Rain dribbled down the window, just like the crystallized pain escaping their violet chamber. Forever immortalized, but so fragile one touch could break them. They were just like him. He hated what he had become. A mere toy to be played with, then tossed aside when the user saw fit. He was a pawn in Akito's game of control, constantly playing with his delicate heart.
Silver bangs clung to his dampened cheeks as the tears rolled out, finally free of the place where they had been held in check for so long. But it wasn't Akito that had finally broken him. No, what had really hurt him was the death of his cousin. The monster had finally had the cat killed in an attempt to free them of the curse. Or that's what he had told them. Lies. He had killed the redhead out of spite, because he saw his control over Yuki ebbing away. Akito saw the cat and mouse growing closer, and frightened of the consequences of the curse, or more importantly his control over the family, brutally murdered him.
Shadows cradled the mouse as he embraced his knees in the dim corner of his room. Its funny how the very thing Akito had taught him to hate, the thing he had been told was his prison, was the thing that comforted him most. Ever since the cat's death, to Yuki the light had seemed lonely, almost mocking. But in the darkness he felt whole again, a feeling he had only felt in the few months previous. The few months he had had in Kyo's arms.
Those few months had been amazing. For the first time in his life Yuki had felt complete happiness. No one had ever dreamt that the two boys would find happiness with each other, but then again dreams don't come true when you're cursed. It had felt like that to them though, a dream come true. They had each other, and for once the boys didn't feel as if they were cursed. They no longer felt restrained. To Yuki, Kyo had brought love to a life devoid of it, not even from his parents, a purpose to BE, a purpose to EXIST, but most of all a reason to carry on fighting through the bad times. To Kyo, Yuki brought knowledge that he WASN'T a monster and that he was human. He brought comfort and reconciliation, that events in his past weren't caused by him, and that his mothers death was not his fault. He had also given Kyo peace, a peace that had stopped the war raging within him. Both boys had made the other see things clearly for what they were and allowed the other to see past the lies they had been taught to believe. They were in love. Simple as that really, and the short time they had together was the happiest in their lives.
But happiness can end just as quickly as it starts and it ended far to soon. The death of his beloved had stolen everything that Kyo had put back into Yuki's life. Seeing his body, twisted and mangled on the Sohma courtyard floor had stopped his heart, through shock and the loosing of life's meaning. He was Yuki's meaning to life, and the will to live trickled away just as the blood was trickling out of the wound in Kyo's chest, a place where he had laid his head down many times to listen to his lovers heartbeat. Yuki remembered how he had thrown himself to the ground at his side and did the same thing he had done only the evening before. Only this time, there was no heartbeat, just a sickening silence that threatened to engulf time and Yuki himself. He lifted is head from it's resting place to gaze at the boy's grey face. Clotting blood stuck to his pale cheek, matting his silver bangs. Tears threatened to break though, but he couldn't allow Akito to see more pain than he had already shown. A look of agony and fury danced across the cat's mouth, but the eyes were black and emotionless. Those weren't Kyo's eyes. It was at that moment that he had finally accepted the death of his lover.
The wake had been heartbreaking, but the funeral had been absolute agony. The morning was gloomy. Dry, but gloomy. It was still like Ayame compared to how Yuki was feeling. When the incense was offered around, the heavens opened and rain streamed down, as if to show the mouse's true feeling because he couldn't. The few mourners that attended, or were permitted to attend, all had their black umbrellas to try and keep relatively dry during the proceedings. Akito stood over him, smugly smiling over at Yuki. Yuki didn't give a dam. He refused everybody's offers of a coat or shelter from the chilling rain, because he didn't feel it. He felt nothing that day, except for when the stone was given to him, to nail the coffin shut. It killed him to have to shut Kyo in a box. He shouldn't be in there. He should've been with him, tickling his forehead with his orange silk yarns.
He missed out on the gathering afterwards, he just wandered home. No emotion or thinking, just a shell. That was until he saw the freshly turned dirt by the fusuma where Tohru had buried the little stone Shigure had painted in the form of a cat.
It was then that Yuki had run up to his room. The stinging of tears at the back of his eyes was unbearable. So there he was, silently sobbing alone in a darkened room, hugging his knees in tight with a cat bell clutched in his hands. Yuki had bought that cat bell for Kyo as a joke one summer. From anyone else, Kyo would have been angry in a second, but he found that he couldn't get angry with Yuki.
Invisible hairs stood on end as goose bumps traced a path along his pale arms, up his back to finally lay to rest at the top of his slender neck. Was it really the shadows that comforted him, or was it something more? The spirit bells that hung on Yuki's window glittered, though there was no movement of air within the room. Silvery bangs fluttered of Yuki's face gently as they unglued themselves from the drying tears. The small bell in his lean hands tinkled, though Yuki hadn't moved. A light breeze tickled his pixie-like ears and whispered, "I'm still here".
Smiling, he uncurled himself and drew back the curtains. Sunlight streamed in through the opening, and for the first time since Kyo's death, Yuki felt its warmth. He whispered something, so quietly it was almost silent.
"I know you are"