in a soft breeze. Those whispers are not human, they have never been human and they never will be.

They are whispers of hunger.

The young man hides his strange cards again and gives the boys another curious look before turning around without a single word, his coat billowing in the cutting winter wind. He lights a cigarette just like the man in the tree and enters the Park with his camellias. The hundreds of spirits immediately envelop him like converging dark water, a long trail of putrid black smoke in his wake.

Only after he is completely out of sight the boys realise they are surrounded by delicate Sakura petals.

Like a concerned mother, Doumeki pushes Watanuki's face to his chest, so the other boy might breathe. His friend is clinging to him, still gasping and coughing, involuntary tears streaming down his eyes.

"Was the stench that bad?" asks Doumeki, hauling Watanuki up to his feet. The other boy wipes his face with the back of his sleeve and shakes his head.

"That guy… He reminded me of me, felt just like me...could have been me."

"Idiot." Doumeki replies tersely. He tucks his hands into his coat pockets and crosses the street.

"Who are you calling an idiot?", Watanuki asks weakly to nobody in special. With a resigned sigh, he follows Doumeki as he promises himself for the second time in his life that he will never go back to Ueno Park again.

Clutching the tiny Sakura shrub to his chest, he wonders if that is a promise he can keep.

Owari.

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Notes:

1. Subaru's flowers are for Seishirou and Hokuto, of course. Not sure if you are nerdy enough to remember that, but camellias were Sakurazuka Setzuka's favourite flowers. :-)

2. Don't ask me what Yuuko will do with the sakura shrub. It's obviously an extremely precious item. She might sell it to somebody who has "affinity" with it… or not. ;-)