Delusion of Grandeur
BY: MYLiFE'SBOAT
Author's Note: REPOST. Minor edits, not just grammar edits (I fail at that), but story edits. It's called inexcusable slapdashism. Keeps me fit.
Summary: It was just a fallacy.
. . . . .
In my world where money mattered most, where it made the earth rotate and made life breathe, you came. You were a truth beyond what I sight counterfeit. You wee the only one who gave meaning to reality.
Your eyes, the discrete color of chocolate brown. It tinted your irises with beautiful earthly colors that I could drown into them. They were exquisite—unmasked of any lies. They bare me naked. They expose me. They break down my walls. The barrier that I have struggled to build around me for the two decades of my existence, with just simple look you gave; you melted it and laid me open for the world to see.
Your face—childlike, not childish—that face full of conviction. It drew me aback to see that face of yours, as you proved me wrong. No one else would have made that face, that look, except me. You are a strong woman. Delicate in many ways you may be, yet strong nonetheless.
A mere commoner—that is what I am certain you are. Not a single profit, not a single reward would I gain if I stayed with you. It was not a standard relationship expected of us, Ootori's. Yet no matter how much I try to pull myself away, to stop myself from reaching out to touch your subtle face and your graceful smile, I fail. I give in to temptation and my fingers are burnt with the feel of your skin against mine.
Even as there were many of them, yes, there were. Twice as beautiful, twice as feminine. Any woman out there was just as easy to obtain. They were just as easy to please and bed. But not you, Haruhi. Certainly not you. There was simply nothing to compare. You were a transcendent being, apart from any other.
I loved you.
I do not see any logical explanation what drew me to you. There was no rationality to it, an unfathomable reason and to which until now, I, Ootori Kyouya, can provide you no answer. You are a witch, enchanting me in a way enigmatic.
You, Haruhi Fujioka, are the only soul that made me feel what it was like to be crazy in love.
"Kyouya, I'm going to Boston," you whisper to me one night as I held you in my arms. I was intoxicated with your scent, my mind befuddled with the strong whiff of your perfume. I was barely hearing.
"I'm going to Boston next week for a convention," I tell you as I snuggled closer to seek more your warmth. "We can go together."
"I'm going to Boston for law school."
I stop, hearing your words, and I look at your eyes. They showed certainty, which I feared. I refuse to believe. I have told myself that without you beside me is as fatal as venom. You are going to kill me for it. "Boston isn't that far."
"It's halfway across the world."
"Ootori's know no distance, Haruhi."
"Kyouya," you regard me serenely. It was those eyes that thawed me and as much as I appreciate that, I hated you for it.
I can not see any logical explanation as to what drew me to you. I may only offer theories and perhaps now, vague as it is, I have somewhat found an acceptable excuse: you were real, unlike any other person I knew in this world full of masked faces, faces of deceit and lies. You were the only genuine existence that came into my life.
Because, you were simply Haruhi. You were real and that is a reason enough.
You loved Okinawa; the noisy cries of sea gulls, the loud swoosh of sea breeze and the picturesque backdrop of orange and blue hues as the sun hid under the horizon. It makes you feel at ease and away from the bustling sound of cars and traffic in the city. It does the same effect on me, as I hug you closer. I am afraid to let you go, but I have to and I know that.
"You have to wait for me," you say and I almost want to chuckle at the choice of your words. It was very unlike you.
"What if I get tired of waiting?" I ask under your curtain of brown hair. It has grown exceptionally long, beyond your shoulders, streaming like melting dark chocolate. The only alteration you made over the seven months was the bangs, which you trimmed once a month or when you notice they become a nuisance when you work. But you must remember that I had once complimented your long hair and you recognized that. It made me happy.
I felt the contours of your face against my chest drag down to a frown.
"That should be a problem then," you pout.
"I'll meet you at Boston, silly." I laugh inwardly. We stay like that for a while and I will trade anything just to close the distance that separated us tonight. I feel distant. As I reach out to you, I grasp nothing but air. You are slowly slipping away.
I loved you. Perhaps more that anyone can explain. Perhaps more that how much I can handle. I, Ootori Kyouya, have submitted myself wholly to you. I will only lose to you.
Three years later—of silly phone calls in the middle of the night, of almost jumping to a jet and flying off from Tokyo to the west coast illegally and later on of pain, of rejecting tears, of bottles of Johnny Walker blue and of sleeping on the floor with my foul and slimy bile—I received news.
'I'm getting married.'
The words were printed in elegant, black ink—yours. The silent words resonated loudly against my ear. How cruel of you.
"I'm getting married," you punish me with the sound of your own voice when you arrived in my doorstep, handing me a peach-colored paper envelope. You used to hate peach and I wonder what changed. A lot, perhaps. A lot.
You ended it soon. Too soon. It was not I who got tired. It was you.
I knew it was an unwise decision to let you go. I knew it was my fault as well when I failed an attempt to work it out. I once had you in my arms and we then, broke. I let you slipped away. Now, I lost you.
You came to me so fast. You left just as quickly.
In my world where money mattered most, where it made the earth rotate and made life breathe, you came. You were a truth beyond what I sight counterfeit. You were the only one who gave meaning to reality.
Or were you?
"Are you happy?" I ask, unable to stop myself. I want to know how much you've changed. I want to find out how much you have restored your heart. You contemplate my question for a moment, cocking your head to one side as you did so.
You finally speak. "I'm happy."
But the words that followed soured my wound yet more. "Are you?"
I am not happy, Haruhi.
I am not happy.
But Ootori's lie. Everybody lies.
"Of course." I fake a smile. You failed to catch me.
I tell you, Haruhi, you have taken a large part of my heart. Give it back. Don't break me further.
Perhaps not, Haruhi. You were real. You were not counterfeit. But you were not the one who gave meaning to my reality.
I sat at the back row, looking at you with faraway eyes. You were not my Haruhi, I tell myself, as you look up to the purple orbs of your groom. Your eyes gave not the same shine when you looked at me. Your smiles gave not the same luster when you aimed them to me.
Your love was just a fallacy, Haruhi. It was all just a delusion.
I turn away, intent to leave as my eyes threatened to burn. Another look at you so happy with that man is poison, granting me a slow, torturous death.
I stop when my feet reach a park, where a bench sat under the shade of an oak tree. I sat on it, mulling over the things I lost—the things I regret. You were the only thing I ever wanted and which I can never have.
"How strange," a voice pulls me out of my reverie and I turn to look. A young girl sat beside me, with flowing black hair and pearl gray eyes, looking up. I looked away soon, sighing heavily and letting it all escape: the pain, the torture.
"What do you mean strange?" I asked her, redirecting my thoughts to something else. I fought off the tears and I managed just right. I am a mask, a fake.
"The weather," she says with wonder and amusement, her untainted eyes sparkling. "It's kinda dark when it's actually July.
I shrug her off, standing up and stretching my arms above my head. I look up half-consciously, almost trying to yawn. Indeed, the sun had hidden its way behind the dark clouds, making a huge shadow overcast the sky.
My eyes return to the young girl, her pearly gray orbs still fixed in an upward gaze. "I doubt it'll rain, though," she mutters, unmoving.
"How could you be certain?"
"I watched the forecast. Didn't you?"
I almost wanted to smile at the familiarity of her actions. How ironic.
She smiles, a cozy smile, as her finger points up again. I follow her aim, slowly in an unhurried manner.
I squint my eyes and block my arm over to shield them from the rays of the sunlight that peeked through the clouds. I watched quietly as the cumulus parted in a painful and agonizing pace but I am patient. Soon, the clouds drifted too far apart and there was almost nothing left but blue. It was not the color of the ocean.
To my surprise, the sky began to clear.
OWARI
. . . . .
Disclaimer: Hatori sent me a subpoena when I told her Kyouya is mine. Now I have to break into my bank account for bail.