Rated: T for possible OOC-ness, randomness and Hibari. That should be enough of a warning :v
Summary: They were similar, in many ways. But he never holds out his hands and she never looks back at him. TYL.
Author's Note: So. If the warning hadn't put you off yet then welcome! :3 This is, admittedly, my first 1896 fanfic :3 The pairing is just sooooo cute :3 Can't you see it~? Feel the love~ :3
Anyway. Back to topic XD This is based on the a deck of tarot cards, so be prepared XD Also, heavily inspired – but not based on – Five centimeters per second. I love the light novel :3 Haven't actually watched the movie, so... no idea XD
Anyway, review it :3 Please? Pretty please with whatever-you-like on tope? :3
Disclaimer: I do not own Katekyo Hitman Reborn. All rights go to Amano Akira. I also don't claim the ownership, or make any monetary out of this fanfic. This is purely written for fun. (That, and to practice my English XD)
Warning: Unbeta'd XD
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Life is short, and there is not enough time left for us to chase after our own shadows.
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i. sakura.
/They were similar, in many ways./
She used to love sakura.
Chrome could remember clearly a time when the tiny, fluttering papery flower land on the top of her pointy nose, kissing it softly before parting away. How soft. How gentle.
She missed the sound of her mother singing a lullaby, a long time ago before things turned out like that. Caring and affectionate, chaste and blurry. Just like sakura. Or maybe it wasn't her mother at all. Maybe it was a nanny singing it to the baby Nagi, maybe it was another person's love and catering her.
(She wouldn't be surprised if her theory turned out to be true all along.)
Later, when she was on the verge of tear, death very close to take her hand away and she could taste the iron flavor of blood on the tip of her tongue, when her eyes had already fluttered close and breeze caressing her skin and she could taste the sour-sweet scent, there it was too. A cherry blossom petal, flirting before her darkening eyes.
Aftermath, she met him in a clear horizon, sakura blossoming brightly, surrounding them, and everytime she met Mukuro, there was this flower.
It frustrated and angered her all the same, because the flower signaled something unreal, something only in her wishes and dreams, a faraway dream, a fading rainbow, her hands cradling silver moonlight and starlit sky and they gloated teasingly on her skin but never, never actually touched Chrome. Always within her grasp. Always so far away.
Five centimeters away.
She learnt to hate sakura.
Hibari used to looked at cherry blossom with indifference in his eyes.
They were short-lived and useless. They were at the back of the chain. They lived for nothing and died for nothing.
Survival should be for the fittest. Not the weak, ill-willed flower.
(He never understood people and their gushing over beauty anyway.)
Cherry blossom was useless, and by all means should have been extincted by now. It was against nature's logic.
He had to change his mind pretty soon afterwards.
The moment he was brought down on his knees, he finally, finally understood. How such small things together could make so much differences. How a small, harmless thing like that could stay, despite all odds playing against their favor.
Because they could attack indirectly. And if you had no physique, you could always turn the table with one's mentality. A lethal, unnoticable pin, a nip, a bit, so small, a disguise flawlessly sprawled out, a cover of mist drawing around and enveloping everything.
The second time Hibari saw cherry blossom, he hated it. Despised it. Respected it.
The third time, with his decidedly worst enemy – a teenage no older than him with mismatched eyes and a smile so cocky like he had the world in his palm at every beck and call, Hibari loved the flower. Even though it was still fragile and weak, sakura certainly was not weak. It delused people. Nothing could cloud his satisfaction at Mukuro's expression – one of shock and terror – where did I go wrong?
Because cherry blossom was silent – and it was powerful in its own way, washing and erasing everything away until there was only a dull whiteness and a lonely echo scratching one's eardrums, tranquil and mysterious like water. Slow, so slow it was underrated, but never, never hated, and painfully, painfully beautiful. Drifting away, seeping through the cracks of his fingers sneakily until all he got left in his palms was a droplet of moonlight.
Five centimeters per second.
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::oOo::
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ii. tarot cards.
/But he never holds out his hands and she never looks back at him./
He was the judgement.
Always cold, always honest, always brutal. Fatal, and never lied.
No one had ever beaten him. Chrome knew it. Mukuro knew it (though he would rather swallow a whole pineapple than admitting the fact out loud.) Boss knew it. Everyone, in the mafia or not, knew this.
He was powerful, and she was nothing.
Chrome wanted, oh, she desperately wanted to be able to look at him into his eyes one day. Like an equal. Never having to shy away and avert her eyes when he asked her. Screaming out for him like a lost child and wanting nothing more than burying herself in his warmth – the warmth she had experienced first-hand ten years ago, feeling his caring gaze and hot breath on every fiber of her being.
Time changed everything. She let down her hair, showing her Italian blood and use a spear instead of a trident. He stayed back, sharpening his own skill and wore traditional Japanese clothes.
Chrome improved. Sometimes, very rarely, she even caught a glimpse of his own approval.
But he was The Judgement. Cold, balance, and painfully, painfully fair. Monochrome. Equivalent exchange, he silently said. If you gave me one, I would give back one. Cloudy – soft, fluffy, untouchable – and it would melt into your fingertips, moist covering her skin the only evidence of cloud every lingering there.
It was like touching a mirror – a jaded reflection of herself staring back with calculating eyes and dilated irises, steel gray color revealing nothing but her own big violet eye – and she was drowning, drowning, drowning – looking up at the surface to see but there was only glittery starlight and a tempting, mysterious smile that would never crack open. The tips of her own fingers drifting away from the mirror, her consciousness seeping away.
/How do you love a stranger?/
Chrome wondered if the hands holding her body and caressing her dry, naked skin ten years ago were his or just her own doing.
/It was almost an illusion./
She used to love him. Loved the elegant sharpness of his eyes, the tilted nose and his refined chin.
She used to hate him. Hated him for leaving her there, struggling with the feeling he created in her heart and then watched her from the afar, almost mockingly. It was like tearing her heart out, and the heart still beat, pumping blood into torn veins and blood pouring out from the open wound that never ran out.
But then, it was her own fault at first, she thought bitterly. Her fault for falling. Her fault for loving. Her fault for hurting.
/How could he love her anyway? She was never his equal./
Maybe – maybe this was enough. Maybe this was her own doing in the first place. A play with Chrome the only character.
Maybe she would never be enough to match him.
Maybe –
Maybe she should just stop. Take a breath and give up. Know her own strength. Her limit. Respect it.
/I can't keep loving a ghost./
She was The High Priestess.
She was his high priestess.
A noble, royal lady, carrying herself with dignity. Always praying, always believing, always trying.
She was just a herbivore, but she was changing. Slowly, but surely.
Chrome reminded him of cherry blossom. Fragile and short-lived, surreal and very, very beautiful. Like a glass doll. And if he made too much a noise, she would surely break into millions shatters. Falling on white tiled floor and splattering, colours and shapes exploding from a world with rainbow and cloud and happily-ever-after. Her eyes a kaleidoscope, always changing, never failed to fascinate him.
He loved the way the world seemed so peaceful around her. Like time had halted into a stop. When it almost made him tremble with fear of approaching her, like he would ruin something he wasn't supposed to touch. The way she blushed a slightest shade of pink hue.
/And maybe he wasn't supposed to love her, after all. He wasn't supposed to fall in love with his worst enemy's vessel./
So he stayed behind and watched her.
Sometimes it scared him. She was silken against his heartbeat, a creature of the sea, a nymph with pearly white skin and coral bones. Like she would dissolve into sea foam – into mist – once his fingertips gazed her.
She was his. His alone. He vowed to keep her to himself only.
/Stay right there. I will come and bite you, herbivore./
Not to death, Hibari assured himself. Not this time.
He wanted to protect the small animal this time.
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::oOo::
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iii. five centimeters per second.
But it was too late for him. For her. For them.
He had taken up too much time, and time was the only thing he lacked. She slipped away between the crack of his fingers, melting him, leaving behind only a trace of warmth and air at his wake. He had spent too much time worrying about one thing and never noticed that it was already happening. She ran out.
Battered and soft and formless, Chrome fled like the world under her never tied her down, like he had never tied her down. Like the vice of his grip never touched her heart - and -
and she would like to pretend that it never did.
He never loved her anyway.
So she ran and never look back.
Five centimeters per second.
Too slow to notice. Too fast to catch. And definitely took it toll. Wearing and washing and erasing everything away.
Irreversible. Irretrievable.
Five centimeters per second.
And when he /finally/ worked up the courage, she only gave him a sad smile.
"There are five centimeters between us, Hibari-san."
Five centimeters apart. Five centimeters per second.
He reached out his hand again. Clutching her in his gasp.
Regret lingered on their tongue. Pink petals kissed joined lips, parting them away. Dyeing everything in a nostalgic color.
/This is real. This is real. The distance is real. Our closeness is real. There is no distance.
Tell me it's just an illusion./
She shook. Gasped out a teary apology.
He stood alone on the roof top, staring at the sky with an emptiness that had always been there.
"Take too long, and they slip away before you know it."
If cherry blossom didn't fall down so fast, maybe it wouldn't be that beautiful. And if the distance between us was only five centimeters, it would took me only a step to reach you and not a lifetime.
Sakura still flutters down.
And I /couldn't/ catch it.
So. That is it. Honestly, I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote this XD
Please please please please, I beg you, any of you out there reading this, pleaseeeeee review. I have a nagging feeling that Hibari is terribly OOC... /cry/
The last line is Reborn's words to Gamma regarding Uni... And, yeah. I have a nagging feeling that he was speaking about himself and Luce... XD (Hey, you try reading 'Falling Skywards' by vedetta26 and tell me you think otherwise... Or, just. honestly. Read the manga chapter 264. When Lal said "I recall... that the sky arcobaleno has a short life," Gamma was shown thinking about Aria, and Reborn about Luce. We all agree that Gamma has romantic feeling for Aria, so... shouldn't it be said the same about Reborn and Luce? :3