Warning: Death notice. I hope it doesn't deserve a Mature tag though...

~

Seishi strode through the village, walking straight ahead with no other goal than to getting away from everyone. He stopped suddenly, however, and looked about him. Without realizing it, he had returned to the small isolated space where Ryô was training. With a cry of rage he struck the trunk of the tree by which he was standing. The latter emitted a sharp crack as Seishi let himself slide to his knees, resting forehead and clenched fists on the trunk.

- Why? he whispered.

He swallowed the sobs he felt about to escape. Since he had been practising medicine, there had been many things to which he had had to become accustomed, if not insensitive. But, such a useless death... Still, he would have done everything to help these villagers but they refused him. His shoulders slumped, letting his arms fall. Just as he would have given everything, his life even, for Soma, but then too he had been rejected. He sensed a presence behind him and tried to pull himself together.

- Seishi-san... murmured an uncertain voice. Seishi raised his head.

- Ryô-kun? he whispered.

The young man sat down on his heels beside him, his head bowed.

- Is it... What happened?

Seishi sighed.

- He... Kaganga is dead.

- Well... Ryô hesitated, he was old, wasn't he? If he was sick...

- He shouldn't have died for that! Seishi cut him off. He died when if he had let me treat him he would have been cured a long time ago!

A look into the doctor's eyes confirmed to Ryō the wound that his voice betrayed. He sighed.

- I guess we have to accept everyone's choices and superstitions.

- Not if they go against a person's life! Seishi said angrily. I refuse such a price!

~

Ryō prefered not to continue on this path, not being able to bear the doctor's desperate rage. In a way, Seishi-san was right, but people could not be forced to accept their care. If they were too stupid to see what he offered them and did not appreciate such a gift, they did not deserve the doctor's interest.

Seishi-san, realizing his reaction, calmed down.

- Forgive me, he murmured. You have nothing to do with it. Maybe you're right after all... What's the point anyway...

Ryô looked at the doctor, frowning, looking questioning. The latter sighed and lowered his head, looking distraught. Ryō's fist clenched subconsciously.

- What is the point of all this? Sometimes I really wonder. We don't have the means to treat serious cases and others... they don't trust us... Seishi-san's voice trembled.

Ryō grabbed him roughly by the shoulders and shouted at him.

- You don't have the right to say that! Apart from these old fools, the majority of the village respects you and knows how much you relieve them and how much you devote yourself to them. And for me, Sama's healing alone is a priceless treasure that is due to you!

He couldn't see Seishi-san's expression behind the golden hair, as he kept his head down, but the trembling of his shoulders in his hands squeezed his heart. Suddenly the doctor dropped against him, hiding his face in his neck. Ryō remained petrified.

- Sorry, Seishi-san's almost inaudible voice hiccuped. It's just that... I have... I am... a little tired I guess...

Ryô didn't know what to do. Seeing the doctor so fragile and so distraught, so far from the image he had of him, completely destabilized him. But he remembered all the times when he himself a long time ago would have desperately needed someone, just a presence. He could not bear this same sadness. Hurt, he had always thought haunted the doctor's eyes, buried behind the apparent smile. He realized that his arms had, without him knowing, closed on his elder. Fighting an initial recoil reflex, he hugs him, gently but firmly enough to offer all the support the doctor might need. Confusedly, he understood that the previous event had only revealed a deeper and older malaise. He was furious that he did not know what had hurt someone like Seishi-san, and that he could not remedy or take revenge for it.

~

So tired... Seishi thought. All he wished, or was currently able to do, was to remain thus prostrate, cowardly taking advantage of the illusion of a loving person long gone. In spite of all his efforts and the passage of time, it seemed to him that nothing could fill the terrible void that had seized him. Perhaps it had been a mistake to run away from the only people who cared about him and whom he must have frightened or hurt by his absence, but neither could he have endured these constant reminders of a past of innocent happiness. He pressed the body against him for a moment, a lifeline against his final shipwreck. A distant part of him reproached him for imposing his weakness on his savage companion whose gesture's significance he knew how to appreciate. Finally, he called back to himself the strength he had left and moved away from Ryō, without meeting his eyes. The latter remained motionless and silent, no doubt embarrassed.

- Thank you, Ryô-kun, the doctor whispered, I'm really sorry to have imposed my weakness and these deviations on you.

- No, on the contrary I... Ryô hurriedly answered before biting his lips. I... You've often told me that if I needed you would be there for me so... so I'd like... Well, if I can do anything for you...

Seishi finally looked at him with a faint smile. Ryō blushed and focused his gaze on his hands in his knees.

- Well I mean, I... I'm not... But...

Seishi's smile widened. He took the young man's hands and squeezed them gently.

- Thank you Ryô-kun. He stood up, immediately imitated by his companion. I guess we make quite a pair between the two of us. So we might as well help each other and try to be stronger together.

Ryô nodded, still a little uncomfortable.

- Well, Seishi concluded, I think I'd better go back to the infirmary... You never know.

~

With these words, Seishi-san walked away, leaving the young man free to act. The latter followed him with his eyes until he disappeared into the village and then suddenly fell back to his knees. He took a deep breath.

So many events had occurred during these two days, so many emotions... And all of them involving Seishi-san. The urgency of the moment passed, he found himself stunned by his own reactions to him... Or rather of his lack of reaction. He hadn't remembered such physical or emotional closeness to anyone for so long. That same morning, Seishi-san had broken through the barriers he was protecting himself from and had dragged him into a friendly entertainment that he had revelled in in spite of himself, until, still, his stupid panic. And now, a few hours later, Seishi-san in turn lost his usual serenity to reveal a fraction of his hidden fragility and provoke feelings in him that he could not analyze very well. He had closed himself off from these kinds of emotions for so long that he now had difficulty dealing with them. But he had suddenly felt such pain facing the doctor's distress that he couldn't help but want to defend and protect him. He realized that he was not the only one with his share of hurt and that, despite everything, others were not only the source of them but also support and comfort. He sighed and looked at the village where the doctor had disappeared. He understood what Seishi-san had been trying to convey to him all along... Obviously he was right. He himself had criticized the villagers but did not do much better. And he realized that he needed what the doctor offered him, and that he could no longer isolate himself as he had done by ignoring others. Maybe... Maybe Seishi-san could become a friend... Someone with whom he could rediscover the real Ryō.