Twelve Lies I Told Shingen Takeda

Chapter Thirty-Eight - Impasse

I was an (over) active child, and an adrenaline chasing teenager. As such, I've never been a stranger to blood. But until the moment I saw Shingen trying to hide the blood he was coughing up, I'd associated blood with an obvious injury. From scraped knees to arrow wounds, blood was an expected outcome, and the treatment was a bandage or stitches.

There's no bandage, no treatment, for blood from some unspecified internal source.

Paralyzed with indecision -I tried to make myself think of... do... something... anything, until finally I rushed back to the corridor, grabbed the first page I could find and asked him to, "get Yukimura... or Sasuke... Kenshin... anyone." Then I hurried back to Shingen's side, put my arms around him and held on as if my embrace could shelter him from his disease.

"Sounds worse ... than it is, Devil," he said as he gasped for air.

It wasn't the sound ... it was the blood.

Yuki skidded into the room, took in the situation at a glance. "I knew it."

"What should I do for him?" This was so far out of my area of expertise that I was close to having a panic attack of my own... which would help no one. I gritted my teeth and promised myself that I'd find a private time and place to have a breakdown later.

"Get him to the futon." Yuki ducked under Shingen's arm to help prop him up.

Shingen grabbed enough air to disagree. "No." The protest was invalidated by the way he sagged against us...

...but it was still enough to cause Yukimura to lose his shit. "Stop pretending you're ok!" The fact that he didn't tack on a 'my lord,' spoke volumes.

"I'm not... Breathing is.... easier... when I sit up." Shingen finally stopped coughing, but it took him too much effort to get through a sentence, and that rattle in his throat had returned.

The three of us huddled for a long time, no one saying a word. It had been my hope that Shingen was getting better, but he'd obviously been suffering quietly. No. Quietly was not the word. Secretly. "How often does this happen? This can't have been the first one if you knew sitting up is better for you."

"Not very often." Shingen swept the blood-stained hand towel out of view, but I couldn't sweep it as easily from my mind.

"We both saw it." Yuki glared at his mentor. Then, belatedly. "My lord."

"I'm aware. That doesn't mean I want... to continue... looking at it," Shingen replied. Again, it took him too much time to get through a sentence. He turned to me and repeated, "not very often... at all."

"Specifically, how many days a week, and do you have more than one a day?" I wasn't going to let him get away with vague answers. I was too much of a master of that game to allow anyone else to beat me at it.

He swiped his hair out of his face. "Two, maybe... three times... usually when I ... overexert myself."

That likely translated as three or four times a week... and he hadn't been exerting himself before this attack. He'd been sitting and reading. Yuki and I looked at each other with complete sympathy. I wondered if either of us would have the courage to point out the obvious.

"Both of you... stop that." Shingen ruffled Yuki's hair. Then he did the same to mine. Maybe he was trying to re-establish himself as the most adult voice in the room, but for the first time, I found his touch annoying, rather than enticing. "These spells are... intense but brief."

"We're allowed to care about you," Yuki said. He leaned over and put the burr puzzle back on the desk – oh that must have been what fell right before I came into the room. "You scared the hell out of Katsu. She was shaking when I got here."