A/N Yeah, I'm not too sure what possessed me to write this. I've written this before as a regular story, but I decided to pluck it out of my notebook, insert PoT characters and revise it. So, here it is. A KawamuraxOC, because I seem to like writing these.

Disclaimer: Let's be reasonable now, shall we?

You never really were that great-looking, neither were you the smartest. Nobody could have immediately recognized you from a huge group of people. Well, apart from me, the one who was the polar opposite from you. The beautiful aspiring actress that was always shining right there, beside your side. You were a shy person, but at times you could make me laugh out loud with your shy attempts at humour.

Worst of all, you were everything to me.

At first, no one believed we would last. The class beauty and a sushi maker's burly son who excelled in power tennis, a couple? Impossible. If we stayed together, cows would grow wings, they would joke and laugh. They didn't know what I knew. What I knew was that you were brave, strong and true. I knew that in a moment's heartbeat you would do anything, everything for your friends without even considering it. They were hungry? You'd invite them over for sushi. They were hurt? You would carry them to the hospital all by yourself. You were not the pillar supporting the team, you were the barrier around it, so whenever someone fell back, you could help them bounce back up again. With twice their glory.

We suffered a lot together, didn't we? Remember when we couldn't walk through the hallways together without the teasing and jeering from our classmates? Remember when I quit college to work and support you in the sushi shop when your father died? It was hard, our life together. But we got through it. I remember you lying on our bed beside me, whispering into my hair, "We're going to get through everything. It'll be okay."

That's why I refused to believe that that person in the news was you. It had been a hectic day, and I had just gotten out of the shower and switched on the news.

The picture that was presented to me was a bloody road, an ambulance and a reporter calmly stating that Kawamura Takashi had been jumped, mugged, attacked, and was now being taken to the hospital.

My heart had been plucked out of my body and dropped a million feet into an abyss of doom right then and there. I couldn't believe it. I had picked up my phone and dialled your mom, only to hang up after the first few rings because she didn't pick up fast enough.

Something in me sparked. It grabbed ahold of my body and wouldn't let go. So right after I prayed for your safety, I found myself running to the hospital in all my bathrobed glory. I didn't care who saw.

I remember screaming. Screaming at the nurses, the doctors, just because visiting hours were over. "It's 11 in the evening, darling. You're wet, cold and freezing. Get some rest. The hospital will be open then." They had told me, patting my back.

I didn't sleep that night.

At 7, I ran a brush through my tangled hair, put an old T-shirt of yours on along with a pair of jeans and headed for the hospital. Just like they promised, I was let in and taken to your room.

When I saw you lying there in the middle of a dozen machines, tubes all around you and injecting something that would help into your body, I cried. My weariness came down upon me like a 100 pound weight, and I let all the remaining tears I had in my red eyes pour onto your soft, strong chest.

But it felt different. The strong, steady heartbeat that always reassured me when I was scared was gone, replaced with weak breathing and un-consistent deep heaves of your chest.

I sat with you, crying the entire day, crying again and again because you wouldn't open your eyes. There was nothing that could possibly have made me happier than for you to show me those kind orbs that always shone with love when you looked down on me.

Then, the next day I visited you, your eyes were open but your vision was bleak. I threw a tantrum at you because you were so pessimistic. I still remember you promising me to always view the glass as half full.

Of course, I knew that you were probably just lying to me because you were tired and wanted me to go away, but I spent the rest of that day with you anyways. I cried and talked to you about stupid things. You hardly ever responded, but I didn't mind. I just wanted to talk to you, because that made me sure that at least for now, you were still mine. Still mine to look at, to talk to, to live for.

I threw another tantrum the third day. You had told me sheepishly that you had gone out to the ATM for money that night. Money for a present for me. For our 3-year anniversary. For us. Ever since we met in high school, you had wanted to be with me, you told me. You loved me. You always will.

"We're going to get through this together." I had choked through sobs. I finally was able to sleep that night, albeit restlessly.

The fourth day that I visited you I didn't do anything. No tantrums, no crying, nothing. I was just holding your hand, trying not to disturb your sleeping.

When you sighed happily in your sleep, I let go of your hand like it had burnt me. Something jerked through my body, and I held back a sob.

Before I knew it, I was hurrying out of the hospital, trying to avoid the inevitable.

It wasn't surprising that I got back home only 4 hours later. Everywhere I went, I was reminded of you. The whole city reeked of our stray memories.

I picked up the phone with hesitation just as it rang. It was the doctors. I knew that I had to face the truth now. I had done everything I could to push it away from my mind, but nothing could stop fate from its doing. Inside, I knew that you were gone. I didn't need some damned doctor to tell it to me.

Weren't doctors supposed to save people? Why did he do his job with everyone else, and not you? It wasn't fair. Our relationship wasn't fair. Every time we overcame an obstacle, a sharp bend in the road would throw us off.

I couldn't think of it anymore. I needed to go somewhere where this didn't exist. My little private universe, where none of this could bother me.

Your mom would come up to my room that I used to share with you every day, knocking softly, asking if I was okay. Once my mom even came from her job in Osaka and tried to persuade me to get out of our room.

Gradually, the soft knocking stopped. Both of them knew just as well as I did that all attempts to get me out of that mood were futile. The day your mom caught me out of my room for the first time, she made me spend an hour in the bath.

Fussing and pampering me, she had on distressed and worried eyes. I knew that she was like you, and her kind soul had already accepted me as her daughter after all these years. I tried to give her a real smile, to show my appreciation. All that came out was a measly fake one.

I decided to record the days without you. So far, it was 36.

36 was also the number of anti-depressants in the bottle that was prescribed to me. I took 2 every day to please your mom, but they never seemed to work. Only a maniac would think that two little pills could possibly cure my heartache for you.

Then one day I woke up and had something change in my heart. I breathed in the fresh air, and knew that things had to change. I had made my decision. I had thought to myself, today would be the first step, the first day to getting over you.

From then on, I thought of butterflies and sunshine, anything that made me see the glass half full like you were supposed to.

Your mom persuaded me to go back to college, to finish that degree that would make me a teacher. With only half a heart, I did what she asked.

When I got back to college, I met all my old friends again. The ones that used to tease and call us "Beauty and the Beast", and explained how it described our fairy tale-like romance.

Well, at least that was gone. All of them avoided the topic of you like the plague. They came up to me every day, telling me a joke, a funny story they had heard the other day. Desperately trying to make me the fun, happy person I was before, they did all that they could.

The anti-depressants began to work. With a lot of struggle, I regained some of the laugh and bounce of the me from before.

And then I went to your funeral.

Everything all seemed so fake. I wanted to scream at them all, scream at how unreal their acting was. If they really loved you, cared for you, then they would be crying buckets like me, their pain would show and hurt like mine. My head started to ache like hell. I couldn't see clearly, it was hurting so bad.

Falling to the cold graveyard ground, I closed my eyes to try to block out the pain. It was like my brain was jumping around in my head, knocking itself out.

Now I was supposed to take 3 anti-depressants and 2 aspirin tablets a day. My headaches soon stopped plaguing me. I was ready to take on the old me again.

I found out that libraries healed me. I had never been much of a bookworm before, but there was something comforting in that quiet atmosphere, curled up in an armchair with a good book. Then I picked a Shakespeare book off the shelf. It was titled, Romeo and Juliet.

I read the whole thing, and surprisingly, I got all of it. This coming from a girl who barely passed high school, I was proud. Tucking the book back onto the shelf, I left the library feeling slightly uplifted.

That is, until I tried to sleep that night. Somehow, the tragic love story wouldn't get out of my head. I found myself beginning to compare our relationship with theirs. No, it wasn't our parents separating us, but instead it was God. For some reason, He had something against us being together. We tried so hard to get through everything, to make it work.

But in the end, everything inevitably came crashing down. Just like how he planned it to be.

And just like that, the headaches came back.

And this time, they wouldn't stop. Nobody knew it, but I had started taking 4 aspirin tablets every 3 hours. My anti-depressants were gone, and it would be a week until the pharmacy would stock up with new ones. I got farther and farther away from my original goal to become the old me again.

My friends slowly started to avoid me. Soon, it was just me and my little bottle of aspirin (which didn't have much left in it) with a note taped on it that said "The glass is always half full."

I couldn't bare it anymore. The constant headaches, the loneliness, the aching pain of being stared at all day, even when no one was around. It hurt too much. This time, there was no comforting chest to lean on, no Takashi to hug for comfort. It was my 50th day without you.

I woke up from my already restless sleep sweating and clutching my aspirin bottle for dear life. Frantically looking around, I realized that it was pretty late, probably around the early hours of the morning. Panting, my heart beat heavily against my chest.

The aspirin had long stopped working. After downing the 9th one in a row, my vision went blurry, and the only thing that was clear in my mind was the story of Romeo and Juliet. Everything had gone wrong for them, yet they would meet again, finally, where no one was able to disturb them, in heaven.

With clumsy steps, I slipped on my slippers and left the house. Basking in the cool night air, I vaguely remember taking out the huge ladder we used for repairs on the roof. Holding it against one side of the house carefully, I staggered under its weight.

Climbing it uneasily, I looked down when I finally got onto the roof of the house.

With blurry intentions, I stared dizzily at the little backyard pond we had. It wasn't very deep, only about 2 meters or so.

…Together…Undisturbed…In heaven… My thoughts were jumbled all together, but even then I knew that there was no turning back. My mind wasn't sane anymore.

I felt the air pushing me down faster as I dove, and as my head made contact with the water, my headache left.

I had the chance to let out one last smile and a tiny blissful sigh as my mind completely went blank. The only thing that I remembered was the note I had scribbled blearily and left on my bedside drawer.

I'm going to meet my Romeo.