“Crucoh.”
Rui’s uncle stopped and turned to the harsh voice. The one who had spoken had come from one of the pavilions with a thin umbrella in hand. This person, as far as Rui knew, had never been introduced to him before.
“Koshi. Do you have some business with me?” His uncle’s voice was just as constricted as the other.
“Hm.”
To Rui’s side, his aunt had clasped her hands behind her back and scorned the stranger with a haughty glare. She nodded to the vague invitation and gestured for her husband to follow the leaving footsteps.
Rui had only been able to hear these few words exchanged, the party’s departing tracks, and was terribly confused. It didn’t help that he had little experience with communication and was unable to not take words literally, but an average person would have thought that these three assumed relatives were itching to draw a red line down the bridge of the other’s nose.
The four of them headed inside.
The situation at the Haas Estate was much more stable as of late; for more than ten years, Rui’s aunt and uncle, Daimeko and Crucoh, had had to clean up after a certain pair of runaway heirs who couldn’t tell the difference between rebellion and irresponsibility with little thanks for their efforts. Although the Haas family had easily enough staff and power to track and subdue the two, the family head, Hokoa Haas, decided that renouncement was enough trouble alone.
Truthfully, Daimeko felt that she and her husband were always given the tasks that required the most effort for the least respect, considering that she and Crucoh were the remaining able-minded branch of the family who had held military duties and practiced their form daily. They should be the ones handing out orders and entering the field only as a last resort, rather than threatening start-up businesses who couldn’t keep their mouths shut like amature thugs.
Of course, the real root of the problem was the fact that the Haas family was no longer considered an elite among elites.
The man named Koshi smiled an incomplete smile. “That’s our little fourth, is it? If he’s here, he should be eighteen at the least if you kept your promise and returned for the Ancestor’s Seed.”
“Ninteen, yes.” Crucoh glanced out the sliding glass door where Rui sat in his wheelchair, frozen underneath a tree heavy with leaves. “Since he’s managed to live this far, he is deserving of the Haas bloodline. He’ll stay with us for now.”
Koshi followed Crucoh’s line of sight. That boy from twelve years ago who had been lying numbly in a hospital bed several times larger than him seemed to have barely grown. Where thick-lensed glasses should have sat was a long strip of fabric that covered half of Ruiki’s face, only revealing a rough contour of a sharp young face. The rest of the boy’s body was similarly covered with large panels of fabric that were tied at the extremities with gauze and the like. Though the body was shapeless, Ruiki’s posture was impeccable, frozen as it were.
“A pity.” Koshi remarked, indifferently.
“Diko.” Koshi turned to the voice of his older sister, Daimeko. “I still do not believe that it is worth the effort. I am willing to continue your work for you, but at this point money will not pay me.” Daimeko’s intense peach blossom eyes were for once unhindered by the long, loose strands of hair that usually obscured them. The chilling distinction between the soft edge of her eyes and the unmoving stare of the abyssal irises it beheld pursued a pressure that Koshi could and would never grow accustomed to.
“Na, Ate, I included you in my future with good fortune, didn’t I? Nineteen years old -- you wouldn’t want your twelve years of effort to amount to nothing, do you? Whether or not you believe in me, you should know that you will always have a backdoor to escape the blame if it fails, even if I am unaware of that backdoor. No harm either way.”
Koshi addressed Crucoh: “Now Kuya, you also have a say. I will always consider Kuya’s concerns as well.”
“No, I do think that Rui will be useful. He definitely has that curious trait of Asayo, na. If not internal affairs, he may be helpful at Koshi’s side for assistance and records. Well, even if neither, that blood of his… “ Crucoh trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. “Ma, well, despite it all, my wife’s opinion is more important than my own to me. If she is unwilling, then I am unwilling.” He lifted his chin as if to say ‘That’s that. Don’t disappoint me, now’.
The two siblings ignored the arrogant gesture: his opinion was omitted in the end, it seemed. The superficial words were lost between a battle of eyes, where Daimeko and Koshi seemed to communicate through narrowed eyes and flickering eyelashes. Neither was willing to give up their desires for the other.
Ruiki had felt something soft fall atop his head and slip down his chest several times to lay on his lap. These things were leaves.
What were they like before? Light, sometimes green and sometimes yellow. Sometimes an aged brown that crumbled to dust. If you held one up against the sun, a spider web of veins could be seen, mimicking the branches of the tree it had once been a part of. Rui couldn’t remember if a tree was wholly made up of leaves that only softened into individuals at the tips of its branches, or if the tree and the leaf were separate entities that somehow cooperated with each other.
Then he remembered butterflies and how their wings were like leaves that followed the wind in pairs. Or were they petals? What kind of petals?
No, nevermind, nevermind. Life is better not knowing.
Rui leant in to urge his wheelchair forward. Ever since he turned sixteen, his aunt and uncle had allowed him to use the wheelchair that followed his posture and shift of weight. It was risky since he couldn’t predict his surroundings, but thanks to continued practice, he was able to perceive whether or not he was about to run into something troubling without the help of a cane or a weak electronic sonar.
Albeit, that was indoors. Here, where the wind picked up the sound of invisible insects and small animals, Rui found himself to be easily distracted. His wheelchair stuttered a few times when traversing the grassy path. It was quite exciting.
Eventually he grew anxious at being separated from his aunt and uncle and couldn’t bring himself to move any further. The spot of concrete that he parked in had walls on all sides, three of them being corridors to other halls. The evening sunlight fell in a perfect square whose warmth slowly faded within minutes. Rui imagined that there would be flowers lining the path like stars amongst the streaky ocean of blades of grass. The only flowers he could remember were white, after all.
So this is what ‘outside’ is like now.
Two meters above his head and three to the left, a leg had hooked over the top of the outer wall.
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