title Hell is other people
summary When gestures are much more harm than words. Where are the thoughts?
pairing Luka/Miku
rating T
t/n This is a translation from the French one-shot written by Sarabeka. She also wrote an hilarious story named "M'en fous ! J'suis une popstar !" (I don't care ! I'm a popstar !) and I highly recommend it to you guys. IdrewAcow was my beta reader in case of typos or grammar mistakes I tend to do :D
Hell is other people is a famous citation by Jean Paul Sartre.
*Paru Café
Sarabeka's a/n : A small one-shot. It is not because I have moved to Belgium that I should despair ... It's sunny at the moment.
This story is loosely drawn from real events and experiences. Things have, fortunately, not gone that far, but sometimes I wonder ''what if'…?' I know it is useless to dwell on the past but we can learn from it.
Enjoy.
I don't own Vocaloid.
This is it. A shithead did it. Yet Luka never believed in this. All these newspaper articles, the posts on the forums, the stories on television who spoke of people being mugged.
She hadn't paid attention to that. And now, Miku was crying.
Luka wanted to reach out to the cheek of her beloved. Dry her tears that surely blurred her sight. Tell her that everything would be alright. But she couldn't do anything. She wasn't even sure she could feel her legs and arms.
There was a dull ache that came from everywhere and nowhere at once. Her whole body was a pulse of life that escaped painfully.
They were too many. Too many to for them to even hope that they could run away.
At first, Luka had thought that by simply ignoring them, they would leave themselves. She had felt Miku's hand tighten on hers', had seen her silent beg to leave the place as soon as possible.
She hadn't wanted to give satisfaction to the band of urban cubs who had taken her in hunting.
A gasp escaped her throat painfully. And her hand was still refusing to go pick Miku's tears from her face...
It was strange. This area was not yet classified as 'at risk'. The predator always falls over us when we least expect it.
No.
They do not even deserve the name of 'predator'. Predators don't kill for pleasure. They don't laugh when stabbing their prey. They don't let it lay in agony for several minutes, back against the cold bitumen and looking skyward.
They were monsters. Merely. The kind of monsters that children are afraid to find under their beds or in their closet at night. The kind of creature that Luka had learned not to fear, building on her twenty-one years of age and her rational mind.
But Miku had told her "It's not because you do not see them they are not there." Hidden in the dark, ready to strike with cowardly blows. By mockeries first, and then insults.
Miku had accelerated her pace that time, pulling Luka with her. Around them, no one had reacted. Nobody. And then when the band began to scream behind them, some had joined them, while some others difficultly took the defense of the couple. The rest went about their businesses. Sad flock jaded by surrounding violence.
Luka hadn't panicked; convinced they would do nothing in the middle of all these people.
Seeing that the mockery and provocation were not enough, the band had gone to the next level: the hunt.
They had heard the footsteps behind them. Luka had barely had time to push Miku on the side before she fell to be the final victim.
The killing.
No shots, no intimidations. Just some metal claws that had sprung from clenched fists and pockets of trousers. Luka don't know how long lasted the massacre - because that was what it was. A massacre.
She fell to the ground, unable to hold on her legs any longer, and from 'monsters' they became 'vultures'. What else but vultures or hyenas could strive this way on a destroyed body? It rained many blows. On her legs, on her belly, on her head. She felt that several bones had cracked.
She didn't feel anything now.
It was a lion. A large lion with a purple mane that had startled those vultures. They had gone, shouting and laughing, proud opposite to this broken body to the ground, fearful opposite the immense figure capable of defending itself. To defend them, her and Miku.
Miku had joined, threw herself on her knees beside her, screaming.
Luka heard her. Somewhere Miku was screaming her name. Somewhere Miku was crying. Somewhere, a bunch of urban young cubs were yelling the success of their hunt... Next to her, people started to react. Many accelerated the pace to get away. Others tightened around her.
Luka saw them, dimly, at the borders of her field of vision.
She saw blurry. A strange red filter seemed to be laid over her eyes.
The pain was such that she didn't even cry. Too sharp, too acute to be properly analyzed by the brain that ordered her to sink into unconsciousness in order to escape the sensation which pulsed in the pit of her ribs.
She couldn't, mustn't close her eyes for too long, of fear of not waking up.
Miku was still crying, her face streaming with tears. Luka found that it was strange that the water pouring down the cheeks of her girlfriend had not yet frozen. With that cold weather. She had memories of being in the autumn. But it was so cold.
She felt the blood in her veins slow.
The purple-mane lion had approached, a phone against his ear. He spoke. Luka couldn't hear. She heard nothing. Miku was sobbing silently now. He put the phone next to him and began to press Luka's shoulder. It hurt. It hurt horribly.
Miku was pale beside her. Too pale for Luka's taste.
So it was like this? She would die there, lying on the asphalt which froze her bones? Left to die so young she would rather be alone with Miku and she wished that it would be less violent.
And die for what? To the whim of a few shitheads who decided who could live and who should die.
Even if she had known that they had not chosen the easy way out by answering each other's feelings, Luka would never thought it would go to the savage slaughter in the middle of the street.
And yet...
They had no problems by announcing it to their parents or to their friends. There were a few tasteless jokes circulating about them, but they didn't care.
Apparently, happiness never lasted very long.
They were told it would be hard, there would be the looks, remarks, that implicit rejection often coming from the relatives. A real hell to live of course. But, they hadn't had anything like this to bear. Not from relatives in all cases.
As life left her body from a multitude of wounds, as the bitumen was colder and colder under her body, Luka had a thought before losing all lucidity. A phrase that came to her and that she had already heard before, previously thinking it was worthless. Thinking that everyone was master of his destiny and made his life what he wanted.
Before the little wit she had left turned to Miku, she thought that nothing was yet more true.
Hell is other people.