The Other Half

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Disclaimer: I do not own Loveless or its characters.

"Where are you, master?" he heard in his head.

Ritsuka woke up abruptly in his dorm room in the middle of the night (2:30AM). He felt like something was tugging at him in his mind and through his heart. His heart ached painfully, making his breath ragged and desperate. He tried to take a breath but found that he couldn't as if he were suffocating. The blood in his ears was pounding.

Then another tug at his chest, this time more powerful than the first and causing his head to ring. It felt like it was pulling him towards his window but he couldn't get up, let alone walk to it. The temperature was noticeably cold in the room for a Japanese summer, bordering the winter temperatures. He felt the chill all the way down to his bones and thought that he must be dying.

Dying…! Soubi!

Was he dying?! He didn't know and he had to tell someone quick. Ristuka tried to move a hand towards his cellphone on the charger on his night table but his fingers felt like brittle pieces of ice. What was going on? He was sure that everything was normal before he went to sleep. Don't panic, he thought.

There was another tug like it was trying to rip his heart out of his chest, this time painful and searing hot and making him want to scream but he couldn't. Then another tug strong painful tug that had manifested itself into a force and this one had him crashing unto the night table and to the floor. The night lamp's glass broke and his cellphone fell down to the ground in front of his face. He still couldn't move but he could breathe again and when he saw his breath, he saw a thick cloud of vapour. Another tug at his heart and he screamed in pain from the burn.

Adrenaline pumping, he used herculean effort to move his hand to the phone and push the speed-dial code for Soubi. As it rang, Ritsuka could feel another painful tug and prepared for the pain but this one was beyond comparison, even with his spell battles with Soubi, with the previous ones. He screamed as if knifes were cutting him open at his muscles and tendons and especially his heart. After that, he blacked out.

-

Soubi answered the phone wearily wondering who would dare call him at this hour. He hoped it was important or it was Ritsuka. He looked at the caller ID and it was.

"Yes, Ritsuka?"

There was a scream at the other end and then some deep raggedy breathing.

"Ritsuka?" this got Soubi sitting straight up in an instant. He heard mumbles but no answers, "Ritsuka?!" By then he was starting to get up from bed and reach for a suitable pair of pants and shirt.

"It hurts…help…it's cold…" he heard some whining, but it became clear that he was sobbing and crying.

"Ritsuka, stay on the line. I'm coming," he said urgently.

Soubi got into his car and started the ignition. He sped down streets hoping that nothing would happen to his master on his way.

-

Ritsuka was found laying face-down on his floor when Soubi got in. the first thing he did was reach for him but all he felt was an electric shock comparable to a hard kick in the chest which had him on the floor in an instant. Soubi got on all fours and with a shaking hand, he reached for Ritsuka again. There was another shock but it was like dipping his hand in freezing water. The temperature was horrifyingly cold and he wondered what was going on. 'Who had attacked his master in his sleep?' was his first thought.

Was there a pair that was trying to secretly attack his Ritsuka? Why?

Soubi opened his senses and tried to see if there was a spell at work and what was its source. He felt the pressure of several pairs but none of them were active. He opened his senses further but jumped when Ritsuka screamed.

-

Ritsuka's mind whirled violently like a hurricane, his brain pelted with images, sounds and emotions that he was sure were not his.

An image of a downhill street that overlooked a town whizzed by him. He felt that he knew that there would be a convenience store if he walked down the street to the corner where he could buy mango nectar, shrimp chips and Cracker Nuts, adobo flavour especially.

The word 'Sparky' materialized in his mind in English letters. Then the image of a stormy night at a beach with a dog and a hooded figure pulling him somewhere.

"I don't know if you're going to be collected, dear," it was an unfamiliar man's voice who spoke in his mind.

"Do you want to be collected?" this one was a woman and there were sounds of metal clanging together.

"No, I don't want to be collected," a third girlish voice said.

"You don't sound like you don't want to be collected, O-chan. Are you sure?" this one was a teenage boy, "You never know, he or she might come."

Then there was this niggling feeling that he wished it was a boy. He heard a dog barking and then blanked out.

-

Ritsuka screamed again but he awoke this time clutching his chest in pain.

"Ritsuka!" Soubi shouted. He had determined that there was a spell of some sort on Ritsuka but those shocks to him and the way Ritsuka shrieked rung painfully in his ears making it impossible for him to think. Ristuka sobbed trying to take a deep breath.

"It hurts…" he whimpered into the floor, "Please stop…"

Soubi reached for him resisting the shocks that manifested itself as blue electricity. It felt like cold burns but he ignored the pain and tried to reach for his boy master. His hand started to burn and swell but screw his pain, his master looked like he was fairing worst. Using his unparalleled concentration, he summoned all his love for him to remind him of his purpose to protect Ritsuka.

Ritsuka screamed at one more tug at his chest and then silence. The pain was gone and warmth spread through his body. He breathed deeply, his throat dry and hoarse, and rolled over. Soubi!

"Soubi…your hand…" Ritsuka tried to move to Soubi who was on the floor clutching his bloodied hand. He failed miserably as he found he was too tired. He was weak and his body was trying to recover.

-

Hospitals...Soubi hated them but every now and then, he had to admit that even with all his experiences bandaging his wounds, he wasn't cut out for burns. Let alone the ones on his hand now. Soubi had second-degree burns all over his hand now and the doctor was baffled at how he got them from touching a lit stove so blatantly this late at night. Why was the stove even on?

Ritsuka sat off in the corner looking at his folded hands.

"Ritsuka," Soubi said. At that, the boy looked up, obviously miserable. He looked like he had run a marathon. Soubi flashed him a dazzling smile and said, "Everything's all right for now," he showed up his bandaged hand. Inwardly, Soubi's mind was at work trying to figure out what had just happened a half of an hour ago. There was a spell obviously but none that he had ever seen before.

"Soubi, I heard things…weird things when I was—" Ritsuka immediately stopped talking when Soubi put his hand up making a silencing motion.

"Not here," he whispered just in time before the doctor came back with his prescription for drugs and ointment.

"Agamatsu-san, no matter you said happened tonight, you're lucky that you didn't…" the doctor rambled on.

-

That very morning, around a time that students should be getting ready to go to school, a household in Chigasaki was dealing with their own crisis. Kei knocked on her daughter's bedroom door and said, "O-gín, it's time to go. Papa is already in the car. Are you ready?" Kei was like any typical Japanese women, she had shoulder-length jet-black hair, a slightly tanned complexion and black-brown eyes although she was fairly tall.

"No, Okaasan."

"What do you mean 'no'? O-gín, what's going on? How much longer will you take?"

"I don't want to go to school right now."

Kei sighed and finally decided that she could go into her daughter's room feeling that something was wrong. Her daughter was still curled up tightly in her bed despite the time.

"O-gín, get up. What's wrong with you? I know it's Monday but honestly…" Kei started to go through her daughter's closet to pick out a quick outfit but decided against that knowing her daughter would not accept the clothes she touched.

"Mama," O-gín rarely used that word to address her mother but when she did, it came with great bursts of emotion, "Am I ever going to be collected?

Kei let her hands fall to her side knowing that she was going to have the same conversation again as they have been doing for the last several months. She leaned against a dresser. "This all depends on you, baby. If you truly want it, I would think that you would call to him through your thread."

"What if he can't hear me?"

"Baby, have you been trying to call him?!" Kei could've almost gasped from this news.

"I don't know. I think I am? In my sleep. I see flashes of memories that aren't mind and so it leads me to believe that maybe they're his. Okaasan, my head is pounding and I'm sore all over."

"Oh dear…" Kei repeated panicky. This certainly broke her plans to bake bread today.

"Hey, is she coming down for school, darling?"

"No," Kei yelled down the stairs to her husband on a native spouse Visa, "She's not doing great right now."

"Is she sick? What's she got? Gastro from the KFC, again?"

"Tell 'em that she's having a slight meltdown." Kei yelled out the door.

"Again?" There was a long pause and then, "I'm gonna start going to work now. I'll call at lunch. Bye."

"Bye, darling." Kei thought for a minute about what she was going to do. "Have you taken a shower yet?"

"No. May I have a bath? I hurt."

"Oh, sure, go take one. Then get dress and have some breakfast downstairs, okay? We're going grocery shopping for a bit." Kei waited at the door for an answer.

"Yes, Okaasan."

"Good."

Just when Kei was about to close the door, O-gín said tiredly, "Okaasan, could I have an aspirin and a glass of water?"

"Of course."

Latter Note: I'm posting this just to see what the reactions are. I haven't visited the Loveless fandom in a long time and haven't read after volume 7 (Tokyopop) so I have no idea what's going on. I wrote this almost a year ago and thought that this was pretty good.

Originally, O-gin was supposed to be a child with Asperger syndrome or savant syndrome which explains her 'loose' parents and attitude. As you can guess, she supposed to be the Loveless fighter unit. Kei was also supposed to be an avid baker.

I'm not sure if I should continue this. Any ideas?