放っとく
Shiori gaped at Kouta, wide-eyed with disbelief. "You're – you can't be serious. You – Kouta, please, this isn't – that's not true. Tell me that's not true."
Kouta didn't say anything, and that in itself was an answer.
He watched Shiori look over at Pai's pale, still face. She sat in a plastic chair she had pulled up close to Pai's bead earlier, while Kouta had been consulting for nearly two hours with the three Daitengu who remain in the hospital. Ryu was gone by the time he made it to the room, having to go to school.
Shiori needed to go to school as well, but she was adamant that she wasn't going anywhere until Pai woke up. Kouta noticed how Shiori said 'when' and not 'if' Pai wakes up. Shiori still firmly held on to the hope that Pai was going to be able to recover on her own. She clung to that hope, that Pai would wake any minute now.
Shiori's eyes were peeled as she watched Pai breathe. She held Pai's limp hand as it lay atop the blanket draped over her. Kouta could see her hand tighten the longer she looked at Pai's disturbing stillness that spoke to her complete unconsciousness. It almost looked like Shiori thought that if she stared hard enough, Pai would open her eyes and everything would go back to normal.
"She's..." Shiori trailed off, numb. "Wh – why?"
Kouta knelt beside the chair she sat in and took her other hand in his, rubbing his thumb in slow circles over the back of her hand, and almost unconscious habit on his part. Shiori didn't look away from Pai.
"It's her heart," he answered carefully. He saw Shiori frown, eyes flickering at his words, but she continued to steadfastly look at her dearest friend. "The doctors say that her heart is failing, that it's not supporting her the way it should."
"Her heart?" Shiori echoed, and now she turned to look at him full-on. The barely suppressed pain and longing and worry in her eyes brought a lump to his throat. "But no one in her family as heart problems, I think."
"I know." He'd confirmed as much, through Kanou and the documents he'd managed to scrounge up on the Momozono's medical history. "But that doesn't change the fact of what's happening, Shiori."
"Oh." She mumbled, disheartened. She had been hoping that maybe he – the doctors, all of them – were wrong. He could see it, in the way her shoulders slumped. "Then – then can we get a transfer for her, like a donor? They can do that, right? That kind of thing is possible for hearts, right?"
"We would, if we could," Kouta replied hesitantly.
"Why not?" Shiori immediately demanded, voice rising slightly as she looked at him head-on. There was something almost accusatory in her eyes as she looked at him.
He didn't blame her for it.
"Her bloodtype is negative AB," he answered, not rising to the bait he knew she wanted him to take. "It's the rarest blood type. That sort of procedure requires a blood transfusion, and this hospital doesn't have that blood type. Available heart donors are already scheduled for other patients who've been waiting months. By the time both become available, it could already be too late."
"What about other hospitals?" she asked, latching on to that one last hope. "They must have it, right? This one doesn't, but others do, right?"
"They already have waiting lists of other patients who need it for their own surgeries, who waited longer. If we had time, if we could wait, we would, but Pai-chan doesn't have that time."
"But..." Shiori trailed off, staring at him as if she couldn't quite comprehend his words. Her bright brown eyes glistened. "But...that's – that's it? We're just – we're just going to let her die?"
Kouta shook his head firmly. "No, we're not. The doctors are doing what they can for her, but there might be another way for us to help her, on our end." He hesitated for a moment, but went on. "It's something only you can do –"
"I'll do it."
"It's dangerous," Kouta added, holding back a sigh because he knew she would say this.
A flicker of a frown lit her face, but the steel in her voice remained firm, unbending. "I'll do it."
Kouta smiled sadly. "You don't even know what the danger is yet."
"If it means saving her life, I don't care."
This was what so scared and endeared Shiori to him; she would do anything for the people she cared about, with little regard to herself. She could run headlong into danger and not even notice there was anything risky about it until everything was said and done. Her fierce loyalty was one of the best things about her – but it terrified him, too.
He didn't want to ever have to find out just how far she was willing to go for the people she loved.
"You should care," Kouta replied. His gaze was sharp and piercing as he reached up and held Shiori's chin in his hand, forcing her to look him in the eye when she would try to avoid him because she was not stupid. "You should care, Shiori. If you do this and you fail, Pai-chan will still die, and you will too."
"Who said I'll fail?" Shiori tugged herself away and glared. "And what could be so dangerous enough to either save her life or kill us both? I'm perfectly healthy."
Kouta watched Shiori for a moment longer, unable to speak. His gut instinct was torn in two, wanting to save Pai's life but needing to keep Shiori as far from danger as he possibly could, yet knowing that Shin was right; he couldn't make this decision for Shiori.
But if he made the wrong call and Shiori died because of this, it wouldn't be just him suffering. The fate of the Tengu rode on the safety of Shiori. She was too important to let her life be gambled with so easily, a fact he was not sure Shiori would fully realize and accept for a long while yet.
I worry for your life more than you do yourself, he thought belatedly, regarding her silently.
Shiori frowned as she watched Kouta's face while he mentally debated with himself, watching the conflicting emotions flicker in the depths of his eyes, noting the tight press of his lips and the little tick of his jaw that showed he was biting the inside of his cheek.
This time, it was Shiori who reached out to him. She hesitated only briefly before she reached up to cradle his cheek in the cup of her hand as she tilted his head up so that he was the one drawn to look her in the eye this time.
"Kouta," she said quietly. "Tell me what's wrong. You know I'll find out anyway."
Kouta released a faint sigh, leaning into her hand, savouring the warmth from them. He didn't want to let anything bad happen to Shiori. He didn't want to let her take this risk that could end with her dying. He knew he couldn't keep this from her, but he also knew that she would still disregard the threat to her life, as if it was nothing. And maybe, perhaps, he was overreacting on this. She would disregard the danger, he knew, but Shiori wasn't stupid. She wouldn't take unnecessary risks.
But the idea that she could still die continued to hang over his head like a guillotine, and he was tied to the chopping block with chains. So, too, did Kanou's certainty that if Shiori didn't do this, Pai would die.
It gutted him that these were the only options he had. They couldn't allow the Kitsune to find out that Shiori had a human friend she cared for, someone who was so painfully human and easy for anyone to reach, someone who Shiori would risk her life for. If they went to the Kitsune and saved Pai's life now with their help, it could mean risking her to another day where they would try to use her to get to Shiori.
If they went to the Kitsune today, they risked putting a deadline on Pai's life further down the line either way.
She's already lived through Pai's disappearance, and her parents dying, Kouta thought, recalling the Matsumoto couple that he'd only had a chance to meet a few times before their untimely death. He was not sure Shiori could recover if she were to watch her best friend die, this time with no way to bring her back.
Kouta sighed again, and finally spoke. "Kanou-san has a theory of why Pai-chan's heart is failing. He thinks it has to do with her hair turning white."
Shiori frowned, obviously confused. "How?"
"Has he told you about the Marie-Antoinette Syndrome?" he asked her. She shook her head. "It's a term for when people experience some situation or endure emotions that are too much for them to handle. It sometimes results in their hair turning white." He gestured vaguely at his own long, blond-brown hair pulled back into a loose ponytail at the nape of his neck with one of Shiori's hair ties. "There are cases of people surviving bombings or are overworked, or they suffer severe and traumatizing injuries, and their hair turns white as a result of it."
"Kanou-san thinks that's why her hair is white?" Shiori asked. "From trauma from something that happened when she was missing?" he nodded. "But – what does that have to do with now? He's been coming in here often to figure out what's wrong, right? What's the – what's the connection?"
"His theory for her heart failure is that she's living through the experiences she went through in her subconscious, and unintentionally influencing her body to stop functioning normally." Kouta said. "That starts with the heart."
Shiori stared at Kouta like he'd gone mad. "She's. She's doing this to herself? How? She's human – how could she do that?"
Kouta shook his head. "I don't understand it, not really. Kanou-san believes that the human mind is more powerful than anyone gives it credit."
"Isn't that flattering," Shiori muttered acidly.
Kouta tapped her under her chin in gentle admonishment. "He's doing the best he can."
A heavy look flitted through her eyes, come and gone in a split-second as the implications of what it meant that Pai was in this state settled like boulders over Shiori's shoulders. She lifted a hand and rubbed the bridge of her nose between her fingers.
"I know," she mumbled. "This is just – this is too hard to believe. How am I supposed to help her if she's doing this to herself?"
The unspoken question lingered in the air between them; what happened that was bad enough for Pai to want to do this, even subconsciously? What would Shiori see if she went through with this?
When. When she went through with this. Kouta was under no illusions that Shiori would hesitate, even knowing the risks this entailed.
"Someone needs to go to Pai-chan's mind and convince her to leave those memories. To leave them, and wake up."
Shiori stared at Kouta. She blinked at him. She blinked again, and slowly looked over to Pai's unconscious form in the bed.
"Go into –" she spluttered, turning back to him. "Is that – is that even possible? For someone like me, a human?"
Kouta nodded. "It is, with Kanou-san's help. It would be safer is someone from her family were to do this, but we don't know where they are. You are the best person to do this because you're the closest to her. You know her better than anyone." They were like sisters.
"And what's the danger you're so afraid of?" Shiori pushed.
He paused before speaking. "If...if her memories prove to be too strong, you could be overwhelmed by them, and lose the way back to your own body. If that happens, you'll be stuck in her subconscious, and if she dies, your soul will be cast adrift. It won't be able to find the way back to this body," he trailed a light finger up Shiori's arm and to her shoulder before he let his arm rest on the back of her chair. "You'll die soon after."
Shiori raised a faint eyebrow. "Go all the way, huh."
"This isn't a game, Shiori," Kouta said severely. "There is more at stake than you know if something happens to you."
The forced smile faded from her face faster than a light bulb turning off. "I know, Kouta." At his sceptical look, she repeated firmly, "I know. You think I don't realize it? If I die, then the blessing or whatever that comes with being promised to me will bounce and become bad for the Tengu threefold. I've read the stories. I know what's at stake."
Kouta made no comment on how much more important she was to him, how much more he cared about losing her, and not the consequences to his people. He wondered if that made him a bad Heir, ill-fitting for the inheritance of his people's throne.
"Even after knowing what will happen if you die, you're still going to go through with it." He remarked quietly, more a confirmation than a question. But he needed to hear it from her.
Shiori opened her mouth to reply, then closed it. She visibly struggled to get the words out, and Kouta didn't push her to talk, to get it all out. He knew that the situation was already hard enough for her to deal with.
She swallowed thickly. "I can't, Kouta." she sounded small, so unlike herself. She sounded small, and scared. "I can't let her die when I can do something about it. I won't be able to live with myself if she – if – and there was something I could do to help her."
She couldn't even say it. She couldn't even articulate in words, the idea that Pai might die.
Kouta thought about Shin, and what he was willing to do for him. He thought about his parents, and what he was willing to do for them. Kouta thought about the Daitengu, and all his people, and what he was willing to do for them.
He studied Shiori's grim and determined expression for a long moment. She didn't look away as she pressed her lips into a thin line.
He sat back a little, though he remained close enough to let her know he was still there with her, regardless of her decision. "I know. I understand."
With those words, after another moment of watching her, looking for any flicker of hesitation – and finding none – Kouta stood and turned to the door.
The chair scraped back as Shiori scrambled up after him. "Kouta? Where are you going?" her voice had a tremble to it, like she was afraid he was leaving her, as preposterous as such a thing was.
He glanced back and flashed her a reassuring smile, even though it lacked that special something that were what smiles were all about. This was merely an empty quirk of the lips that made Shiori so incredibly sad when she saw it. Kouta's smile was supposed to be a big grin, full of warmth and light, or small and amused and happy.
This wasn't it.
"I'm going to tell Kanou-san to get everything he'll need ready." He said. "We don't have much time to waste. Every second we do brings Pai-chan closer to where we don't want her to go."