Can we...restart?

Together Again - Chapter 2

"My name is Yushiro..."

She treats him. Like before. His current condition wasn't as bad as it was. She just gives him some painkillers and other medicines to help him. She doesn't miss the way his eyes shining whenever she speaks to him. She doesn't miss the way he tries to prolong his stay at her clinic.

Tamayo ignores them all. She thinks that she should've worn her mask when they met again.

There's no time. She has to find a way to prevent his condition from getting worse and his health from detoriating. In her past life, she offers him to become someone like her...a demon.

And because of the lack of technology and her lack on knowledge about the disease that had struck him, she couldn't find a way to cure his illness and she had to resort to that.

She doesn't know if she regrets her decision or not.

Only a few decades later, she figures it out but Yushiro had already been a demon. She couldn't help but wonder that if the medicine had been discovered years earlier, maybe just maybe, Yushiro would've lived a better life than before.

He becomes a regular. Visiting her clinic almost everyday. The elderly people always teases them whenever they get the chance to. He always inquires about his condition, his medicine, flowers, books and other miscellaneous topics. Yushiro always finds a way to converse with her albeit his face always turns red when he does so.

Those little gestures of him always makes her smile. They distract her from those voices.

"Tamayo-sama...?"

"Y-yes?"

"You've been spacing out."

She smiles at him. Yushiro worries at the smallest things. "I'm quite all right."

No.

Nothing's alright. His condition will only get worse until she finds a way to save him. But for the love of god nothing helps. The memory of how the medicine was created was suddenly gone.

No matter how much she stresses to recollect the formula, nothing comes up and it infuriates her. It infuriates her that she can't even save him.

She's not fine.

More weeks pass and his health detoriates even more. He becomes bedridden. He looks tired, his eyes look dead, he can't do anything without assistance. Yet even with all that, he talks to her.

He talks to her about stories he had heard. Despite being that at death's door, he looked livelier than ever before whenever she's around. She's conflicted. The medicines she had prepared for him are only prolonging his life for a while.

Now she couldn't possibly lose him. She can never forget the years they had spent together. But at the same time she does not want him to go through all that. She recalls how her death had affected him. She had left him. Chachamaru was all he had left.

Agh. Her head hurts.

"Pull yourself together Demon Doctor and make a decision."

Tamayo gasps. They're back.

"You cannot ignore Fate. He came to you."

She knows that.

"You can change so many factors in the timeline. But you can never prevent yourself from meeting him."

Why? Why!? That doesn't make sense!

"Nothing matters in the end, Demon Doctor. You are merely a pawn in a game. And we are just starting."

She stands up abruptly. She asks who the voices are outloud again and again. No one replies. They can't just...tell her something like that and disappear!

Sitting down, she rests her head on hee hands and releases a tired sigh. Nothing makes sense and she tells herself that again and again. What game are they talking about? Are the gods playing on her? 'We are just starting'? What is that supposed to mean!?

She glances at her notes. All of them are either medicine recipes or notes about the future. Then she averts her gaze to where Yushiro is currently resting. Pull yourself together they say. Make a decision they say.

Fine. She will.

.

.

.

"Out of everyone you could've possibly choose, you chose someone like..."

"Someone like Tamayo?"

"Yes well...don't you think she's a bit...weak?"

"Eternity, my friend, never underestimate someone who has been alive for more than five hundred years."

"We've been alive longer than that."

"You get my point. I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to...play."

"We're gods Black Rose! We have so many things to take care of and this is what you do!?"

"...now you're being boring."

"No I'm being responsible!"

"Whatever rocks your boat~"

.

.

.

"Have you ever heard of demons Yushiro?" She asks once as she wipes of the sweat off his forehead. He replies with a raspy tone.

"Man...man eating demons...?"

"There are many stories about them, they roam during the night and hides during the day." Tamayo softly says.

With a simple question, she tells him the stories she had mention. As if she's telling a tale that only few knows. He listens and never lets a word escape his ears. He engraves into his mind of how soft her hand and her touches are. Her voice that are always music to his ears.

Yushiro would never forgive himself if he dares to forget them...her.

Oh.

Just how deep has he fallen for her? He can fall for anyone, really. Yet he fell for someone who is always there yet feels so faraway from his reach. He just had to fall for someone who will never return the feelings he has for her.

He's not stupid. He has seen the way she would avoid his gaze, the way she retracts her hand everytime he accidentally touches her hand and the way she immediately closes up once their conversation becomes personal. She draws a line. She always does.

It hurts. Just how dumb can he be to love her out of everyone?

But he couldn't help it. There will never be enough words to explain how amazing of a person Tamayo-sama is. He just...loves everything about her. But in the end, he's just a man on his death bed.

"Did you know that one can turn another to a demon?"

Yushiro says yes. He always will. Especially when it comes to her.