Disclaimer: I own nothing! Not Sailor Moon, not the hints of Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunters, vague though the references might be. I am merely taking them from their sandbox and playing with them in mine. Yay sand!!!
Notes: This is an insomnia production. Also angst filled. For those who don't know what that means. Well this means that it was written off a long bout of no sleep and has been beta'd to the best of my abilities right now any mistakes herein are sorely my own. Feedback is greatly appreciated. Suggestions always welcome as this is my first SM fic in like forever. Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.
She was a big girl, woman to be more precise. At nineteen Makoto Kino found herself yet again dressed for the dead. She no longer felt the dread of going another funeral. It was more an antipathy of sorts.
Having buried so many already: her parents, her grandparents on her mother's side, a dog and two birds. Today she was burying the last of the immediate family she had truly cared about. Her father's parents, having felt their son married downward, cared little for her existence. If he had been any other uncle, she might have stayed home. But the man she was saying goodbye too, today wasn't just any other uncle. He was her only uncle. Well at least to her mind. He was the only one she gave a damn about. The rest were just nameless faces in a family that was affronted by her presence.
To her mind funerals were in many ways a joke. They were the same words said about a different person by a different minister while the same people wept for the loss of a person that they would shortly forget once they left the cemetery, and new day dawned.
People watching seemed the only thing to do at funerals. Watch people leave, talk, stand around looking lost. Then her eyes flit to the flit to the strangest beings. A tall Goth man standing outside the gate looking in. Makoto could literally feel the sadness rolling off of him. She could see it in his stance of pulled back shoulders and stiff body language.
Leaving behind her post she finds her feet moving to this enigmatic being. And wanting nothing more than to know why he was there, standing outside and gazing instead of joining.
"Are you lost" Pensive eyes smolder as they gaze in her direction. Taken aback by the blackness of his pupils.
"Did you know my uncle" scary though the man appeared, Makoto felt no need to run away. If nothing else she felt the intense need to know who this giant of a man was and the connection to her uncle. And yet again she received no response.
"You find no solace in the ceremony" Glancing to the Goth man much taller than she, he had to be more than six feet, dressed in all black. Something telling her not to expect a response. Makoto moved in to beside him.
And for some reason found herself talking, babbling would be the more appropriate description, at him. Again not too, much less with as she feel more than see he wouldn't answer back.
"My uncle was a good man, or so I've been told. I knew very little of him besides the dinners we would have together when he found himself in Japan. They always seemed to be interrupted by business though. I know well of his ability to keep me in my own apartment, well provided for and out of my grandparent's house. Beyond the basics I knew very little of him. Now that I think about it. He had this amazing ability to make you feel like you knew him, and yet when you really look you see you knew nothing about him at all" Calm, laughter filled emerald green eyes turned to stare into pools of red-rimmed black. Fighting the urge and loosing miserably. Makoto lifted a hand to cup the right cheek of this nameless man whose sorrow matched her own, maybe even exceeded it.
"Light a candle in his name, say a prayer for his soul, weep for the loss of him; then say goodbye."
"How? How do I say just as you say light a candle, say a prayer, and weep. How!" The outburst coming from out of nowhere and yet everywhere. His anger unmistakable, undeniable, and yet acceptable. Makoto steps closer placed her other hand to cup his left cheek, and pulls his tilted head up to meet hers. Eyes locking once more.
"It's simple really. You just do. And yet it may be the hardest thing you may ever do. Saying goodbye to his physical presence, that is. Because even those who no longer walk with us; still walk beside us."
Makoto finds herself standing there outside the gates of the cemetery where she has buried the last of her family. Cupping the cheeks and staring into the eyes of this nameless black Goth whose soul wept in sadness. She had no more answers as to who he was than when she started or any knowledge of the relationship between himself and her uncle. And yet she for once felt no need to leave, the antipathy gone, instead, instilled inside was a sense of peace and a need to soothe. And soothe she would.