Disclaimer: Do not own.
Warnings: A little dark. Some blood and violence, suggestive themes and implied sex. KuroFai, SakuSyao and mention of past KuroFaiYuui. AU
Today, I stand alone in my little white space, like a scarecrow in the cornfields. This is my sanctuary, where there is nothing but I, and the nothing that is the whiteness surrounding. But today, today as I stand alone in my little white space, he appears from behind and strokes my hair, asking me: how are you today? So I tell him I'm fine, and say nothing more. He tells me to take a seat, because why stand there in such an awkward manner? Like a scarecrow, tall and lonely amongst the corn, as it sways limply on its wooden pole. But where shall I sit? I ask him, there is nothing here but I.
A strange look crosses his face, before his face softens into a gentle, tender thing and he slides his fingers into my hair. Why, he says, we can sit right here, on this patch of nothingness we now stand on. I smile, because this man is my most precious, my most dearest, my most beloved. He is amazing, and I smile some more. An indeterminable age later, he leaves and disappears again into the whiteness, as they all do.
Yesterday a little girl had come from the nothing as well, and she'd sat me down on a chair she'd pulled out of the white, taking a hairbrush with her. Sit down, and I shall brush your hair, just the way you like. But today there had been no chair, so the man and I had sat on the floor. She said I had beautiful hair, like threaded sunlight, and how she wished she had hair like mine, but hers were brown like the pelt of a doe. Slowly, she pulled the brush through my hair; my hair like threaded sunlight, she'd said. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke.
Tonight I hear screaming. I don't like it.
A window appeared today in my little white space, as if someone had come and cut a neat rectangle in the nothingness; a quaint little door to another dimension. Outside, there is a big open space filled with sepia trees that blow their leaves across an open field, like brown sand on the winds. Autumn, he says, my precious, precious darling come back into my sanctuary, slipping his arms around my waist from behind, can you see it, love? But it's right there, how would I not see it? He laughs, and presses a kiss to my pale temples, seeming almost giddy with happiness. Of course, he laughs, of course. A plush armchair appears by the window, and he seats himself with an indulgent smile, telling me to take a seat. I see no other but the one he is in, so I settle comfortably in his lap, pulling my legs up so I can curl against his chest and peer over my knees at the sky.
See that? That's the color of your eyes, he tells me as he lays his chin atop my hair. Isn't it beautiful? Then he must be indirectly mean that I am beautiful too, if the color of the sky is beautiful, and if the color of the sky—that he says is so beautiful—is the color of my eyes. He laughs again when I voice that. Without a doubt, he growls playfully into my shoulder, there is none as beautiful as you. And he kisses me soundly on the lips. I laugh and turn back to the window, for it may be gone later, and I'll not have it again for awhile. Amongst the dirty orange and brown, there are deep red specks like rubies shining amidst the dirt; those are the beautiful color of hiseyes, and I tell him so, adding that it is my favorite color of all. It is the color of the silk ribbon that had entangled us in that gift shop on the lovely spring day that we'd first met. I wish I had a ribbon to tie in my hair, the way he once told me he liked.
Tomorrow he brings a ribbon, red as his blood-hued eyes, and lays it across my palm. He takes out a hand mirror, and holds it up for me. I bring the ribbon against my throat and marvel at how beautiful a red it seemed against my snowy skin, like a beautifully slit throat. He blanches when I tell him that, and drops the mirror, enveloping me in his arms like a warm midsummer's day.
He takes the ribbon back with him, but brings a blue one on another tomorrow; he ties it in my hair, and tells me it matches my eyes.
'The briefcase. Where is the fucking briefcase?'
'I don't—I don't know, please just leave us alone. There's no briefcase—'
'You're lying! I know it's here, it must be here.'
'Don't! Don't hurt him! He doesn't know anything!'
'Where is it? Where is it, you freaks? Tell me or I'll kill him!'
'No!'
'What are you—Get off!'
'Run! Go Yuui, get Kuroga—'
A gunshot.
Someone started screaming.
The door smashed open.
'Hands in the air!'
'Yuui, Yuui!'
The scream went on and on and on.
On the floor, a growing puddle of blood soaked into the carpet.
A mirror came out of the nothing today, in my little white space, my beloved sanctuary where people came and went like ghosts. I stood in front of it and preened, like I used to do before I came to this sanctuary. The little girl with the doe's pelt hair had come again and—leafy eyes wide with delight—brushed my hair, my hair like threaded sunlight, brushed it out again. It's snowing today, she tells me, just the way you used to like. Her fingers felt nice against my scalp, so I tilted my head back and hummed like a contented cat; before the nothing, I remembered big kitties and big doggies and small kitties and small doggies. I wonder where the small doggy went. But he came yesterday, says the little girl, the little girl with the green eyes like spring days and the hair like a doe's pelt. I do not understand.
She says it's fine, and ties the ribbon at the base of my neck; she tells me it matches my eyes.
That night, I heard screaming again. But the screaming went on and on and on till a woman appeared from the nothing and pulled me into her arms asking: whatever is the matter, child? I tell her it is nothing, but there is someone screaming and I don't like it. I ask her who is screaming, because I hear it every night. She just gives me a sad look, and replies that it must be the wind. I can tell that she's lying.
The mirror is still there tomorrow, in my little white space, standing in the middle of the white—not like the scarecrow that sways on its wooden pole amongst the corn, but like a sapling on the verge of becoming a tree. I press a palm against it, and remember another just like me. We'd sometimes press our palms together instead of holding hands; it was our thing, like the two sides of a looking glass. But the palm against mine in this little white space was not warm like I remembered; it was cold as glass is cold. And so I smashed it with my fists till there was, on my hands and clothes, that beautiful color of his eyes. I could see myself in the broken pieces on the floor, fragmented and pieced haphazardly back together like the red-tinted subject of a cubist's paintings.
My precious comes to see me, with a single full-bloomed rose, so dark a crimson that it is almost black—the color of a heart that has died. He places the stalk carefully between my bandaged hands, and tells me I'm beautiful. He seems sad. I tell him that it wasn't a rose because a rose had thorns, and this stalk was as smooth as a baby's powdered bottom. He told me he'd dethorned it, just for me, because he didn't want me to prick my finger like Sleeping Beauty on a needle and sleep for-ever. Today there is no window, but I push him to the floor and sit in his lap, because there isn't anywhere to sit in my little white space today. He winds his arms around me and buries his face in my shoulder. He is shaking.
I love you, he says in a trembling voice, I love you, Yuui.
I give him a strange look, because my name is not Yuui—Yuui was dead, there was only Fai. He keens shortly into my skin, but concedes. Of course, he agrees, I love you, Fai. I twist around in his arms and cup his face in my bandaged hands; his eyes are wet, but his cheeks are completely dry. There is a great tightness in my chest, and I can feel my eyes brimming as well because my precious is strong, my precious is tough; he is always scowling and never crying, so how did things come to this? I know that it's because of me, but I don't know why. Do I really sadden him so? I'm sorry, I tell him, though I don't know what I'm sorry for. I'm sorry, I tell him, because I am.
I'm sorry, I tell him, so please don't stop coming back to me.
Now he is crying as well, and I can't even wipe his tears away for the gauze over my fingers that closes them into chunky blocks of yellow-white, like mittens on a child. I won't, he promises, trying to sound gruff and growly like the doggy I knew before the nothing came and he changed, I'll always come back to you.
A little boy came and went a few times, like a ghost, with eyes like that which traps ants and insects within its liquid embrace—Amber? he says, looking surprised, and slightly flattered—and hair like the tree-trunks it comes from. He brings books and reads them to me, for when I look at them all I see is little black ants, marching across the pages like soldiers seen from a plane. He sat at the foot of a plush armchair, on which I sat like a king on his throne, and brushed his fingers over my bandaged hands, as light as butterfly wings. Today he reads to me about a golden statue that stood in a city—not like the scarecrow standing tall amongst the corn, nor the sapling on the verge of becoming a tree, but like a great cliff that stands although the waves crash—and gave its gold to the starving peasants until it crumbled. He tells me that I am just like that statue, giving and giving until there is nothing left, until I'm broken on the floor like the great golden statue that stood like a cliff.
Now he looks sad as well, so I slide off the chair and envelop him in my arms, the way my dearest had enveloped me like a warm midsummer's day. He clings to the front of my clothes and buries his face in my chest. He is crying; do I sadden him as well? Again, I can tell it's because of me, and again I don't know why. I hum a song in his ear, a lullaby that flows to me like a memory, and he clutches harder at my shirt. I miss you, he sobs into my chest, I miss you so much.
But why should you miss me? I ask him softly, puzzled, I'm right here.
He only sobs harder. And I don't know why.
The little girl, with the eyes of spring and hair of a doe's soft pelt, came again. But she didn't say anything, just sat at the foot of the plush armchair that had stayed in my beloved sanctuary, where people came and went like ghosts. She lay her cheek on my knee, and said nothing. Like the little boy with the eyes of a liquid prison and the hair of the trunks of trees, she strokes my hands and kisses my bound fingers, as light as the wings of a butterfly. She is also sad, and I don't know why because I haven't said anything this time. So I bend over her doe's pelt head, and kiss her doe's pelt hair, and I hum her the same lullaby as I run my fingers through the short, wispy strands. Her shoulders begin to shake.
Today, my beloved comes back to see me. I rush into his arms and kiss his face, because he has been gone for so long, and I thought he'd never come back to me again. Never, he says, why would you think that? I told him it must be because I make people sad, and I don't know why. Now he looks sad again, and he kisses my nose that is cold like water in the snow. You're cold, he says, and makes as if to remove his trench-coat, you can have my coat. I stop him before he can slide the coat off his arms, instead, I pull the unbuttoned coat wide open and step into his arms. Wrapped in his warm coat and his even warmer embrace, I rub our noses together and wind his scarf around our necks, like the silk ribbon that had entangled us on the lovely spring day we'd first met. He kisses me on the lips, and tells me: The snow is melting and soon, it'll be spring. How I wish I could take you out to see it.
I tell him I don't need to go out to see it. Because when he is here, it is like spring has blown into my little white space on the sweet morning breeze. Whyever should I ever want to visit spring, when he brings it with him like the lark brings song?
The window appears again in the nothingness, a quaint little door to another dimension. I sit in a plush armchair by the window as the little girl with the eyes of spring removes the gauze from my hands and kisses each pale finger like a prayer. The landscape today is beginning to look just like her eyes—she seems flattered when I tell her so—and there is green creeping along the window sill. How pretty, I say, I wish I could have this window here everyday. She stands and walks around the chair. But isn't it here everyday? I look at her strangely. I do not understand.
She assures me that it's okay, and brushes out my hair. She tells me that I have the most beautiful hair that she has ever seen, but this time she says that it is like strands of sunlit gossamer that tumbles over my shoulders like a sea of gold. She ties the blue ribbon in my hair, and tells me I look beautiful today.
My precious comes to see me again, and is delighted to see me sitting at the window. You can see the spring today? he asks like he can scarcely believe what he sees, and I give him a strange look. But of course, I say, the window is here today, is it not? He smiles, and hands me a bouquet of white primroses. Just like you used to like, he tells me. I look at it, then I get up and embrace him.
You can call me Yuui if it'll make you smile like that again.
There's a strange look on his face, then he shakes his head. It doesn't matter, he says quietly, because I love you, Fai.
When the little boy—with the eyes that trap ants and flies, like a beautiful tableau within an orangey-brown bubble—next comes, the window is still there like a rectangle cut into the nothingness, along with a little wooden table right in front of it. I put the white primroses there in a vase that the little girl had brought for me, and sat on the plush armchair that has remained there with the window. I've never had anything stay for so long before; the nothing aways takes it back after a while. He pulls another armchair out of the nothing opposite me, and sits. Look, he says, the flowers are beginning to bloom. There are buds on the green tendrils creeping across the window sill, and there is green on the branches of the trees. I hope the window will stay until I can see the flowers.
The little boy assures me that it will, and takes out another book. He reads of a little girl who went into the woods to visit her grandmother, and the big bad wolf; I tell him that it reminds me of my dearest and he laughs at that, saying that he'll tell him for me. He wonders what the big bad wolf will say about that.
My beloved comes the next day, to my sanctuary, my little white space where things came and went like ghosts, growling playfully and tackling me into the soft peachy carpet that has begun to creep outwards from the window, like the creepers that creep across the window-sill. I laugh and push at his shoulders as he rubs his face into my belly and snuffles noisily; he tells me that he's trying to eat me up. I ask him why he hasn't yet since he's trying so hard, and he tells me he wants to plump me up first, like the witch in Hansel and Gretel. I do not understand, but he says it's fine and tells me to ask the boy with the hair like trees to read it to me the next time he comes. I say okay, and kiss his hair, his hair that is black as his name. Kuro.
He jerks when I call him that, and looks at me with such a face that I wonder if I ought to try and take it back. Then he kisses me so fiercely that I feel dizzy, and scatters little kisses over my face and neck. His eyes are wet again.
The little girl, with the hair like a doe's pelt and her pretty eyes of spring, she told me that I made my precious Kuro very happy, the next time she visits. She disappears shortly to change the water for the white daisies, then returns with her hairbrush. She stands behind the armchair and brushes out my hair, my hair like sunlit gossamer, pressing a kiss to the top of my head with every stroke. She seems happy today, and I know it's because of me; I still don't know why. Because you remembered, she says, you remembered his name. I wonder if she'll be so happy if I remembered hers. She says yes, but that can wait for later. I ask her to tell me, even if I'll forget it in awhile; things are lost quickly in the white. She ties the ribbon in my hair, the ribbon that matches my eyes, and sits in the armchair across the table.
She points at the trees outside, that bloom pink and white amongst the green. The petals are blowing across the field like dust in the sun, so much like the browned leaves had when I had sat in my dearest Kuro's lap and looked out of the window. See those? she says, that's my name.
Under us, the peach carpet continues to spread.
I'd never noticed before, that there was a wooden frame of rich black wood around the window. Before, it was as if someone had come and cut a neat rectangle out of the nothing, so I suppose it was rather more a clean-edged gap than a window. I was waiting for my Kuro to come to me, so that I could tell him about it; he always seems so happy when new things appear in my beloved sanctuary, where people came and went like ghosts. The little boy came, the one with the hair like the bark of trunks, and asked me why I was standing there. I told him I was waiting for my beloved Kuro to come but I was too excited to sit so I stood instead, stood not like a lonely scarecrow tall amongst the corn, but like a sapling on the verge of becoming a tree.
Its good that you feel better, he says happily, would you like me to call him to come over? I say it's fine, and that I want to hear the story of Handsome and Greater. He blinks, and finally begins to laugh like I haven't heard him laugh since before the white. You mean Hansel and Gretel? I tell him it all sounds the same, and plop eagerly into the armchair. I'll tell my precious Kuro that I'd heard the story, and hopefully he'd be pleased, hopefully he'd smile at me again.
The white primroses have wilted, but I have them hanging on the cream wallpaper that has starting appearing around the edges of the window frame; the girl with the name of the blossoms outside my window, she pressed them under a book for me and brought a frame that matched my window frame. The book had been really thick, much thicker than those that the boy always brought with him. It's a dictionary, she says, like a list of every single word compiled into one thick book. When my Kuro comes to see me again, I cling to his shoulders like a tentacled sack of potatoes. Why does my precious, precious Kuro not give me new ones, I wail, bad Kuro! He grins at me and knocks me upside the head (I had never known it could possibly feel so good to have him stop treating me like a broken doll) saying: You're not a girl, idiot. Why do you need flowers?
I say maybe I'd like to be courted. He tells me to go find someone else, so I whine somemore. He playfully makes as if to leave, and I dash at his retreating back and fling my arms around his back, gnawing at the back of his neck. Half snarling, half laughing, he turns and tosses me up over his shoulder, giving my rump a smack for good measure. When you get a little better, maybe I can finally bring you out to see the spring. He drops me into the armchair and leans over me, planting his big big paws onto the rests. How about that?
I tell him that I can't get any better than this; I'm best when he's around, after all. He laughs—he's been laughing a lot more since the winter passed, even more than in my memories from before the white—and kisses me deep. When he draws back I tell him, somewhat breathlessly, that I stand corrected. He chuckles and falls to his knees in front of me, snuggling into my lap. I'm not snuggling, he says. Of course, I reply and he growls into my thighs. I pet his ebony hair, and he makes a satisfied noise in his chest. He really is just like a puppy. Let's go, he murmurs into my lap, I want to see the cherry blossoms with you.
Cherry blossoms. Sakura.
The next time little sakura blossom comes, she knocks me off the couch that appeared the day before, sobbing and scattering kisses over my face. I butterfly little kisses against her swollen eyelids in return, and she laughs. My little sakura blossom. She sobs harder, but she is laughing.
A mirror.
'Yuui.'
'I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.'
'It's alright.'
'Really?'
'Yes. But Yuui...
'Yeah?'
'You have to wake up.'
'Kuro-sama,' I say, as he holds me in his arms in front of the window, the exact same position as when I'd sat in his lap last autumn, 'Call me Yuui.'
He stiffens.
'Fai is dead, is he not?' I say quietly, because no matter how I look like him, he can never be me. I can never bring him back, no matter how I loved him, so I suppose it's time to drop the cracked mask. Then perhaps the next time I look into the mirror I won't see a ghost. Kurogane turns me around and kisses me. I melt hungrily into him, and it is like collapsing into my bed at the end of a tiring day, even if nothing has been tiring at all since I've come into this place I call my sanctuary, 'I miss him. I miss him so much.'
'I do too.'
'You do not understand,' I tell him frustratedly. How could he? Not when Fai was my everything, my best friend, my lover, my other half, my better half. He'd died trying to save me, hadn't he? And I'd just stood there uselessly and screamed. I could still see his face—as beautiful as he'd always been, even in death—like the face of a porcelain doll with its big, long-lashed, empty blue eyes, flawlessly pale face, and pouty pink lips forever unsmiling. The bullet-wound through his forehead was a neat little circle like a ruby on the foreheads of those Arabian princesses, a weeping third eye that cried him dry as Kurogane had burst in with his underlings.
'Would you say you loved him any more than you did me?' Kurogane asked, and I shake my head, horrified that he'd misunderstood me. I didn't love him any more than I loved Yuui, but I didn't love Yuui any more than I loved him. I wouldn't, couldn't, ever choose between them. He smiled sadly at me, and said, 'Then how can you say I did not love him as much as you did?' I looked at him for a moment, stunned. He cried out and cupped my face in his hands, 'oh god, please don't cry. I never meant to make you cry.'
But I'd made Kuro-sama cry hadn't I? I had made my strong, strong Kuro-sama cry. Because I was being selfish, and I didn't realize how hurt he must have been on the inside taking care of one lover while grieving the loss of another. And I hadn't only hurt him, I had hurt the children as well, little Sakura as well as the little boy whose name I am ashamed to still not remember. When I strain to remember his name, I think of sorrowful howling on a moonlit night. But I still cannot remember it.
'I want you,' I say. But he winces and shakes his head.
'I can't, not until you're better.'
'Please?'
'No,' he says firmly, resolutely.
'But I want it. I want you. I need you.' I see him hesitate, so I pounce on it, 'Please!'
He groans and, gathering me in his arms, stands. Amidst the tears, the gasps, the musky scent of our love, I tell him that I love him.
The boy with the name of sorrowful bays, he hasn't stopped bringing his books; he doesn't read them to me anymore, though, he just leaves them on the bedside table. He tells me I used to love reading, along with singing, playing the piano, composing in the park, and dancing badly when I've had too much to drink. He'd said I'd been a small-time musician playing in a grand hotel before I'd come to this place I call my sanctuary. Now he brings a little checkered board—he called it chess—and taught me to play.
'You used to be really good', he told me, 'I could never beat you'. Well. I still lost anyway. But it didn't matter because he was laughing over my insistences that 'if a knight can't move straight, he must be terribly drunk! whatever is he doing on the field?' His laugh is beautiful and he rarely lets go like this, even before all this. I think that little Sakura would be very happy to see his smile.
He keeps the board, and says he wishes he could reteach me how to play the piano(he can't because no one knows how to play the piano but me) and he wishes that he could reteach me how to sing (he can't because he might as well be tone-deaf for how well he can carry a tune) because I've always had such a beautiful voice ('Like an angel,' he said, 'The hotel had to pay you a fat sum of money to prevent the other hotels from stealing you.'), and oh, how he longs to hear me sing again. He told me I hadn't wanted to go into albums and tours because I loved Kurogane too much to leave him for such long periods of time. The boy smiles at me, and tells me he left another book about Sherlock Holmes for me. I like them because they remind me of Kuro-sama. I hug him as he turns to leave, as thanks for coming back, for not giving up on me.
I wish, I wish so hard, that I could remember his name.
Nowadays when little Sakura comes, she brings a ball of yarn and some knitting needles. She sits opposite me and tries to loop the string around the needle as she speaks to me; she fails miserably. Little Sakura says she's trying to make a scarf for the boy with the name of moonlit howls.
'Whatever for?' I ask, "It's sweltering out there!"
She laughs and tells me its summer now but soon it'll be autumn, and then it'll be winter; she wants to give him a scarf when winter starts. And of course, she adds sheepishly, she had to start early because she has no idea how to knit. It doesn't appear to be turning out so well. I laugh, and say that he'll appreciate anything that's hers, even a scarf full of holes. Her needles clack away opposite me, and I tap my fingers against the table—it's a new unconscious habit of mine, I keep doing it and I can't stop.
Little Sakura cries out as she drops a stitch, and I try to hide my smile.
Kurogane comes to see me and I make lecherous eyes at him because he's all drenched in sweat. I sashay over to him to try to peel his shirt off, but he swipes at me and calls me a cock-tease. But Kuro-sexy is so hot, surely he ought to take off his shirt before he dies of heatstroke; I've heard some puppies are particularly prone to that. He plops into the armchair opposite me and pours himself a glass of water—Sakura had been here just now so she brought the pitcher in for the both of us. My fingers are tap-tap-tapping on the armrest as I look at him from under my lashes, thinking plans of seduction.
'I can hear you thinking,' he tells me flatly, 'it's not going to work.'
Tappity-tap-tap-tappity-tap, my fingers go against the rest, and I just keep on looking at him. He'll cave by the time ten minutes is up.
Little Sakura and the little wolf-boy comes to me together for once, they seem happy as they tell me that more than one visitors are allowed into my sanctuary now. I smile, because now I can have all the people I love with me at one time; sometimes I feel that I really am greedy, but that's alright. I turned to look around at the room; It's a beautiful room, spacious and airy, with peach carpets and regally patterned cream wallpapers. They said it was sponsored, since I had to come here only because of Kurogane's work. There's so much space that the room can fit a double bed, a velvet-red loveseat beside, the two plush armchairs by the window and there's still a large empty space with nothing in it. There used to be a full-length mirror, but I think that must have been the one I smashed; they haven't brought a new one to replace it. The only part of the room that still remains white—as white as the nothing I'd called my sanctuary for so long—is a long patch on the wall opposite from the window.
I sit on the loveseat, and my fingers are clacking on the hardcover book in my lap as they sit around my legs, like a little kitty and a little puppy. I tell them there's plenty of space on the couch, but they say they want to sit on the floor because it's nostalgic. They'd done that before this, before I'd come to this place I call my sanctuary, so I guess that's why. The tapping of my fingernails sounds like it may be a song if only I could produce the notes I hear in my head as I tap, but wood does not produce many notes so instead I sing the tune softly under my breath as the two younglings chatter to me at my feet.
Their eyes widen as their voices cut off abruptly, all the better to hear the tune I am singing absently to myself.
The next day, they force Kurogane to carry a beautiful white grand-piano into the room; it fills the empty space beautifully. They say that this is mine and that they brought it from the apartment we shared. All three of them sit around as I tap out my tunes on the black and white keys, and sing wordlessly. I tell them I'm sorry I can't remember the words yet, but they say it's okay and plead with me to continue anyway. They aren't laughing, but their smiles are happier than I have ever seen them.
I smile, and continue to sing. It's a song I'd composed for a little wolf, Syaoran.
'Yuui...What are you still doing here, Yuui?'
'W-What?'
'It's time for you to leave this place.'
'But this—this is my sanctuary, isn't it? Isn't it?'
'No. No, it isn't.'
'Then where...?'
'You must find out for yourself, Yuui.'
I woke in Kurogane's arms, as I normally did the morning after he comes to visit me. It's warm, and I feel safe as I normally do when I'm with him. As I open my eyes, I see from across the room a dark wooden door in the same rich black wood as my window frame, and the picture frame Sakura brought for my primroses. It's as if someone came and dropped it into the last white patch like the last piece of a puzzle, and like solving a puzzle I laugh to myself, wondering why I'd never thought it'd be that. Kurogane murmurs sleepily against the pale nape of my neck, and sits up.
"What the hell are you laughing about so early in the morning, idiot?"
I only laugh some more.
"Look, Kuro-sama," I whisper, voice choked with happiness, "I see a door."
I sob, and sit up to throw myself into his arms; he is warm around me like a midsummer's day, like sanctuary.
A/N: These are the meanings of the two flowers that Kurogane brought.
A single, dark red rose: Mourning (dark red roses) I love you, I still love you (a single stalk)
White primroses: I can't live without you.
If you haven't realized by now, what happened is that Fai is killed when someone is looking for a very important set of documents in their apartment. Kurogane is a government man, and this guy wants that briefcase really bad. Yuui goes mad, and is put into a very fancy psychiatric ward that is nothing like a real psychiatric ward. I do realize that when mad people don't see only white; that's just a metaphor for Yuui's madness. I haven't been mad so I don't think I can actually write a very accurate portrayal of madness to begin with. By the way, I didn't say in the text, but the white primroses were supposed to be for Valentine's Day. And also, I haven't edited this at all, because I can't stand to look at it. I hate how ugly the text looks, it's all short and with way too many line breaks. Well whatever, I'm not going to whine about it here. Lastly, I haven't written in this style before—if you've read Burning Witches then you should know—so I could really use some feedback. In other words, REVIEW!