fandom: Clover
title: To My Self, Anymore.
pairing: Kazuhiko x Oruha
rating: pg-13
description – It is a sleepless night before Oruha dies.
Disclaimer – Clover belongs to Clamp but it is a title that continues to touch me after reading it a million times.
To My Self, Anymore.
By Miyamoto Yui
The shadowed rain clouds made the darkness of the night even more profound.
Whether or not there was a moon beyond them, she didn't know, but the tips of her fingerless gloves reached for it anyway. Her chest, half covered, heaved up and down as if it was getting harder and harder to breathe, yet her clear eyes refused to believe there was no moon out tonight. The hem of the woman's snow white, lacy dress hung off the thick ledges of the silver balcony.
Her bare feet pressed into the steel.
You must be there! Tonight, please, be there for me!
"Oruha!"
The man grabbed the woman's waist and his glasses fell onto his chest, hanging on its single thread. Slowly, she turned around, taking a last look into the sky in disappointment, but in a flash, smiled down at her lover.
He shook his head as he pressed his head onto the soft flesh of her stomach. "What were you thinking?"
"I thought it would be fun to search for the moon."
He sighed. The deep voice became a whisper as he scolded, "This is why I worry about you when I'm gone."
"Oh, Kazuhiko. I'm a big girl. You shouldn't think of foolish things like that while I'm with you."
She wrapped her arms around his neck as he carried her down. "It's a waste of our time if you do that, my Love," she whispered into his ear, pressing her cheek upon his own.
He continued to carry her with her curls covering his shoulders and his lips pressing onto hers.
"So, this is the last time I'll hold onto you before the press and the recording companies take your voice for everyone to hear."
Oruha looked up at the sky with tears in her eyes, angry, grateful, and confused. "I wonder how far it would really go. After all, our world is barred from the real sun and moon with the transparent dome that has images of what this planet used to have. What it used to feel..."
"Don't lose confidence right before your debut. You have the tenderest voice in the world."
"This voice came with a steep price."
He didn't say anything.
"Even though I know it's not true, I wanted to see the moon tonight. It was the first thing that made me want to sing."
She cupped her hands onto his cheeks to face her. "It made everything real for me."
I could be anyone and anything I wanted.
Inside these feelings, the melody playing, and saying the predestined lines, I could find the person I lost when they tattooed my chest to make sure my heart would never open.
Leaning her head to one side and moving her face close to his, her tongue licked his lips lightly before kissing the upper one slowly and then the lower one. He held her tighter to carry her into the room, but she shook her head.
Yet you…
You found a way to get through
And let me not be ashamed of who I was.
At that moment, she began to unbutton his uniform with his tongue sliding on her collarbone. She stopped a second as she shivered, whispering into his ear between her shortened breaths, "They might have my voice, but make them jealous that you'll always have my soul."
He put her down to sit on the ledge and ran his fingers under her dress and onto her thigh, kissing the top of her tattoo when her head looked to one side to stare down at the electronic city...
As Kazuhiko slept on her lap inside the living room, Oruha ran her fingers through his hair. She looked at his glasses placed neatly on the see-through table. Everything became indistinguishable as she bit her lip to keep from sobbing aloud.
Picking the few strands of his bangs, she felt them in between her fingertips. Leaning forward, she smelled his hair.
I know it is selfish, but always…
…stay in love with me. Let no one else inside.
I gave everything I did
To you,
To my voice,
To her…
Now, because of these things I cherish,
I understand why it will all end tomorrow.
She leaned forward to kiss half of his cheek and half of his lips.
This is the power they want to control.
But don't they know that the Sorcerers have this power because they can feel more than the rest of the 'people' on this planet? As long as we believe in others,
Those like me will suffer but We cannot truly die.
To endure living through their constrictions, to exert My Self even when they are watching me all the time, to walk through all the lifeless beings who envy my confidence,
To capture your heart with my song is
the Power of My Voice.
Ring ring ring!
Why…I need a little more time with him…?
Kazuhiko reached for his phone inside his pants, which were hanging on the chair next to them. His hands pressed against the ground as he nodded to the phone.
"Yes, yes, I understand." He looked at her and shook his head as he got up to put his clothes on.
"There is an emergency," he said as she lifted the jacket and put it on his shoulders.
This time, it was Oruha who hugged Kazuhiko from behind.
"I know. It's your birthday tomorrow and that's why I asked you to come here tonight-"
She shook her head as she turned him around to button his jacket. "No, don't apologize. It is not your fault."
He watched her smile as best as she could and he took a hold of her neck to pull her to kiss him until her palms pressed into his shoulders to tell him she couldn't breathe anymore.
When she turned around to look out towards the balcony door, he took a piece of her hair and kissed it. Lightly taking his glasses off the table, he left without a word.
As soon as she heard the door close, she picked up his used shirt. Sitting on the chair, she hugged it with her naked body. Quivering, the tears flowed though there was nothing coming from her mouth.
If there is nothing but a voice, what else is left?
Does that mean silence?
This always bothered her. In this world, it was always too calm. Though there were many people around, the chaos couldn't ever conquer the deepness of the quietness which pervaded during the night.
The world was wordless but it never felt tranquil and peaceful.
The room was humid and when she lifted her flushed cheeks from the shirt, her red eyes looked out the balcony door again. Only the lights of the other buildings glimmered into the living room floor, but there it was. It's the only light left in this empty room.
There was no moon after all.
Kazuhiko's smell lingered in the air and she didn't want to move just yet so that it didn't change the atmosphere.
My eyes wander around but I am too tired. I don't want to fall asleep yet.
I'm not finished yet with this day.
I still haven't done what I wanted to do.
I still haven't said what I had to. What I was supposed to.
All this will be done tomorrow. I am relieved and yet burdened. How will he live without me?
It wasn't enough. Even though I know I have everything of Kazuhiko, that anyone else would envy, it isn't enough!
Oruha then carried the shirt to the bathroom. Turning on the light, she took a lipstick tube and smeared a message on her reflection:
No matter what lifetime it is,
My Love,
Please find me.
Then, she turned off the bathroom light and stepped outside. The wind pushed upon the curtains lightly and she put on her dress once more.
There was no time to sleep.
Up until the time she made her debut, she would be practicing. She would make sure her song was like lithium: A temporary, nostalgic dream.
"Kazuhiko…Oh, my Love…" She wept as she took a single vial with a silver and white metallic substance inside it. "It's a magic powder. If you drink it, I can come back but once. Use it wisely."
Feeling like he'd heard his name, Kazuhiko looked back at his apartment with the largest urge to go back.
Putting it over the exact place where his glasses had been, she turned to leave everything without turning back.
Tomorrow…
Later, I hope Suu will call me.
I don't want to keep this secret to myself anymore.
Click.
ZzzZzz…
The blurry videofile waved from side to side on the white wall. His face showed nothing though his gratitude to Gingetsu felt like it could never be repaid for this stolen data.
He rewound back to the part that had brought back all the emotions of when he saw the bullet shot and she fell onto the stage. His hand reached out to the tiny imprint of Oruha holding his shirt, quivering alone in the darkness.
It replayed all over again and he looked at his watch. There were only a few seconds left until he had to run.
But the video didn't end.
Oruha had come back.
She opened the door of the room and stepped in front of the camera. Looking at it boldly, she pronounced, "Even when you take me now, my voice will not die. I made sure the strongest pair would protect me."
For the first time since he'd known her, she smiled happily into the camera. Immediately after, the camera short-circuited. Quickly, Kazuhiko put the tiny viewer into his pocket.
Running as fast as he could, he held onto a piece of Suu's torn dress and Oruha's empty vial in his jacket pocket.
Somehow, now, he suddenly recalled her words inside her dream when he'd drunk the powder years later:
"I never cared about myself. When you know that you will die because it is your power, you let things go without thinking. That way, you won't get hurt by them.
They won't abandon you and you have the power to always leave them behind instead.
You only live when you learn how to take care of what is precious. But in doing so, you try to protect it…
…more than Your Self."
His expressionless face could never convey the depth of the darkness of his pain nor the combined warmth of her life pumping against his.
Owari./The End.
Author's note: In the middle of the night, I suddenly thought of Oruha. It had been a long time since I'd written so I was a little scared. Could I still capture what I needed to? Though I thought so deeply about many things, because I usually kept them to myself, I wondered if I could express them through her this time.
So, I felt this surge of power and I give you this story with my heart beating and my cheeks red. If I made mistakes with the last moments in the canon, please forgive them.
Kazuhiko, through all these years, is special to me. And until now, I always recalled his name without thinking twice.
This was the story I always to write to you, Kamitra.
And these words are also for Eriol.
Thank you for reading. And no matter what happens, always love.
Love,
Yui
6/20/2010 10:51:48 PM