there is a vacancy in my heart
. .
Life is an ocean and he's sailing along without a breeze.
One-sided YuriRita. Rita-centric.
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(notes: Not entirely sure where this came from, but I'm kind of fond of it. As I was writing it, I did discover the song "For You" by Angus and Julia Stone, which served as pretty decent background music as I wrote pieces of it. Very lovely song, I recommend possibly listening to it as you read. Also, I'm incredibly sorry for crowding up the forum with my junk. Ahem. Anyways, enjoy.)
disclaimed.
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He tells her, once, that he loves her.
Of course, he says it in a brotherly fashion, with his arm swung tightly around her shoulders and the knuckles of his other hand rubbing over (and ruining) her scraggly hair. He tells her as she's kicking and yelling curse words and threatening to end his life if he doesn't let go, says it with this easy laugh and this giant grin; "I love you, squirt."
She turns red and tears herself from his grasp, sputtering nonsense, calling him things that she doesn't and would never mean. He grins lazily, easygoing; life is an ocean and he's sailing along without a breeze, watching the fish swim under the bow, gazing upwards as the clouds trudge through blue skies.
She's always envied this about him. That he doesn't seem to have a single care in the world. That he acts as if there is no such thing as blastia or guilds or monsters, that justice to him is just a word, that evil is just a myth. That he can laugh and pretend to be happy even when everything is hopeless. That he's still growing up at twenty-one and she's been an adult since thirteen.
She doesn't say so.
. .
Sometimes, she gives in and allows herself to pretend she hasn't become calloused and angry and bitter about the world. She disconnects herself from Brave Vesperia and the things she can't change and goes outside of the inn to pick dandelions and blow the seeds off of them, hoping the wind will catch them and send them off to other worlds.
She knows it's stupid to compare herself to a weed, but she sometimes fantasizes that she is one of the seeds, drifting away from home and beginning something different, starting anew. Planting herself in a separate universe and exploring places she's never seen or even looked for.
There are times that he follows her out, joins her in the grass and plucks pebbles from the dirt. Sometimes they talk. Most of the time, they're silent, embedded in their own thoughts.
He stands up to leave, brushing the dirt off of his legs and his hands. He leans over and kisses the top of her head, murmuring, "Don't stay up too late, little girl. We all know how grouchy you get when you're tired."
With that, he returns to the inn and catch up on the sleep she knows he doesn't always get.
She knows she's not getting any sleep tonight.
. .
When she feels especially hopeless, she talks to Estelle, though she dances around questions and skirts around giving answers. She's afraid of being honest, of admitting to herself that there is something about him that stirs her heart and turns her cheeks red and makes her palms sweat. Honesty has never been her strong suit; in fact, she takes extra care not to open up to anyone, to ensure her past remains a mystery, to make it impossible for others to worry about her.
"Rita," Estelle says softly. Her green eyes have zeroed in on her, reading her with determined intensity. Estelle isn't intimidating by any means, but something about her eyes always manages to seem scary, "What did you really come here to talk about?"
The mage sighs, fiddling with the bows on the tops of her socks. She wants to sink into the floor and disappear, fly away on a dandelion seed. She doesn't want to talk about it; she doesn't want Estelle to know that she has weaknesses that far exceed her strengths. She doesn't want to trust anyone enough with who she is, who she has been all this time. She wants to run away, hide behind her walls - and she knows with every bone in her body that it is a cowardly thing to do, but it doesn't change its ferocity.
"Eh, nothing important," she says with a roll of her shoulders. She wishes she could tell Estelle everything. She wishes she could admit that she's hurting, that she's jealous of how he looks at Estelle, that she's scared of these feelings because she's never had her heart broken before and she doesn't want to know what it's like.
She wishes she could say all of these things, but Estelle has already accepted her answer with a defeated sigh. Estelle smiles at her, says, "I'll wait until you're ready, then," in the voice of an angel and Rita nods, wondering if she'll ever truly be ready.
. .
She gives up one day.
There are no dandelions growing in Dahngrest, no places to escape the leering faces of broken men and women, no far away world she can pretend to visit. She is stuck in her reality, everyone sleeping in rooms beside her, no chance of losing herself in the pages of a spell book.
She blinks, desperate to keep her tears at bay. Desperate to keep pretending that everything is okay, that she is home by being with Brave Vesperia, that she doesn't miss Aspio and the stacks of books and unfinished, messy formulas, that she doesn't need someone to hold her hand or let her cry on their shoulder. The tears fall and she wipes at them angrily with the back of her hand, but suddenly her shoulders are heaving and her lungs are burning and she's sobbing so loudly that it racks her entire body, makes her ribcage vibrate.
She's such a child, she thinks swallowing to ease the soreness of her throat as she climbs out of her bed and tiptoes into the hallway, searching for his room. Repede lies outside of his door, his faithful companion, and he perks when he hears her coming closer to the room.
She halfway expects him to growl, and she tenses, suddenly afraid that Repede will judge her, too. That the dog will see her as a pathetic, little girl that isn't strong enough to do this. Instead, he stares at her for a long moment and then lies his head back on his paws. She takes this as permission to enter the room.
As she clicks the door shut behind her she sees a figure in the bed shift. A light turns on and floods the room in an orange glow, and she stands awkwardly, framed by the door, as Yuri gives her a peculiar look. She wonders if he knows that she's been crying, if he can see the tear stains on her cheeks from so far away. She wonders if he knows that she's in his room because he is the only one she feels completely safe with, the only person that keeps the inside of her body warm.
"Well, come on," Yuri says after a moment with a soft smile. He moves to one side of the bed and pats the spot beside him. She isn't sure that she wants to take him up on this offer; she's treading dangerous waters, being this close to him. "Rita," he says, dark eyes trained on her shaking body. Rita blinks and two tears roll down her cheeks. She sniffles, taking a wobbly step forward and almost collapsing under a metaphorical weight on her shoulders.
In a moment he's by her side; she sinks to her knees and he follows, holding her to his chest, petting her hair and resting his chin on her crown. She buries her face in his shirt, fisting the cotton viciously in her hands, stretching the material. He shushes her with quiet whispers of stories from his childhood, with his fingertips brushing hair behind her ears, with his lips on her temple in chaste, reassuring kisses.
She pretends, in that moment, that he loves her. That he would do this every night if it meant she would be alright in the morning, that she is his entire universe, that he lives and breathes and keeps his heart beating just for her.
She knows that he doesn't.
. .
"You've been staring at him a lot, lately." Judith places her elbows on the railing of the patio and smiles fondly at the boys in the garden a few feet below, playing frisbee with Repede. Rita bristles, glaring at the Krityan woman, though is too tired to mumble much more than a shut up. "Oh, don't be like that. Yuri is very handsome." Judith rests her chin on her hands, "I think it's sweet."
"Yeah, well," Rita spits, "No one asked you." She fights down her blush and tilts her head downwards so her hair covers her face. Below, the disk flies towards Karol and he yelps, ducking as it whizzes over his head and into Repede's mouth.
"Nice catch, Repede!" Yuri calls with a laugh, running to the dog and patting the top of his head. He removes the frisbee from his teeth and throws it to Raven, who had been waving his arms wildly for it a few feet away. Rita's eyes remain on Yuri, counting his footsteps, admiring the glow of his hair.
"You're not helping yourself," Judith tells her. She is facing Rita with a quirked brow, an amused smile on her pouty lips, "Pining like you are only makes your heart hurt."
. .
Raven mistakenly leaves his canteen open on the ground beside his sleeping bag before he falls asleep, his snoring so impossibly loud that Rita cannot even close her eyes. She rolls out of her bedding and stomps over to him, fully intent on kicking him in the shin until he awakens, but spots the canteen out of the corner of her eye, tipped onto its side and dribbling water onto the ground.
"Stupid old man," she grumbles, picking up the canteen and starting to return the cap to the top when she catches a whiff of something strong. She blinks, lifting the canteen to her nose and smelling it - she nearly chokes, the smell of alcohol so strong that it causes tears to spring into her eyes. She is close to pouring the rest of it out to spite Raven, but suddenly - suddenly the canteen is to her lips and she's drinking its contents.
Her insides burn, needles pricking her esophagus and her skin; it disappears almost all at once, leaves her insides fuzzy and heated. She blinks lazily, cheeks pink now, mind blurring around the edges. She isn't sure that she likes this; she can't think straight and she's never had that problem, but. But maybe not thinking right now is for the best. She doesn't even remember why she has the canteen in her hand, just knows that she wants more, wants to drink so much that she doesn't even know who she is, wants to drink until she's a dandelion seed in a different continent.
She staggers back to her sleeping bag and plops down heavily. She has just lifted the canteen to her lips for a second time when a hand reaches over her head and plucks it easily from her unsuspecting grasp. She is suddenly overcome with rage, and she stands up too quickly and nearly topples over; an arm catches her and she knows who it is, could recognize his hands and his smell from miles away, could pick out his face in a group of a thousand identical people.
"What're you - give that back, you - you asshole!" Rita cries, words coming out brokenly, disconnected. She has never had trouble formulating a sentence before, "It's not - it isn't yours!"
"You're too young to be drinking," Yuri tells her sternly, still holding her waist with one arm, "What the hell do you think you're doing, taking people's things?" He asks. He sounds upset. Not angry, but disappointed, like a father, an older brother. He's treating her like a child. Her anger boils over and she shoves his chest, disentangling herself from him.
"You can't tell me what to do!" She screams; she's sure she's woken up their counterparts, but the sensible thought is so far in the back of her mind that she doesn't acknowledge it as more than a passing thought, "You're not my dad! You - You treat me like a kid, and I'm not, I'm more grown-up than you, you bastard!" Rita is crying now, tears hot on her already too-warm cheeks. The world seems to be spinning like a whirlpool and Rita can't get off her sinking ship. "Wha - What am I to you? Huh? A little sister? A child? Answer me!"
She maintains her glare on Yuri, but can see the others from the corners of her eyes. She feels a delicate hand on her shoulder, a breathless whisper of her name, "Rita, please...Calm down," Estelle's voice says, but she rips her shoulder away, feeling leaded and used and sick. She thinks she's moving around too much; her stomach churns unsteadily, and she feels bile rising into her throat, mimicking illness.
Yuri gazes guiltily at the girl that Rita had just pushed away, which only suffices in making her even more angry.
"Stop looking at Estelle! I'm talking to you! Don't - Don't you see me? Don't you notice me?" Rita asks, voice cracking, "Yuri, you bastard...!" She is losing her determination to yell; she feels weak, weaker than she's ever felt before in her life. She wants to sink to her knees and have him hold her like he did a few nights ago, murmur nothings into her ear. She has too much pride in this moment, even intoxicated, to do so.
"Rita," he says, not moving to touch her, "I - I'm sorry," he whispers. His mouth remains opened, slightly, for just a moment, as though he has something more to say. He closes it and swallows thickly, averting his gaze to the ground as though ashamed.
Good, Rita thinks, let him be ashamed. She relents and drops to her knees, pleased with her cruel win, and passes out as Yuri allows what's left of Raven's canteen to spill onto the ground at his feet.
. .
He doesn't speak with her for three days, and she is so humiliated she can't even bring herself to care. She goes around in a numbed state, defeating monsters without a blink of an eye, unable to make herself eat more than a couple bites per meal, refusing eye-contact with any of her companions.
Finally, on the fourth when he's keeping watch, he approaches her after everyone else falls asleep and she is clutching her knees protectively to her chest, tired but afraid to rest. She lifts her chin from her arms for a brief moment to look at him as he sits down Indian-style next to her, then lets out a deep breath and buries her face into the opening between her knees and chest.
He places his hand on her back, draws circles with his fingers, writes words that she isn't sure she can decipher into her shirt.
"I do love you," he finally says with a sigh, "You're more important to me than a lot of people."
She lifts her face from her hands and shrugs her shoulders, implying for him to move his hand. He does so, placing it on his ankle, instead. She finally meets his gaze after a difficult internal argument of whether she should tell the truth or let it go, to let it fly away like a dandelion seed.
"I didn't mean to say those things," she murmurs, embarrassed, "I didn't want you to know."
He smiles at her, "Aw, come on, Rita. You having a little crush on me is cute." He wrinkles his nose as he grins, "But, uh, there's definitely a difference in age, here," Yuri gestures between them, "And, look, we wouldn't make a great match, anyways. What you said is true: you're miles ahead of me in maturity."
Rita smiles weakly, shaking her head, "I'm an idiot."
Yuri returns his hand to the base of her neck, messaging the skin there, "No, you're not. I probably ended up leading you on, in a way. I'm comfortable with you, and I think of you as a sister, so...I mean, constantly kissing your forehead probably wasn't sending you a clear signal, and for that, I'm sorry."
"Yuri - I knew what signals you were sending," Rita tells him with a cocked brow, "I just pretended they were different." She breathes deeply through her nose, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and laughing a little, "I don't think I would have ever told you this if the old man hadn't left his canteen out."
"In a weird, cosmic way his drinking problems have actually helped us." Yuri and Rita both laugh at this, Yuri swinging an arm around her shoulders. She leans into him, staring across the horizon, mapping the stars out in her mind's eye.
"Hey - " Yuri says, leaning forward slightly to pick something up from the ground. Rita watches him curiously, and he plucks a dandelion from the ground. He holds it to her. "Make a wish," he says with a smile.
Rita gingerly pulls it from his fingertips and closes her eyes. She wishes for courage. She wishes to be honest with herself. She wishes for happier times and to see the ocean again. Most importantly, she wishes for the seeds to fly to another universe; a distant galaxy, another life where she and him are in love.
The breeze catches them. They watch as they fade away into the distance.
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fin.