Chapter One
"Put them in. Put them in now. I don't want to look at you looking like that."

"But...mother I..."

"You heard me! Those eyes of yours are not natural. Put them in now, Kurumi!"

"Kurumi...Kurumi...Kurumi..."

The sixteen-year-old shook her head suddenly when she felt the strong hands of her father on her shoulder. Had it been him who had been calling her name just now? She could have sworn that it had been...

"Kurumi, your brothers are going to be here soon. Why don't you go on ahead. Your mother has been wanting to see you for some time now."

Violet eyes hidden beneath dark brown colored contacts searched her father's face for a moment with the curiosity of a kitten. His usually very strong features were weathered now and the almost unusual green glow in his eyes had all but been snubbed out. He hardly slept these days, choosing to stay in the hospital at night reading passages from books and diaries to his wife all through the night while the rest of the world was sleeping. While he would never tell his children this, he somehow felt that in doing so, retelling their lives that somehow it would have restorative powers and bring her back to them. But it was a dream. A fool's dream.

Kurumi swallowed, eyeing the journal in her father's hands, and then looked down the long sterilized hallway that lead to the operation rooms and just to the right the observation ward where her mother was. She didn't want to go, especially not on her own. She wasn't sure that her feet would be able to carry her.

"Kurumi," he said again, shaking her shoulder. "Go."

She whimpered, nodding her head, and pushed herself off the chair she was sitting on. It felt as if gravity itself were against her, pushing her back down into her seat as some sort of test to see if she really had the willpower to move forward. Charles gave his daughter a small push, resting his hand between her shoulder blades. Kurumi stumbled forward, momentarily finding herself paralyzed, but quickly recovered her footing and proceeding forward down the long corridor that seemed to get more and more narrow with each step she took.

Kurumi found herself at the door with her mother's name plaque on it far too quickly and she stood frozen with her hand on the handle, unable to bring herself to open it. She hadn't seen her mother since she had collapsed in the kitchen while trying to get herself a cup of water. Her father had been furious, shouting at her for pushing herself so much and Kurumi's brothers had whisked her away into the other room while he tried to pick her limp body off the floor. It had been one of the most frightening things the Gryffindor had ever seen, her mother falling backwards like a rag doll, her head hitting the edge of the counter, the bloody towel her father held in place until the ambulance arrived...

The door suddenly slide open before her, causing Kurumi to jump back in fright as a doctor emerged with his brow furrowed as he made several check marks and notes on a piece of paper attached to the clipboard in his hands. Kurumi just stood there, looking at the man, and hoping that she somehow was blending in with the floor and would do unnoticed.

"Oh, I'm sorry to have startled you," he said, pocketing the pen in his pocket. "You must be Kurumi. She has been waiting for you. Pointing to your name all day actually."

Kurumi bowed, unable to find the words to say as she stepped into the room. She had almost forgotten that her mother was incapable of speech now. The disease had caused her mother to lose control over her body to the point where she could no longer eat, walk or talk. To communicate, there was a special board that had all 48 characters of the hiragana alphabet on it so that she could point to each of them as she struggled to spell out what she wanted to say. Some phrases and names, like Kurumi's, had been added to make it easier on her mother. Even the simple act of pointing was an act that was painful to watch.

Taking another step forward, Kurumi froze when she saw her mother lying in her hospital bed. Her eyes were very much alert and appeared to almost be full of life, until one noticed the way in which her arms were draped over her thin body. Kurumi could feel her eyes stinging and her eyes darted to the doctor who did the same thing her father had done: pushed her towards her mother.

"I'll just be down the hall if you need me," he said with an encouraging smile before ducking out of the room and shutting the door behind him.

Kurumi turned her body around to face her mother now and continued to take baby steps until she had reached the chair her father used each night at her mother's bedside and sat down, her eyes on the ground. She was afraid to look at her mother like this. Her mother moaned softly, which took the effort one would imagine it took to move mountains, and Kurumi looked up to see her mother's eyes looking at the chart.

"Yes, mother," Kurumi said with her usual formal tone she took when in the woman's presence as she gingerly picked up the placed board and held it out for her mother to point to.

To...tte*

Kurumi watched as her mother's almost skeletal fingers pointed at the three characters, her eyes drifting to her mother's in confusion.

"What...do you mean?" Kurumi whispered, not understanding what her mother was wanting to tell her. Her finger returned to the same too letters, but Kurumi still didn't understand what her mother wanted. "I-I-I don't understand..."

Maybe this had been a mistake, coming here on her own. Maybe she should just go back to the waiting room with her father and wait for her brothers to arrive?

Her mother's hand was moving again, but this time not towards the chart, but towards Kurumi herself. The Gryffindor's eyes crossed and for a moment she naively thought that her mother was pointing to her nose. Only that wasn't it at all. It wasn't her nose that was the focus of her mother's attention. No. It was her eyes.

* totte (とって) means "please take"