The Doll You Made Happy, a rozen maiden fanfic

G'day everyone! I decided to write a serious fic this time, in a change of pace from my last crazy fic. So yeah. This is kind of a sequel to one of my previous fics, "I Loved You First", but it's more of a half-sequel? I didn't really fully decide if these two should be completed related, but yeah.

It's kind of sad-ish, especially for ShinkuxJun supporters, which ironic because I'm a BIG fan of ShinkuxJun myself. So yeah.

I might not have got the tone quite right. Therefore, please review, give me feedback and tell me if you like it or not! Also tell me if you think I should write an alternate sequel where Shinku does end up with Jun ^^'

Otherwise, hopefully enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Rozen Maiden or any of its wonderful characters.

The Doll You Made Happy

He isn't sure when he first collapsed onto his knees in front of the mirror in that old storage room, wet tears blurring his vision. Perhaps he'd already known. Perhaps he's always known, since a long time ago, that something like this would happen. Perhaps he's just been trying futilely to avoid the inevitable. Either way, none of it matters anymore.

Shinku is gone.

As abruptly and quietly as she had first dropped into his life, she too has disappeared from it. That day, he'd turned his back for a second to slam his door shut and yell something at Nori, only to trip and stub his toe on the large ornate box that had silently appeared out of nowhere in the middle of his room. Today, he turned his back for only a second to gently close his door shut as he called to his newlywed wife, Tomoe, just a few hours after their wedding, only to almost fall over the sudden empty space where her case had once been, but is now conspicuously absent from.

In fact, if it he hadn't been specifically directing his thoughts to it beforehand, he probably wouldn't have even noticed it was gone until much later. If he hadn't been intending to speak to the doll previously, it probably wouldn't have immediately come to his attention she was nowhere to be found.

That was how far they had drifted.

That was how far the years had pushed them apart. Had it been differently, perhaps, the long time they had spent with each other should have served to bring them closer together, but then cruel fate had made it so that Jun was a human and Shinku was a doll.

He wonders now, for the first time in such a long time, when it was they'd first begun to part. Was it when he'd restarted school? When he swapped making her afternoon tea for going on afternoon outings with friends from school? When he stayed up calling Tomoe instead of watching her read those complicated German books? When instead of buying the Kunkun toys she loved so much he spent his money on pretty necklaces and other little things that Tomoe loved so much?

He doesn't even know when he'd almost stopped speaking to her altogether; their lifestyles were so different they rarely even saw each other anymore. He spent the days out most of the time, either at school, at a friend's place or on a date somewhere with Tomoe. She spent her days as she always did, at home either watching Kunkun or reading or drinking tea, occasionally making cookies with Nori and Suiseiseki when she could be bothered…they saw each other only sometimes in the morning or in the evening when they managed to catch each other. And then, later, when Jun got a part time job, they met even less as he got home late every night, and she would always already be asleep in her case by the time he arrived back.

By then, the only time they were able to exchange a small word was if, by chance, they managed to catch each other early in the morning, or if he stayed at home for some reason, perhaps because he was sick, and even then, there was little left between them to speak of.

They had drifted so far apart it was as if both lived in two completely separate worlds. He lived more and more in the human world; the world of school and studying and hanging out with friends. She belonged to the mysterious world of the Rozen Maiden dolls, the world of N-fields, of fighting for Rosae Mysticae, fighting to become Alice…

And perhaps, somewhere along the road, he'd become tired of fighting, always fighting to live…

Still, she had stayed over the years, living with him. Even after Suiseiseki terminated her contract and left, trying to seek her twin's lost soul, taking Souseiseki's lifeless body with her, Shinku remained. Alone, albeit for Hinaichigo's body, she stayed by Jun's side. There were times when she wondered what she was doing. Kanaria visited only occasionally after the departure of Suiseiseki, and even Suigintou appeared before her less and less frequently, spending more time with her own ill medium. Looking at it from any other point of view, there was really nothing worth staying for anymore.

But Shinku had decided, she had one thing left.

Hope.

She still had hope.

Hope, that these forbidden feelings suddenly arising in her, intensified by his increasing absence in her life, would somehow come to something. Even if it was a desperate, helpless, futile hope, it was all she had. After realising the pain of the Alice Game, the inevitable anguish that her destiny led her to should she fail to become the perfect girl, this was the last thing Shinku could cling to with all her strength. Had she been the same cold, angry individual she was before she'd met Jun, she would have thought her behaviour foolish and stupid. But she was not the same. She had changed because of Jun, and now he was the only thing keeping her here.

The problem now then, what was keeping him here?

Maybe Shinku had known from the beginning that nothing she did, that no matter how long she waited, the miracle that she prayed upon would never come to pass. Perhaps the path she had chosen was even more painful than the path of the Alice Game. Even so, she surmised, she was willing to endure this heartache because its purpose held meaning, even if she had only a one in a million chance of achieving it. It was a great risk from which she hoped an even greater miracle would be born. Suigintou laughed at her. Kanaria didn't understand her. Suiseiseki had pitied her. And still, she waited.

The days wasted away, and every day set Jun upon a journey that took him even further and further from her. He was growing up; he was no longer the boy that had sworn everything to her – he was a man, with his own life to live, his own dreams to pursue. It was indeed foolish, Shinku had thought to herself, that she allowed herself to forget that, that she let herself be so close to him.

After all, everyone grows out of playing with dolls after a while.

He was looking to the future, moving forward so quickly she couldn't even see his back disappearing over the horizon if she wanted to. She could do nothing but be left behind, clutching at that fragile hope that perhaps, one day; he would come back for her.

He did not. He would not ever return.

She had lived for centuries, seen many mediums come and go, fought many fights…it had only taken a few years out of those hundreds with a single, mere boy; Sakurada Jun, to make her realise how tired she was. Tired of everything. Tired of fighting with no purpose, tired of living for a faded hope, tired of waiting, of the pointless days that passed with no end…

Shinku was among the better ones of her sisters able to control her emotions, to suppress her feelings and bear it out uncomplaining, unbeknownst to others, but even she had a limit. Even Shinku had to reach a point where she could not take any more.

Time does not stop, slow down or run backwards for anyone. It marches on relentlessly, and those who get stuck at the side of the road stay there until they can somehow find a way to look ahead once again. Shinku did not want to remain stranded any longer. She had decided it was time to embark on her own lonely path once again.

And as Jun sits on the cold, dusty floor and stares blankly into the mirror, studying all the minute blemishes upon its surface, following the tiny cracks along its frame with an intense gaze, he only just realises how ironic it is that the change in him that Shinku managed to bring about with her entrance into his life is also partly the cause for her departure.

Shinku had never been one for loud declarations or dramatic farewells, unlike Suiseiseki. She had, in her own quiet way, slowly let him go. She would never tell him anything straight; she had her own roundabout, subtle manner that he'd somehow come to understand. Thus, even now there is no need for noisy tantrums or frenzied sobs.

In the end, there is only a soft, sad sigh, a few silent tears that splash with no sound on the floorboards, and the hushed rustling of paper as Jun picks up the scrap of white folded neatly at the base of the mirror.

A photograph, one taken from so very long ago, when he had still been a boy who played with dolls. And a letter, written to him from his very first doll.

Do not forget.

This is her farewell.

The tears blur over again, as he recalls younger times, good times, bad times, happy times, sad times. The days when he made her tea, watched Kunkun with her, got slapped by those incredibly long golden curls, tried to read German…

I am Shinku…

The proud fifth doll of the Rozen Maiden…

And I am your happy doll.

Time does not stop for anyone. It marches on relentlessly and those who become stuck in the side of the road remain there until they can find their way again. She had, since they'd met, pulled him out of the prison he'd trapped himself in, and he had run forward so fast, catching up with everything he'd missed, that she was all but helpless to be left behind.

He remembers the flashes of crimson, rose petals everywhere, scattered across the dark sky like scarlet rain, mingling with feathers in a whirlwind of black and red. He remembers the hesitation and the determination, the fear and the courage, the desire to give up and the will to fight, to live on. He remembers the tears and the crying. He remembers the smiles and the laughter.

…your happy doll…

They are times that have passed, times that they can never return to. He cannot go back to the day he wound her key and kissed the rose ring, he cannot go back to the time he fixed her arm with a thread of shining gold, the day they had a staircase war, when they played 'Snow White', when he lovingly, cradled her lifeless body in his arms, desperately screaming for Rozen, or when he'd been the first face she set her eyes upon after reawakening from Barasuishou's slaughter.

They are times that have passed and gone forever.

He doesn't even have the medium's ring anymore. Her little yellow teacup and the Kunkun plush she'd always been so fond of are not to be found either. Even Hinaichigo's body has disappeared, gone along with the fifth Rozen Maiden. Were it not for the photograph in his hand and the letter with her meticulous handwriting on it, it would seem as if she had never entered his life in the first place.

…do not forget…

In the end, Shinku had realised, the only thing that really belongs to both of them are the memories. There are painful memories, heartbreaking memories, and there are also joyful memories, loving memories that are to be cherished.

A photograph, a letter, and the memories are the only things she can leave him.

She had both walked in and out of his life leaving barely a tangible trace and almost no physical proof of their time together. Her existence could now very nearly be dismissed as a dream, or a phantom of his imagination to anyone who did not know.

The Rozen Maiden have always been regarded as nothing more than legends and stories; mere fabrications spun together by storytellers. But Jun knows. He knows they existed – he has run around making tea for them, watched puppet shows on television with them, fought alongside them, lived beside them…

Had he ever realised fully the feelings Shinku held for him? Had he ever woken in the middle of night to see her sometimes sitting up in her case, watching over him as he slept, with a sad, yearning gaze? Had he ever had the chance to see for himself the unspeakable emotion that sometimes clouded the otherwise clear blue of her eyes? Even Jun himself is unsure.

The only one absolute, undeniable truth he knows is that despite everything, despite their parting, every single moment he spent with Shinku is a treasured memory he will never forget for the rest of his life. They are memories he will carry with him to his grave.

There is only one thing that no one can touch between them, not even Tomoe, and that is that they had made each other happy. Each in their own way, in a way that no one else will ever possibly be capable of understanding, in a way that is between only them, they had made each other's happiness.

There had been much left unspoken between them, and perhaps there was no need for words. Perhaps what they had was beyond that.

Maybe, Jun considers now, this was what kept Shinku by his side for so long, even after the others left. Perhaps, this was what she clung to with that last desperate, desolate hope.

Something that was found together. Something that should not be lost. Jun will never really know for certain, and nor will Shinku. But the others will never know at all.

What they shared between them…

The memories…

This happiness…

So do not ever forget, Jun.

I am the doll you have made happy.

A few darkened patches materialise. Tear blotches. He presses the paper to his lips, taking small comfort in the thought that the words he touches were written by her own small hand. He gets up and brings back a cup of tea - the very first cup of tea he has made for her in a very, very long time. The last cup of tea he will ever make for her. The only cup of his tea she will never drink.

He places it carefully in front of the mirror, as if this small gesture will be enough to bring her back. Of course, such hopes are as flimsy and frail as the ones she has been living with for all this time. And Tomoe does not ask when she finds in front of the mirror the stone cold cup of tea that has turned bitter with his tears.

As the years go by she will occasionally catch him sitting in front of the mirror, staring almost wistfully into its depths, as if seeing something there that she cannot, and she knows that at times like these, it is indeed better to leave him alone because this is something she has no right to share, and at these times he is somewhere she will never be able to reach.

There are times when he will unfold the photograph and the scrap of paper and read over it again and again as if trying to memorise it, but there is no need, because the words are already burned into his heart.

There are times when he will stop and think about the fifth doll of the Rozen Maiden and wonder if she is thinking about him too, at this very moment, wherever she is, somewhere in the world. Sometimes he will stop hesitantly in the doorway of the old storage room with the mirror, head cocked as if listening, waiting for something, but it never comes, and he sighs and goes on with his life.

But the teacup remains, untouched, its undrunk tea growing colder and dustier, and underneath it, folded as neatly as when he first found them the day after his wedding, a photograph taken from so very long ago, and the letter from his very first doll; words written in that achingly familiar meticulous way of hers, that have etched themselves onto his very soul.

Please…

…always remember…

…the doll you made happy.

Please review and give me advice on what you think! Also tell me if I should write a happy one for those ShinkuxJun fans out there where they do end up together. Of course, I'd give Tomoe a reasonably happy ending too...

Thanks for reading~! I love you all XD

~cherryblossomroses~