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"

Chapter Two
"Don't be the nail that sticks out..."

"Why do people treat me differently? What is so wrong with being who I am?"

"Different is a curse, Kurumi. Society will just hammer you back in."

It was as if time had stopped. The only thing that reminded her that it hadn't was her chest moving up and down unevenly as she took staggered breaths. Was her mother actually pointing where the Gryffindor thought she was? Her eyes? But her mother never gave her as much as a second glance when her violet eyes were present. While Kurumi was unaware of this, her mother had refused to hold her after she had been born because her eyes were an 'unnatural' color. Charles had been devastated, especially since it had taken almost a week for Kurumi to get her first taste of skinship with her mother.

Breathing out, Kurumi's entire body trembled as she slowly reached up with her right hand and removed the brown colored contacts from her eyes and placed them in their case. She still kept her gaze downwards out of habit. Each time she had looked at her mother without them in had earned her a prompt slap across the face or worse. Pocketing the case, Kurumi stood by her mother's bedside with her arms hanging like a rag doll's against her hip, eyes still looking down at the floor. It wasn't until she heard the softest of moans from her mother did she lift her gaze towards the bed and eventually fell on her mother's face. What she saw there surprised her and made the sixteen year old's heart feel as though it were about to leap out of her throat.

While her face was essentially vacant of any expression due to her being unable to control the muscles in her face, Kurumi's attention wasn't on her face as a whole but her mother's eyes. The usual stern look in her brown doe eyes was gone, replaced instead with something that resembled longing and affection. For the first time in her entire life, Kurumi was receiving a mother's gaze and it brought tears to her eyes. "M-M-Mother?" Kurumi whimpered as she leaned forward in her seat just a bit to reach for the woman's hand, only to find that her mother had other ideas about what came next.

Shaking, Kurumi's mother struggled to lift her index finger and point towards a brown leather journal on the night stand. Kurumi followed the movement, turning her head, and then looked back at her mother once more. Kurumi didn't need to ask, she could see it in her mother's eyes that she was to take the journal and she did so, slowly running her hands over the binding and looking back at her mother once more.

Hi-ra-i-te*

Hands trembling, Kurumi opened to the first page and her eyes widened. There written in her mother's beautiful calligraphy were the words 'To my daughter' written in black ink. Kurumi could feel the tears welding up in her eyes, hot tears that stung so much that she was forced to shut her eyes for a moment. In doing so, she hoped that it would dull the pain, but it had the opposite effect. Instead of numbing things, they intensified and soon hot tears were trickling down her face like small waterfalls against her alabaster skin. She heard another soft groan from her mother, which Kurumi took to mean that she should turn the page, and looked at the date from a little over a month ago. But that didn't seem to satisfy her mother who moaned again and spelled out a specific date for Kurumi to look at with her chart. Nodding, Kurumi continued to turn until she found the page and her eyes widened. Her mother's once beautiful calligraphy had been reduced to nothing but scratches on the paper, almost to the point of being unreadable. It was an entry that had been written that morning, only hours before Kurumi and her father had arrived at the hospital. Taking a deep breath, Kurumi chewed on her bottom lip and began to read.

August 18th, 2077
I'm sorry to make you worry about so many things. It is not the job of a mother to make their children worry. We are supposed to worry about you. I worry about you all the time. I hope you know that.

Kurumi, tough times are when a human is growing. If you can overcome these times, a beautiful morning will be waiting for you. A peaceful morning full of light, with birds singing, and the smell of the white roses. Don't make the same mistakes I did in life. I want you to be like the air, always present and always wanted. A good hearted person whose kindness overflows and people realize how important you are.

I wonder where happiness is. I wonder what happiness is. Kurumi, are you happy right now? Remember, just being alive is such a lovely and wonderful thing. I want you to live, Kurumi.

Live on for me.

Kurumi had to stop reading now as her tears made it even more impossible to read. The journal fell into her lap and soon her tears began to fall onto the pages. This was it. Her mother's way of apologizing. No, that wasn't the right word, was it? It was something deeper than an apology. It was a confession.

*hitaite means "please open"

Chapter Three
"Mother...why won't you look at me?"

"Because you represent everything that I am afraid of."

Vision blurred, Kurumi tried to read the words her mother had so painstakingly written with her own hands, but it was impossible. Her eyes couldn't focus on anything for longer than a few seconds and even then nothing was registering. She heard her mother moan again and she nervously lifted her gaze to meet her. She exhaled sharply and unevenly through her nose when she saw her mother's lips quivering as if she were trying to speak. But that was impossible. The doctors had said that the ability to produce speech had been lost long ago.

Kurumi set the journal down on the table and reached for the chart when her mother groaned aggressively and Kurumi's movements froze, eyes back on her mother. She tried her best to read her face, focusing on her eyes to try and figure out what her mother wanted from her. The woman groaned again, eyes on the chart and then flicking them back to her daughter. "Mother..." she whispered, confusion plastered all over her face.

Timidly, Kurumi set the chart down and rose from her seat beside the bed, taking a kneeling position instead. Her own small hands reached for her mother's, taking them in her own and clutching them like she had never done before. She had never had the chance to. Her mother holding her hand had been a privilege that the sixteen year old had never hand...until now.

Why had it taken so long? Why now? Why hadn't her mother shown her any of this compassion before? Why had she been present but not in Kurumi's life? Why all the stern looks? Why all the disappointment? Why was nothing Kurumi ever did good enough? Why? Why? WHY?

Kurumi's thumb traced random circles on her mother's palm and she couldn't help but wonder if her mother could even feel her touch. She had been too afraid to ask the details of her mother's illness. Somethings were just best left a mystery.

Her mother moaned again, her lips still quivering and Kurumi saw something reflected in her eyes that frightened her. "I'll go get the doctor," she said in a hurried tone as she began to pull herself away...only to find that her mother's hand had suddenly clasped itself around her wrist, causing Kurumi to freeze again. How was this possible? She shouldn't have reflexes anymore. Her violet eyes were back on her mother's face, her own full of terror at what she was seeing. What she could sense was coming. All she wanted to do right now was to go get a doctor, surely they would know what to do. Why was her mother not allowing her to go?

Yet another question that would never be answered.

"Ku...."

Kurumi exhaled, her breath shaky and the tears pouring down her face now. "Mother...please...." But her mother's fragile hold on her wrist kept Kurumi from moving. All her senses were heightened and the soft beeping noise of the machinery was now deafening.

"Ku...ru...mi..."

Kurumi's face contorted and her eyes shut again, her own tears burning them so much that she felt as though she would go blind if she stayed like this for too long. Surrendering, Kurumi returned to her kneeling position on the floor and forced herself to open her eyes and look at her mother. Again, the gentleness, the warmth, the motherly look there caused her heart to feel like it was going to erupt. She had wanted this for so long...but not like this. Gasping for air between waves of tears, all sound in the room muted save for her own heavy breathing and her mother's voice.

"A...i...shi...te...ru....I...ki...tte..."*

And then her mother's eyes closed and her lips curled up into a smile. The beeping noise that had been deafening before was no more, replaced by a constant drone. Kurumi could feel it, the change in her mother's hand.

"Mother?" she whispered, giving the pale hand she held a squeeze. No response. Nothing. "Mother....mother....MOTHER?" Kurumi jumped to her feet and wildly turned around. "SOMEONE! PLEASE! HELP!"

*Aishiteru (愛してる) means "I love you" & Ikitte (生きって) means "please live"。


Next chapter shall be the last one for this story. Thank you all so much for reading and I really hope that I am doing this sort of situation justice.

Chapter Four
"That is not nearly good enough. You stumbled over the bridge, your fingers were too stiff, and your posture was horrible."

"But mother...no one is perfect on a first try..."

"I have expectations for you, high ones, and you will meet them."

Emptiness.

That was the way in which the world was perceived to Kurumi in this moment. There was no feeling. No sound. No nothing. It was as if someone had literally turned the world off. Kurumi lay on the empty hospital bed in fetal position, a shell of the girl she once was, clinging on to the last bit of warmth there that had belonged to her mother.

It had all happened so fast. So fast.

Face void of any emotion, Kurumi hardly registered someone entering the room again. Several doctors had been through to remove charts and take her mother's name off the bed, but none of them had disturbed Kurumi as the lay there. None of them had the heart to. Kurumi scrunched up into a tighter ball on the bed as the warmth faded more, almost to the point of being nonexistent. Kurumi's hands gripped the sheets, tears streaming down her face again. It couldn't go... Once the warmth was gone that would mean that she...that she really was...

"Princess?"

Kurumi whimpered and her body tensed when she felt strong hands on her back and her head slowly turned to see her father leaning over her. His usual mint green eyes were now a foggy blue, something that only Kurumi could really understand meant. "Princess, we...we need to..."

"NO!" Kurumi shouted, rolling away from her father and on to her stomach. "NO!"

Charles winced. Seeing his daughter, his entire family, in such deep sorrow was unbearable. He had somehow managed to keep a strong persona in front of his sons, but the three of them had been trying to do the same. His hand reached out for Kurumi's again, only to recoil when he saw just how much her body was trembling, shaking, in pain. It broke his heart and his chest heaved and lurched forward. "Princess, please..." But please what? Charles, for perhaps the first time in his life, had no idea what to tell his daughter. Words had always come easy whenever she was involved, but now he literally found that everything he wanted to say was catching in his throat.

Somehow, he found the strength to reach out for her again and he sat down on the bed beside her, pulling her frail body towards him with his own trembling arms. Kurumi didn't resist and when she was close enough to her father she rolled onto her other side and rested her head on his lap, sobbing into his jeans.

"Why....why....why is she gone? Why did the disease pick her?"

Her questions shattered Charles and he reached down now to pull his daughter up and hugged her against his chest. Kurumi reacted to this by clutching his shirt and wailing into his chest. Again, Charles didn't know what to say. Even if he did, he wasn't sure that he would be able to as the lump in his throat had grown tenfold now and his own eyes were beginning to water. Instead, he held her closer and began to stroke her black hair. "I don't know, princess, I don't know." He leaned down and kissed her head, his own cheeks now stained, and he exhaled heavily. "I do know that she loved you very much. That she was proud to be your mother."

Kurumi wailed again into her father's chest. Had he said this to her a few days ago, she may not have believed him. Her and her mother had never been close. Kurumi never felt as though anything she ever did was good enough. Nothing had ever made her mother proud. She new differently now and the Gryffindor was now burdened with sixteen years of regret.

Charles, feeling his daughter trembling more fiercely in his arms, held her even tighter with his one arm while his other reached for the journal that was still sitting on the bedside table. If nothing else, this was proof that Yukie, his wife, had lived out her remaining days thinking of nothing else but her family and of love. A single page fell out of it and landed in his lap. Shifting his position just a little so he could pick it up without disturbing Kurumi, his eyes read over the text.

I may not always be with them physically but I hope they always bear in their minds that I always think what is best for them. If I were die and live again, I would ask to have the same life I had in this one.

Charles couldn't read anymore, not that he didn't want to, but because his vision was not impaired by his own tears. Holding his daughter even more tightly against him, he rocked the two of them, tears streaming down both their faces. Both of them feeling like they had just lost a piece of themselves. A piece that could never, ever, be replace.

Not that it ever should be.

All they could do now, all of them, was do as she had requested in her last moments. To live.

To those of you who have lost a loved one or no someone who has, my condolences to you. I myself have not had to endure such a hardship yet, although I did come close with my own mother this last year. I dedicate this story too all of you and hope that you all live life to the fullest and tell those around you just how important they are to you.

I know this story is short, being only four chapters, but there is a reason for this. In Japanese, the pronunciation for 4 is shi, which is also the same pronunciation for the kanji meaning death (死). Considering this, it just seemed right that things end here.

Again, thank you all for reading and I hope you all remember to live.