Between the Lines

16.

He dreamed about a blue sky. Fluffy, white clouds drifted lazily through the horizon.

Once again he was a little boy. He was running along the courtyard and his sister watched over him.

Then he saw her walking away. He wanted so much to run after her, but he couldn't. He was afraid. She left him alone, threw away like a trash. Somewhere deep within, he knew, she would not be coming back.

Boys in the dojo laughed at him, picked up at him. Called him pathetic, till Kondou showed him compassion.

Now he was in the Shinsengumi headquarters. Message of Kondou's defeat resounded in his ears. Impossible, he screamed in his mind. But that was a hard truth.

He stood in the darkness. In panic he looked around. He opened his mouth to shout for help, but no voice came.

And then he saw her.

______.

She stood back at him. She was glowing, with a sakura ornamented haori around her shoulders. He smiled weakly. Now he knew it was a dream. She was gone, just as everything in his life he held dear.

She turned around, blinked and shot him her cheeky smile.

She appeared right before him.

"What's with that face, Souji-san?" she asked peering at him.

"It's nothing," he somehow found a voice to reply her.

She huffed in her usual way. Her eyes widened abruptly next second and he saw sword blade, sticking out of her chest.

"______!" he cried catching her.

"...fault..." she murmured kneeling.

"What?"

"It's your fault!" she looked up at him. He felt shivers when he saw her bloody tears. She touched his cheek leaving crimson red marks. Her fingers were deadly cold. "Where I am, Souji-san? Where?!"

She disappeared from his arms like a sand slipping through a fingers. He screamed her name over and over but nobody heard him.

So he stayed trembling in darkness with her blood in his hands.

.
.
.

He woke up just to see her putting a wet cloth to his forehead.

"Is it so bad with me, so I started hallucinating?" he asked weakly, his voice was hoarse and ragged.

"Souji-san!" she jumped. Her eyes clouded with tears. At least not bloody, he thought. Was he dying? Only this was an reasonable explanation, to why she was there. Last hallucination, he guessed. "You finally woke up. Thank gods."

He send her small grin that was supposed to make the hallucination happy, but he received a trembling lip and pained look.

"...fault..." he heard. Was the dream repeating itself? Perhaps his mind this tired so it even given up on giving him new nightmares to dream about. "It's all my fault...!"

Okita frowned. She blamed herself? In every dream she blamed him. Once she was vengeful, once cold, once crying; yet always dead and bloody.

"You took all of these bullets!" she sobbed into her hands. "I always bring disaster...! People are hurt because of me... Kimiko... and now even Souji-san...!"