Summary: It's always hard to determine who's the aggressor, who's to blame-and in this world of half-truths and smooth eyes it's nearly impossible. dark!Kaito x Aoko-or is it the other way around? (You decide.)
AN: Written as an experiment-if you want to read something deeper into it, that's your own decision, but please no flames. (Read: I don't endorse this type of thing in real life so please don't write angry messages. Yes, they are a bit OOC. Yes, that is intentional.) Italicized lyrics belong to Red's "Darkest Part."
Also, this is Part 1 of a possible two-parter, which depends on whether or not anyone is interested in reading something in a similar vein but from Kaito's perspective. If you are, please let me know!
oOo
So afraid to be alone
I tried to let you go
Still I find you lost inside the darkest part of me
oOo
"I've never understood you."
He stops, dark brown hair, blue eyes turned away so she can't see them but she knows they're there. (And that's as well, because if she's already crying now she'll break under his calm gaze.)
"How do you-how do you do it all? I-" I can never keep up with you. I feel like I'm running out of witty things to say. You've heard all my jokes.
"You take too long," he says curtly, and leaves.
oOo
You take too long.
Graduation passes in a blur of papers and emotions, mothers with tight frown wrinkles smoothed under layer upon layer of foundation and sons awkwardly tripping under the gaze of so many distant relatives.
Kaito's going to Todai, her classmates say. Full scholarship.
Alright, thinks Aoko, and it is for a while. She'll walk around the hole, dangle her legs in it at first, and eventually it's been there so long that she forgets it's there and the pain becomes numb and she's somehow glad for it, because how else would she learn how to cry?
(If she were musical she'd write amazing songs and earn millions of dollars, but she's neither poetic nor patient.)
She'll be in the middle of a yoga stretch, or halfway through putting on one shoe, or at her computer searching for something interesting to spend the rest of the days, and then-You take too long.
What, thinks Aoko sometimes. It's insulting that he won't-can't-won't wait for her. But was he ever there? And since when was her need for time a requirement or something that wasn't natural, wasn't obligatory?
Her friends come up to her, say they're taking her out to go clubbing, because it's horrifying to see such a pretty face with a broken heart. To which Aoko replies and thinks, No, it's not broken, because it doesn't hurt that he (maybe somewhere somehow) doesn't want her; what hurts is that he's let her go.
oOo
Make no mistake, Aoko knows exactly what he means. Meant. You take too long, in that she doesn't ever respond within the first thirty minutes, in that she makes him call four times before she'll pick up. That, she can understand, because that's her own insecurity, her own fear of becoming mundane and no longer a conquest and thus he'll lose interest.
You take too long, in that she hasn't welcomed him back with open arms, however, just makes her downright furious. But it's good that Aoko knows him so well, because she's a die-hard feminist and there's no way he would mean it in that way. He's just bitter, and cold, and empty.
Like her.
oOo
"Get out here. Now."
Ten minutes later he shows up dutifully in front of her house, sneakers scraping pavement. "I thought we said goodbye."
"You did. But I never got to say anything."
He says nothing, hands in his old sweatshirt pockets, the strings uneven and rising and falling in time with his slow, measured breaths, and Aoko has a strange sudden urge to check if his heartbeat is the same hollow rhythm as hers. Then, finally: "I asked you if it would break you if you didn't get into Todai. Did it?"
"No. Your asking me did."
"What do you want?"
"My life."
There's a beat as she waits for a response and receives none. The lack of curiosity in his eyes infuriates her. "I want my life back, you manipulative bastard, my life and my mental health."
(It's like a scene from a drama, really-she advances slowly. But he doesn't even meet her gaze.)
"You wouldn't need it back if you didn't leave it open to take," he says, with a hint of steel.
God, he's disgusting. She wants to break him.
She slaps him in the face, wrenches his hair, pulls him so close he can't help but look at her. Feels his breath on her cold lips, on the shadow of her cheek, and nothing but contempt and hate.
He kisses her.
oOo
"If it hurts, I'm doing something right," he says with a low laugh that turns into one of pain when she knees him in the stomach, drags her nails over his wrist when he won't let her go.
"You're sick."
"Would you like to heal me?" Fingers in her hair, and when he kisses her again she bites down and leaves with his blood on her lips.
oOo
"Is he still bothering you?" says Saguru, watching Kaito, who's sitting on the other side of the fence as usual, eyes dark.
"He won't even look at me," she says, and it's true.
"You need to get away, Aoko-san. It's too big of a deal for you to handle." Shoots her a soft glance, swallows determinately. "Report him."
"He was my friend." He's an angel to everyone else, he's the poster child for success, the truth is whatever he chooses to say, she does not say, but Saguru knows that she's always lying when she's talking to him, and leaves her in peace.
When she turns to go in he's still sitting on that fence, still miles and miles away. "I've never affected you," she says.
He doesn't move.
oOo
She makes it to the two-week mark this time before she's on his doorstep again. "I hate you," she says, to a white-pressed T-shirt and long magician's fingers. "I wish we never met."
He starts, eyes wide with laughter, and shuts the door in her face.
oOo
She only ever hears him talking about her once.
"The Nakamori girl?" he says smoothly, eyes focused over her head, over the shoulder of their old classmate Akira-kun, who wasn't around for the fiasco and thus doesn't know that none of them are the same. "One of my stalkers. I never reply to her."
Aoko doesn't wait for Akira-kun to respond, and Kaito lets her catch him.
Despite Akira's best efforts, she leaves with bloodied fists.
oOo
"I'm sure I don't need to say this, but you are in the definition of a 'toxic relationship,'" says Katsumi-chan, who's studying to be a psychiatrist and thus has jurisdiction over all the unfortunate souls within a 20-mile radius.
Aoko, who's learned that Katsumi goes away if you just let her ramble on and assume she's got it all down, doesn't let her pencil stop, draws rows and rows of sunflowers and bumblebees and little chirping birds on the clear wrapping paper. Wonders if she should be annoyed at the loud slurping noises Katsumi's straw makes as she finishes the last of her cappuccino. It's sacrilegious, really, a straw for coffee? Might as well switch it out for a brain-freezing smoothie, sweetness that doesn't go away even if you swallow.
"...Aoko-chan, what I don't understand is why you don't just tell him to leave you alone. You're definitely not some shy little damsel-in-distress, and if you didn't want to you could just tell Hakuba-kun. He's-God, Aoko, he's like a twisted version of a stalker-"
"And who would believe me?"
A pause. "Me."
"Do you believe me, or would you just like to pretend it's true so that you'll have an interesting case study for your thesis?"
"Aoko-chan, this is called 'denial'-you don't need a degree for that. Just tell him-"
"He's already left me alone," says Aoko. In more ways than one. She pulls out her wallet, pays for both of them, and walks out tasting not the iced tea she had ordered but a nauseating self-contempt.
oOo
She calls him that night. "Get out," she says, and hangs up.
But I have nowhere to go, he says in her mind, those damned eyes smirking.
It's not even thirty seconds before he calls back. "I think it's adorable how you feel the need to profess your profound hatred for me," he says liltingly. Oh, what a beautiful forecast we have today in Tokyo-in the high 70s all afternoon long, with a few showers next Monday. "See you in five."
oOo
She hates him for a simple reason, really: he brings out the worst in her, reminds her that he can see it all, and invite the world in to watch, for good measure. I know you can't really live up to your ideals, he says, I know you still love me.
He comes lightly, black sweatshirt dark but not menacing, eyes piercing and for a second she sees him as she used to.
"What do you want?" she says, but no distance she keeps will ever be enough.
There's a pause as she sees him ruffle through his list of pre-prepared answers for whichever one that she'll hate the most. "Whatever you don't," he says, but he's made the mistake of looking at her.
"You're faltering, Kaito. I thought you could do better than that."
"How about this, then? I also think it's adorable how you hate me but still call me by my name."
"You never answered my qu-"
"When have I ever?" he says, dodges gracefully as her hand automatically comes up. "Oh, Aoko."
"Don't." All of a sudden the power's gone away, and the tears are coming again for the first time in half a year.
"Aoko. Are you crying?"
"I said don't-"
He pulls her in, forces her to cry on his shoulder. "I never wanted to hurt you."
"You're such a good liar."
A beat.
"I know," he says, all pride and Kid-like arrogance. "I know."
oOo
Hate is not the polar opposite of love.
This is why, when Kaito has just met some poor unfortunate soul and is charming them to bits and pieces, Aoko feels a somewhat cowardly urge to just end it all, maybe with flames, maybe not. But of course she'll never act on it. It's one of those old forgotten band-aids that pretend to cover gaping wounds, frayed and yellowed, leaving sticky gray residue that never washes off.
On a whim she auditions for Keio's fall talent show, debating between a ballad and an upbeat dance tune for weeks. On the one hand, the dance tune will make her popular-might even get her a contract, if her skirt is short enough. On the other, the ballad will make her cry her heart out.
(Don't I deserve the catharsis? she asks.
You've never deserved anything, says Kaito's voice, not even what I give to you.)
The day before the audition finds Aoko in a trance before the long-dysfunctional TV, her haggard face reflected in the dark screen, nails ragged and bloody. "I deserve to be happy," she says, then repeats it, louder this time. "I deserve it." Snatches up the pop tune, scrambles out the door, breathing heavy, then rushes back and switches it for the other one.
Oh Aoko, says Kaito again, shaking his head. You're happiest when you're with me.
oOo
The weather is unusually nice the day she gives up. Unfailingly nice. Offensively nice-it should be hailing, what with the temperature she feels inside, storming at the very least. Sheets of rain battering the castle walls, overflowing the moat, choking even the alligators. But then again, she's never believed in fairytales. Not anymore.
Kaito comes strolling in, beams of sun hitting his jawline in just the right way, and in this light it's hard to imagine that he wishes her harm. Hard to imagine that he's anything but that little boy she once knew, her spontaneous best friend.
(No, not hard to imagine. Hard to remember.)
What do you want? hangs unsaid in the air as he smiles bright and wide, pulling out her chair for her with a flourish. "M'lady," he winks, and Aoko knows it hasn't really been a year-he's been with her all along.
As is typical of the real Kaito, he isn't in a hurry, and thus is immune to the fact that Aoko's chest has been constricting since she woke up several weeks ago. That she no longer hears her heartbeat but a dull, throbbing focus, that no amount of air will ever make her okay. He's immune, alright, because Aoko refuses to believe the other possibility. He's not that cruel. (Is he?)
She sits there for what seems like ages, watches as he looks through her without seeing. He must have ordered something, hence the two cups of coffee in front of them, but all she knows is his eyes and the barking of the labrador in the background and the cool, hard, serrated arm of the chair beneath her elbow, chafing and unpleasant. I need some lotion, a scattered part of her thinks, and Kaito raises his eyebrows.
"We aren't in a shopping mall," he says laughingly, and Aoko's torn between mortification and wonder and self-loathing. How can you find him attractive, she screams, how? How? How?
She knows he's reading her, but he's irritatingly passive once more, and suddenly the silence is deafening. She wants him to say something for once. Ask her if she's ever going to get started. Laugh at her ambitions. Laugh and let her hit him once more, stand there coldly as she runs away.
Something snaps.
"Back then," she says, "you said I took too long."
He nods exaggeratedly, waving a hand carelessly up and down. "Way too long."
"What would you have done differently?"
"Everything."
"Kaito-"
"It wouldn't be fun if I gave you all the answers, would it?" He smiles gently, folds his napkin into a crane that he pushes over to her. The contrast between his actions and his words makes her shudder.
"You're not having fun," she tries, and hedges on her last belief that he cares for her. "Because I'm not either."
"And so you know again." Again with the cool smile, the raised eyebrow, the look that haunts her, that admonishes her day and night.
"Why are you doing this to me? You-"
"Do what?" he says sharply, sitting up straight. "I haven't-"
"That's precisely it," she seethes, buoyed on a cloud of directionless anger, "THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I MEAN." Ihateyouihateyouihateyou.
He has the audacity to gape at her, runs frustrated fingers through his hair. "Aoko, I don't know if this has slipped your mind, but we really haven't been in contact. I haven't been stalking you, I've never tried to call you-"
"And yet you come every time I ask, but you leave whenever you want. You say you're listening to me but you just go on and on and on. You wait until I'm alone and then you-I hate this, I can't. You smile, you laugh, you let me hit you, and just when I'm starting to believe you go and pull the rug. I-I-" she swallows, voice hoarse and hysterical. "Can't you just let me go?"
Kaito's silent, and for a rare moment she thinks she sees genuine shock and anger. Then it passes into the lazy apathy she knows so well. He takes a sip from his cup, sighs, and looks her straight in the eye. "Aoko. Darling. Are you sure you really want me to?"
She throws her coffee in his face.
oOo
"I don't suppose you'll let me kiss you this time?" he says a bit breathlessly, and she turns to see coffee dripping down, down, down, matting his hair into clumps that stick unabashedly to his forehead.
You need to get away, Aoko, says Saguru. It's too big for you to deal with. Report him.
"I-I can't." Pulls out her cell phone with shaking fingers, wills her eyes to focus on the screen. "Don't-"
His expression is as easygoing as ever, but his breathing has frozen up. He's hurt-no, he's doing a damn fine job of pretending it. "Aoko."
"I'm calling the cops."
It's the wrong thing to say, and she doesn't realize until a strange look wipes the facade away from his eyes to reveal dark, cynical instinct. "Oh, you can call all the cops you want, sweetheart," he breathes laughingly, a hand ghosting over her cheek, her nose, her lips, and she knows they've both lost. "They won't be able to catch me."
Behind them, the phone clatters to the floor.
oOo
My makeshift savior
He left me right here in my chains