Disclaimer: I own nothing but the words on the page.
Warnings/Notes: Parts of the conversations Kippei remembers are made up, the scenes are real but I altered dialogue. Kinda sad but introspective.
The world was dark again tonight…he sat on his bed alone with thoughts of her tiny voice lulling him into the false sense of security that come daybreak tomorrow he'd be holding her again. With a trembling hand he reached for his cell phone and grasped it with inadequate fingers before it slid to the ground. A bitter sigh escaped his lips but the sobs stayed forced behind his pride welling up inside him. He closed his eyes and tried to allow sleep to overcome him as images of the two of them together flooded his mind. He cracked a smile as he thought back to being at the pool with her, holding each of her small hands in one of his own and guiding her into the water she was so deathly afraid to go under.
He laughed a bit for the first time since his eyes had laid transfixed on the spot where his aunt stood as she opened her arms to welcome Yuzuyu into them. He remembered how he'd tried to bite back his protests earlier that day as the small girl ran into her mother's arms. He couldn't help but feel jealous and hurt; he'd taken care of her for so long just to have to give her up to the person who'd abandoned her. None of it was fair, he loved her, he'd have never done something like that to her and yet she was still taken away from him.
Sitting up on his bed and reaching down to pick his cell phone up and set it on the bedside table he swallowed hard. Tears came to his eyes at the thought of not knowing what was happening to her, at the thought of not being able to protect her…at the thought that he may've lost her forever. And then once again the thought resounded in his head like a nightmare someone foolishly dreamt over and over again, what if he never saw her again…? What would he do?
He cast his gaze out the window above his bed, which, now that he was sitting up, was at eye level. There was no moon and there were no stars, just like in his mind all of the light that was Yuzuyu had burned out. She was gone from him now. Clenching a still quivering hand into a fist he shook his head, he had to stop thinking this way…he'd see her…he had to.
As trails of first light peaked over the horizon he got to thinking about just how hard it would be to face her if she were to have forgotten him. He closed the curtains to block out the only light that was spilling through the clouds; he didn't want to see it. He didn't want to feel the warm sun on his face when it rose, not when warmth reminded him of her and all of the moments they'd shared from her first day of school on through her sixth birthday. In time, he was sure that perhaps all he wanted to do was forget.
And as he sat there in bitter reflection he contemplated how Kokoro felt everyday of her life now with this overwhelming loneliness welling up inside of her. He knew now what it felt like to have a void in your heart that only a lost loved one could fill; he knew now why everything had seemed so hopeless to Kokoro. In the spur of the moment he covered his face to force away the tears that had come to his eyes, he was not a child like the young girl he missed, he was grown, he had to act it now more than ever.
Kokoro's words came to him now as the memory commenced to replay itself in his mind, "Aren't you lonely?" He'd asked.
She merely looked at him; "There are no words that would describe what I feel." She had said to him.
He wept for only a moment before wiping his eyes as he felt Kokoro's same pain and lived her same hell for minutes that seemed to be an eternity. His mind flashed back now to the time Yuzuyu had fallen at the crossing of the road, remembering how he dusted her off a lone tear rolled down his cheek. He put a hand over his mouth and bowed his head as he remembered what he'd said to her…what it meant to him…how unfair it was. He realized as he forced the rest of his tears away why for a moment she could only stop to stare at him when he declared,
"It's alright, we all fall sometimes."
And for the last few moments before the sun rose in which he could without penalty wallow in his self-pity and allow a memory of her to ensnare his mind with each heartbeat he called to the wind with newfound sorrow.
It would be the first time he cried in her memory for the next eight years.
"Yuzuyu…."