A/N: Sorry, I reuploaded because I wanted to change some things, especially the ending, which I didn't like at all. Ahem, anyway, this is just a random AU in the modern world where Yori and Hanabusa are the darkest versions of themselves. They're not quite in character, I don't think they'd sink down to this level of darkness, but I wanted to play around with some different things stylistically.
Warning for mild language.
And ofc I don't own VK
"The eternal quest of the individual human being is to shatter his loneliness." -Norman Cousins
It hadn't happened suddenly. Rather, it had happened gradually, so gradually that she hadn't noticed as all of the colors had begun to siphon out of her life. First the passionate reds, then the vivid greens, and then even the cool blues, until the palette of her life became a lackluster gray that coated her days like dirty snow. Some days the grays were sharper, brighter in contrast, and other days her mind was so fogged that she could barely distinguish one blurry, smeared shape from the next. Her friends had slipped away, one by one, as they moved on to life and love and careers, and eventually she even found herself estranged from her parents, as well. Each time she lost someone, the grey became a little more nondescript and a little more consuming.
When morning clawed its way through her thin curtains, she curled in around herself in bed, desperately clinging to the tattered remnants of her dreams. Sometimes, she dreamt of whimsical fantasies, of whirlwind adventures, of haunting blue eyes that promised love... And then other times she awoke with a crushing pressure in her chest of gnawing, desperate loneliness. Those were the mornings when she pressed her face into her pillows and forced herself to remember how to breathe, because she realized somewhere along the way she had lost it all. She had lost herself.
And so, now and then, when she brewed her coffee, or when she took the bus to work, she felt a boiling, brash anger simmering just beneath her skin. It stretched tightly over her bones, taunt and seething, making her irritable and waspish as she settled into her desk and tried to forget that once upon a time she had dreamt about doing something more with her life, but here she was at this damn office, instead. Here she was, when her friends were successful or happy or...well truthfully, she didn't know anymore. She didn't know because one day she'd decided to step back and no one had reached out for her. And that acrid reminder was enough to send her spiraling back into dark melancholy.
There were times, hours on end, when she would sit staring at the office wall or at a square of tile on her kitchen counter, and her mind was deliciously blank. In those moments, the nothing clamored up through her veins until she was shocked back to reality, sometimes by the soft whisper of tears against her cheeks, and she'd remember everything she was trying so hard to forget. She remembered the careless frivolity of high school, her lust for learning, her aspirations, the face of that one boy she had never really managed to forget, and above all the high-pitched laughter of her best friend, the same one who had married young and moved far, far away... And she'd wish for the blank nothing to return, just so that she could forget again.
Summer came, and went again, but for her it was always winter. A cavernous, endless labyrinth of winter that snared her ankles and held her in place. Secretly, she was waiting for someone to call, or to drop by, or for one of her coworkers to ask her out to lunch, because in reality she didn't want to be alone, but no one ever did and no one ever would and she felt herself sinking deeper and deeper into a quagmire of sorrow. She couldn't help but think maybe she was worthless, after all, and the reason she never got the job she wanted, the reason her friends dissipated into thin air, the reason why she had never stayed long in a relationship...was because she didn't deserve those things. The thought caused her to swallow heavily against a dry throat and clench her fists so tightly she could feel her fingernails bite into the skin of her palms.
She couldn't see the way out. She couldn't remember how to connect with people, how to see past the grey she was immersed in. Walking through the streets home from the bus stop, no one met her eyes, no one returned her smile. It was easy to imagine that she did not, actually, exist. That she was a spirit still caught in the physical realm, that she had died long ago. In a way, she had. So at home she crumpled down into the mattress, screaming silently, wordlessly, for someone, anyone, to please help me, please. But no one was there. No one would come because no one ever stayed in her life. She was alone. Utterly, bitterly alone. And the broken, jumbled puzzle pieces of her life would never fit back together again. She had lost too many of them and damaged the rest beyond repair.
Someday, she hoped all of the grey would bleed together into something better, something beautiful. And, sometimes, there were things that reminded her of colors. Of life. Of happiness. Bright, transient bursts of color that cracked through her dreary gray life. She loved autumn evenings and leaves, summer rain, the crisp scent and feel of a new book in her hands. She loved coffee in the mornings with hazelnut creamer, long walks by the river, and just recently, the companionable solitude of sharing a park bench on weekends with that one man who looked so reminiscent of the boy in high school that she had always watched, but never talked to. She never talked to the man on the bench either, but the dark circles under his empty eyes made her feel like maybe she wasn't the only one struggling. Maybe, he wasn't so different from her. On Sundays, he always brought bread for the ducks and geese, watching as they fought and scrambled over each scrap of food. Those were the only moments when a ghost of a smile brushed against his lips. Those were the only moments when Yori felt a connection to anyone at all, because everyone else seemed far too removed.
But it was nothing. Everything was nothing. She, herself, was becoming nothing. Like the tears she could not help but shed, she would eventually spread herself too thin and evaporate. Into the nothing...
He felt like he was standing still, flickering in and out, while the world rushed past. He was out of focus, like the screen of a broken TV. His visage was static and he couldn't remember where the dial was to bring himself back into clarity. He had lost too many pieces of himself in the countless bottles. If he rummaged through the recycling, if he managed to locate all of them, would he be able to recover the pieces he had left within them? A dry laugh left his throat. No, because they were scattered now. Destroyed. It was going to be a hell of a time if he wanted to pull himself back together.
Not that he did.
He was worn out, finished. A dying ember. Once, he had been a flame. Now, he was almost entirely ash. Mostly, he was just too exhausted to give a damn. Nothing seemed to interest him anymore. Not his work, not his family, not travel, not women, not even food. The summer before college, he'd planned an academic trip to Greece and Rome, because he was interested in ancient medicine and he found it fascinating. Fascinating. That word was estranged from him now. The summer before college he'd been a lot of things he wasn't anymore. He'd been active, inquisitive, bold...and perhaps a little obsessed with the one girl through all of school who had never displayed any apparent interest in him whatsoever. She had been, like himself, fascinating. Fucking fascinating. But that chance was long gone. He had spent it, just as he had spent everything else. Including himself.
Sometimes, the thought still plagued him. Why hadn't he ever asked her out, for fuck's sake? What the hell was wrong with him? He'd had it all, looks and money and the grades, but damn it if he hadn't screwed it up. He was a piece of shit, he knew it, and that's why he was drowning his mistakes at the bottom of a bottle, because it was better than facing the truth. It was better than waking up and knowing his father was never coming back, or that his mother was battling depression and refusing to sell the house, even though it was too big for her, because she didn't want to let him go. Because she could swear his spirit was still there with her. Every time she mentioned it he wanted to cry. So instead he came to the bar.
Late nights, around 1 in the morning, he was usually alone, twirling the contents of his glass and mindlessly watching whatever dumb sport the barista had switched on. After weeks of drinking, alcohol was losing its potency, and slowly he found himself imbibing one more, than another, and then another, until the burn sharpened its clarity and the buzz numbed the turmoil of his thoughts again like a sweet balm. When he drug himself home at 3 or 4 AM, he barely recognized his reflection in the mirror. He no longer knew who possessed that white pallor of illness, those purple circles underlining his once-vibrant eyes, the bleached-out yellow of his hair. He was a remnant of a memory now, a drunken fuck who sifted through the wreckage of his life with no sense of purpose. He was drifting aimlessly in a sea of self-destruction.
Where had it all gone wrong, he wondered? He used to be popular, adored even, and then abruptly the floor had dropped from beneath his feet. His friends were gone, his family crumbling, his career a joke. He only had to appear at headquarters once a week to keep up appearances; the business ran itself. He could have swum in the money he had accumulated, and yet it meant nothing. It meant nothing when his best friend had suddenly snapped and broke off all ties with him and moved somewhere far away with that insipid girl he'd married. It meant nothing when his father was gone and his mother was broken. It meant nothing when he wasn't engaged in the world around him.
He took a breath.
There were still parts of life that he considered good, worthwhile. There were still his sisters. There was still that pile of unread books by his bed, hot baths on the weekdays for no apparent reason, pizza for breakfast, the beach... There were still sunny days and his piano and the park near his house. There were still little things, to keep his life stitched together. Now, too, there was her, the girl he had gone to school with, the girl he'd been too damn stupid to ask out. The girl he'd lost his chance with. She didn't recognize him, but he shared a bench with her on weekend mornings, and sometimes he thought he'd swallow his shame and ask her to feed the birds with him, but then he remembered that he was a drunk fuck-up and he didn't want her to see how very far he had fallen. Except the days when it was clear she had been crying. Then, God, he wanted so bad to reach out, but he was a stranger to her. A no one. And she deserved better than his assuredly screwed-up attempts at cold comfort.
So instead, on those mornings, he'd drink a little more. Sometimes it was scotch, sometimes whiskey, whatever he wanted. And he'd laugh at himself and wonder when he became such a mess. But fuck it. Fuck himself. Fuck everything. He just wanted to numb the bad decisions and loss that loomed behind him like a dark shadow. One day, he'd take the time to assess himself, but for now he was going to let it all pile up while he slammed down another glass.
Numb and exhausted, she finally got up and walked. Walked in circles, in lines, in the infinity pattern of her desolation. She fumbled out her cell phone, dialed the number for the office, and told them she was sick. She wasn't lying...life was a disease, after all, slowly draining her of emotion and motivation and filling her up, instead, with agonizing, buzzing nothingness. Static silence that scratched and clawed against her eardrums until she wanted to scream. But the silence was her, she was the nothing, and she could not escape it. So she walked. And walked.
Her feet led her, unequivocally, to that familiar park bench by the duck pond. It was Wednesday morning at half past nine. She knew he wouldn't be there. But he was the only fixture of her life that wasn't disappointing her at the moment, the only constant, even if she didn't know his name or where he worked or why he came there on weekend mornings. Even though he probably didn't even notice her. Nevertheless, the companionable quiet in which they sat each Saturday and Sunday provided her with solace. He was only a stranger, but she was still desperately afraid that one day he would stop coming and she would have to face the reality that he, like everything else, was only a variable of the world and she was destined to remain alone.
The bench was empty. The ducks swam along undisturbed. She sank weakly onto the bench, hands shielding her face as a single, hot tear burned down her face. Because of course he wasn't here. Why should he be? It was Wednesday. It wasn't even the right hour. Yet she couldn't stop the hiccupping sob that tore through her lungs or the ache of loneliness that scorched her throat. He wasn't there, because no one was ever there. Not when she needed them. But he couldn't know that, because they had never even spoken, for heaven's sake. She pressed her hand tightly against her mouth to contain the force of her raw emptiness. How much she wanted him to be there, just to prove to her that some things didn't change. Even though everything changed and nothing remained.
It was Wednesday morning and he didn't know what the hell he was going to do for the rest of the day. He'd finished off the rest of a bottle of wine the night before, and now was left in a kind of sober stupor. His head throbbed, his tongue itched for more. The world was too near to him. He preferred it reflected through the warped glass of a bottle, now. And it was Wednesday. She wouldn't be at the park today. The only reason he went was because he had a routine. Every morning, he fed the ducks. Every night, he went to the bar. It was an endless cycle. A vicious one, but a rhythm to which he was able to set his life, nonetheless.
Except she was there.
For a moment, he could only stare. She wasn't supposed to be here, not on a Wednesday. But the fact that she was here of all places, here at their bench... He cursed himself. What the fuck? Their bench? He hadn't even worked up the nerve to greet her once amongst all the weekends they'd sat here together. But maybe...he wanted it to be their bench. Because it would mean something. Something, amidst all of the nothing.
She was crying. The sight broke his heart, because he remembered she had been so different before, in school. She had been reserved back then, but there had often been a smile lurking at the corner of her lips, waiting. Now... Now, it looked as though she had forgotten how to smile. Impossible though it was, at least for an asshole like him, he wanted to remind her. She didn't deserve to be here. She didn't deserve to cry alone in a park on a Wednesday morning, for fuck's sake.
He moved to stand beside her.
"Hey," he said weakly. It was the first word either of them had spoken to each other. She glanced up with watery, red eyes, and he extended his customary loaf of bread towards her in invitation. He knew he should keep his distance, but damn it...
As her fingers closed around the loaf, her eyes widened a fraction as she murmured, almost dazedly, "Hanabusa?"
His breath locked in his throat. Shit. He knew it was dangerous, knew she might recognize him at any moment, though he had hoped that he had changed so drastically that she never could. But she did remember, and somehow the knowledge elated him just a little. She remembered him after all these years, even if a meager 'hey' was the first word he'd ever directed at her. She remembered him even though he'd changed, at least to himself, beyond all recognition.
"Took you long enough," he remarked, but he was smiling.
She laughed. Tearfully, brokenly, but...it was such a beautiful, welcome sound.
A/N: Review, let me know what you think! Especially about the style, and if you liked it. I'm experimenting ;).