A/N: Anyone who has seen Chobits knows Kaede's fate. She dies, people.
Yes, CLAMP kills her. Get over it. ^_^ However, it gives delightful
opportunities for SxK angst.
The Second Funeral
The day of her funeral, I stood in the back with all of her family around me. It was her brother that held her portrait, wreathed in black, his small form looking awkward in a too-large black suit. His dark hair fell into his eyes.
When I approached him, I towered over him so that I had to kneel to speak to him. I looked him in the eyes and tried to smile. "Hello, Minoru-kun. My name is Jounouchi Sai. Do you remember me?.. I went to school with K.. with her."
He looked up at me for a moment. "Thank you for coming, Jounouchi-san." His voice was so steady, but his hands were noticeably shaky on the wooden frame of the portrait. I didn't look at it, though. To see her beaming so calmly there-it wasn't quite right. That "healing smile" reserved only for the Layer and the people that she cared about.. It seemed wrong to be here at her funeral as well. Smiles can't heal everything.
I straightened up, aware that it was my time to say something about her. Something soothing. Something that would make Minoru-kun's eyes less shattered, somehow. Instead, my words were flat and icy and they sounded so wrong even to my own ears. "I liked her very much." I couldn't bring myself to say more than that. Even here, near her casket, near her body, I couldn't say my real feelings. The smothering blanket of death and sorrow over the entire company, the one that smelled and tasted and felt so damn familiar-it choked my words before they could even be born. So all I could say was "like."
I knelt to Minoru and his parents, and bowed, and then turned to the coffin of the girl I had loved, and bowed again. I placed my hands prayerfully in front of me. I tried to think of something to say. "Kaede.. san.." I belatedly added the honorific, conscious of a thousand eyes upon me. "I.." More eyes. Her mother, her grandmother, and her brother were all staring at me. Sweat poured down the back of my neck. "In life, I told you so many things of how I felt. You were everything to me."
There weren't any gasps or shocked sounds. Only silence. I rose to gaze into the casket, into her face. Her glasses were off, tucked within her small hand. And her expression was tired. I turned away then, pressing my hand fiercely into my face, and stifled back the sobs that had refused to come even at Lin's funeral.
The Second Funeral
The day of her funeral, I stood in the back with all of her family around me. It was her brother that held her portrait, wreathed in black, his small form looking awkward in a too-large black suit. His dark hair fell into his eyes.
When I approached him, I towered over him so that I had to kneel to speak to him. I looked him in the eyes and tried to smile. "Hello, Minoru-kun. My name is Jounouchi Sai. Do you remember me?.. I went to school with K.. with her."
He looked up at me for a moment. "Thank you for coming, Jounouchi-san." His voice was so steady, but his hands were noticeably shaky on the wooden frame of the portrait. I didn't look at it, though. To see her beaming so calmly there-it wasn't quite right. That "healing smile" reserved only for the Layer and the people that she cared about.. It seemed wrong to be here at her funeral as well. Smiles can't heal everything.
I straightened up, aware that it was my time to say something about her. Something soothing. Something that would make Minoru-kun's eyes less shattered, somehow. Instead, my words were flat and icy and they sounded so wrong even to my own ears. "I liked her very much." I couldn't bring myself to say more than that. Even here, near her casket, near her body, I couldn't say my real feelings. The smothering blanket of death and sorrow over the entire company, the one that smelled and tasted and felt so damn familiar-it choked my words before they could even be born. So all I could say was "like."
I knelt to Minoru and his parents, and bowed, and then turned to the coffin of the girl I had loved, and bowed again. I placed my hands prayerfully in front of me. I tried to think of something to say. "Kaede.. san.." I belatedly added the honorific, conscious of a thousand eyes upon me. "I.." More eyes. Her mother, her grandmother, and her brother were all staring at me. Sweat poured down the back of my neck. "In life, I told you so many things of how I felt. You were everything to me."
There weren't any gasps or shocked sounds. Only silence. I rose to gaze into the casket, into her face. Her glasses were off, tucked within her small hand. And her expression was tired. I turned away then, pressing my hand fiercely into my face, and stifled back the sobs that had refused to come even at Lin's funeral.
