Star Child

By: Sci-Fi Raptor

Disclaimer: For recreationaly purposes only. LH is owned by someone else, not me, etc., etc…

(-O-)

Wouldn't it be nice if we were older
Then we wouldn't have to wait so long
And wouldn't it be nice to live together
In the kind of world where we belong

You know its gonna make it that much better
When we can say goodnight and stay together

The old yet popular song by the Beach Boys wafted through the air from some seemingly random car into Keitaro's ears. It was almost as if whatever god that had control of his life for the day felt like rubbing salt into his wounds.

The song, which seemed to haunt Keitaro over how his life could have been suddenly, seemed to get muffled as Mother Nature decided to cleanse the relatively young city of Tokyo with what some cultures believed to be its tears. Either Keitaro's hearing was failing him, something that would spell exactly how bad his current situation was, or the car was pulling away.

When Keitaro could hear the normal noises of moving traffic, he gave a sigh of relief after he concluded it was the latter. At least he could still count on his senses.

Just for a little longer at least.

Using his arm for leverage, he finally propped himself up into a more comfortable sitting position against the alley wall. If someone had seen him, they might have given him a disapproving look, but since he was in Tokyo, he did not have to worry about someone putting their nose in his business. Besides; he was deep in the alley where no one would see him.

Where no one could see him crying.

Yes, he had failed once again. After the constant struggle, the beatings, the misadventures and new promises, Keitaro Urashima had failed to get into Todai for the forth time.

Well, at least he was pretty sure of it. The odds of him managing to finish the test, much less pass it, in less that fifteen minutes were laughable. He continually berated himself for falling asleep and failing not only the test, but himself and the expectations of others.

His childhood promise was no longer the chief motivation to pass this time around. He had made a fresh promise to get in with Naru and Mutsumi, one of whom he was absolutely sure was his childhood love. Though their relationship was shaky at best, it seemed to be the only thing that kept Keitaro going after failure after miserable failure. He owed it to the rest of the girls to get in after the lavish party that they had held for the three ronins; though Keitaro would have to admit that it was also inherently the reason he was just so screwed…

And then there was young Shinobu. The highlights of his day usually came whenever she had something to do with it, whether it be her five star cooking, or just some daily chores. When Keitaro had first met her, she was depressed and lonely, but she had gotten happier and more mature since then. Keitaro was sure that, without his intervention, she would never have grown as much as she had in the last few years if he didn't promise her that he would get into Tokyo U and make his past lie a reality.

Really, he was a pathetic wretch right now… but he didn't feel the self-pity he normally would.

After so many failures, he felt resigned, passive… as the seconds turned to minutes turned to hours, Keitaro struggled as best as he could to fight the sleep that was starting to overcome him. He shifted himself, however painfully, so that the cold rain would fall on his face and keep him awake, as if in a cold shower.

His memories started replaying at random at that time, and he suddenly remembered the trip he took last time he had failed the test. Imagine his surprise when it turned out that the nice traveling buddy he had picked up turned out to be Naru herself! Keitaro could only smile about that memory; since then, he was certain that they had forged a special bond, a bond that could maybe even transcend his childhood promise.

At the thought of that, Ketiaro suddenly became bitter. He was finally realizing just how much that promise controlled his life. When others would be socializing, he would be studying, but look at what good that did! Only once did he get a passing grade on his practice tests, and that was so long ago.

But Keitaro could not stay mad for too long. For it was because of his promise that he was now blessed to be in the presence of some of the most gorgeous and intelligent women he had ever had the honor to have known.

As dawn spread its rosy fingertips along the horizon, Keitaro started shivering. The rain had already stopped for some time, but the sun's rays would never reach inside of the dark, unforgiving alley Keitaro was sitting in. If he didn't get into dry clothes soon, he would certainly catch a cold.

Keitaro chuckled at the thought…. He did have bigger problems after all…

Cursing himself again for not having brought his cell phone, Keitaro tried to stand up once again. For all his efforts, he was rewarded by falling to his side and crashing his head hard onto some blunt object on the ground.

After going through the motions for some time, he finally righted himself and got back into a sitting position. No doubt, by now, the girls had mounted a search for him, but he was starting to lose faith in their abilities. The vision on his right side suddenly turned red, and Keitaro cautiously touched the wound to see just how bad it was.

He yelped in pain just by brushing against it. The sound reverberated along to alleyway surprisingly loudly, giving Keitaro an idea.

"Oi! Can someone help me!" he started yelling, but his sentence was cut short by violent chest spasms.

He had completely forgotten why he had given up on that avenue of rescue. He looked down at his exposed chest and winced when he realized that he had just reopened his bullet wound.

For all his so called "invincibility," Keitaro had finally accepted that he was going to die.

Death was something that he rarely ever thought about, and whenever he did, it was in context of something humorous. But after all this time with the girls, Keitaro suddenly realized something… he did not want to die alone. He did not know when it happened, but sometime during his amazing stay at the Hinata-sou, he had grown to love its residents in ways he had never thought he would ever have to opportunity to. It shocked him how badly he wanted to see them, and how much he was willing to fight to stay alive.

As exhaustion finally took its toll, Keitaro lost his uphill battle against the soft embrace of sleep and soon found himself falling into its dark embrace.

As he lost consciousness, his last thought was, I'm sorry…

As the rising sun burst with life over Tokyo's horizon, a new star flickered into existence just before being outshone by mighty Sol.