Destined Loss
Hello! I'm actually writing this when I'm supposed to be doing my English essay, but whatever. I've discovered that stories that stew in my head for too long tend to go bad, so I need to get them down while they're fresh.
Anyway, this one-shot borrows "Listen to Your Heart" by DHT (DHT actually sings the remake; Roxette sang the original, but I like the remake better, so there!).
IMPORTANT NOTE: I am trying something different with this one-shot. I will not give any character names or descriptions. It is up to you to figure out who the two main characters are! "Chapter two" will give the answers, so give me your guess via review and then check the next chapter. If you've already checked the answer, don't submit a guess. In school, we call that academic dishonesty. In my world, I call it an invitation to cyber-maul you.
Disclaimer: No matter how many times we go over it, it never seems to stick, does it? Okay, let's go through it slooooowly and painfully now… (holds up huge cue card with the word 'I' on it) Read with me!
I.
(picks up next card)
'Do.'
(next card)
'Not.'
(next card)
'Own.'
(last card!)
'Inuyasha.'
Is that clear? I also do not own any version of 'Listen to Your Heart,' although I desperately want to own the sheet music for it…
Aaaaaand…ACTION!
-- -- --
Blood. It had splattered all over her weapon, all over her clothes. She examined her apparel, an ironic, slightly crazed smile trembling on her lips. 'Eternal sorrow, uncertainty, entrapment…so much suffering, all so easily scattered upon the uncaring earth.'
With weak fingers, she touched one particularly large bloodstain. 'This had to have been from when I hit his shoulder…' Her hand shook so hard that her weapon dropped to the ground. 'Here…this is his blood…'
She snapped her head away, instead staring at the sky. But if she had been hoping to find any source of comfort there, she was disappointed. A single hawk closed in upon a desperately fluttering sparrow. Its flight path swerved madly as the tiny bird shrieked in pain and fear; one of its wings was broken, or something of the like. One huge talon descended on the vainly struggling creature and crushed its head, cruelly extinguishing the life that had fought so hard.
She blinked rapidly. Watching the predator once more brought to mind her pained resolution, the familiar extension of her arm that had lashed out at her target, the edge sinking into soft flesh and grating on bone, the shock and terror as she struck the wrong man. The same sense of running and hiding, the same undeniable knowledge of the end.
Suddenly, a crunch of leaves behind her alerted her to another's presence. She didn't turn, didn't even glance away from the now empty, silent sky. Instead, she murmured, "How is he?"
"Managing."
She froze, before her eyelids came crashing down, trying to shut away the world that had so harshly thrust her into this encounter that she most wished to avoid. She longed to clamp her hands over her ears, to run someplace where no one's voice could hurt her the way this one did. Instead, she took a shaky breath and turned, fixing uncertain eyes on the man who had spoken. "I…I'm glad."
His eyes caught hers, at once soothing and dissecting her tumultuous thoughts. After a moment in which lifetimes passed, he murmured, "Why?"
She winced inwardly, then lifted one corner of her mouth in a sad smile. "It had to be done."
He shook his head. "Don't lie to me."
Her brow furrowed as, even with her mind's endless whirling and jabbering, the veil of confusion was drawn over her face. "But it's true. I had to do it."
I know there's something in the wake of your smile.
I get a notion by the look in your eyes, yeah.
Again, his bangs swung from side to side in time with his head. "I didn't mean that." He walked toward her and, having reached her, touched her cheek. Even as she felt herself drawn into his intense gaze, she couldn't help but see the red-stained bandage protecting his shoulder, and winced in response.
"Then what did you mean?" she murmured. Her heart pounded in her ears, both in fear and eagerness. Guilt and hope battled for supremacy as she tried to search those eyes that could, with the flip of some mental switch, erect an impenetrable shield to the world, as they were doing now.
"Don't smile like that. Don't try to fool me into thinking that you're fine, that you're glad, that all in your world is going wonderfully." The hand never removed itself from its gentle caress on her cheek, yet she flinched as if he had dug his nails into her flesh and slit her in two.
"You think that, after all this time, I don't know you better? Do you really expect to fool me?" he almost spat. The barrier in his eyes dropped, and for a brief, unreal moment, she thought he would truly harm her. But the moment passed, and the caressing fingers shyly traced her jaw line. "Do you really think that you need to protect me to a point where you are only harming yourself? Do you think that by putting my happiness before your own you are really making me happy?"
She swallowed. "I…I…you see…" How to explain what was already openly branded on her heart? That her happiness was a clear second to his? How to remind him of what she had never really voiced, yet he had always known?
You've built a love, but that love falls apart;
Your little piece of heaven turns too dark.
He grimaced. "Nothing can hurt me more than your throwing away your life," he whispered, pushing her bangs out of her anxious eyes. "Will you ever understand that?"
His words were getting dangerously close to those that were forbidden. She quickly turned away, shaking off his hand like the touch of Death.
For it was. Those words could risk their very lives. "It's beyond what either of us does or doesn't understand," she said softly. "Why did you stop me?"
"Because there's still hope," he said stubbornly. "It's not like you to give up hope so easily."
Something in her chest stirred in response to her words, but she shook her head, forcing it back into whatever shadowed corner of her heart it had emerged from. "Hope…at this point…well, is there a point anymore? Whether I do it now or later, the result is the same."
"Of course there's a point. Closure. Forgiveness. Reconciliation. That is what is left to hope for. If you carry out fate so prematurely, you destroy all hope of moving on."
"So even you admit that it is fate," she murmured dryly. "Fate that it must all end in death and suffering. Fate that both blood and tears must be shed in equal measure. Fate that the heart must be torn in two before it mercifully ceases to feel. Is that fate?" She turned toward him, the frenzied smile back on her face. "Pain…turmoil…slaughter…is that all life is?"
He frowned in consternation. 'Do I really seem so strange to you?' she thought bitterly. 'Like an animal about to fight or flee…is that what you see?'
As if reading her thoughts, he countered, "I never said that," and studied her with apprehensive eyes. "Is this really how far you have fallen? You can still win him back, if only for a few, precious moments. Hope. Love. Friendship. Have you forgotten?"
Listen to your heart…when he's calling to you.
Listen to your heart…there's nothing else you can do.
"No…I haven't forgotten. I've let go. There's no point anymore. There never was a reason for me to hold on. From the very beginning, I have never had a reason to keep hoping, yet I obstinately continued to do so. It's time for me to face reality. Happiness, anticipation…those words have nothing to do with me. I should have realized that a long time ago," she said softly, praying that the wind would carry her words far away from the man with the too-caring eyes.
Despite her desires, he overheard, and his eyebrows came crashing down in anger. He stormed over to her and grabbed her shoulder, forcing her to look at him. "What's happened to you? You were never like this before! You always believed, always dreamed, always thought that it would work out in the end! What happened? Where did the real you go?"
She smiled bitterly and shook her head, fixing her gaze on the arm that dangled before him in a sling. "The real me? The 'me' you speak of was naïve, a fool, too stubborn for her own good. There was never any hope, or reason, or driving force, but for in my disillusioned mind. The real me has grown up and has become wiser. I am still myself. All that's different is that I am facing reality."
His breath came out in a combination of a growl and an exasperated sigh. "The woman you are now is none the wiser than she was before…if any, you are a greater fool. Can't you see it? There's something wrong…you're hiding something from me, maybe even from yourself…and until you face it, you'll continue to believe that there is no hope in the world. You'll continue to be fatally mistaken."
I don't know where you're going,
And I don't know why,
But listen to your heart before you tell him good-bye.
In response, she gently touched his arm. Softly, she reproved, "Hiding something? I'm not hiding it…both of us can see it; both of us feel its sting…perhaps I even more than you. It's right here, for the world to see. In achieving my own ends, I hurt you. I could have killed you. That's the reality. That's why there's no hope."
"You aren't making sense," he said resignedly, letting his forehead drop to rest on hers.
"To one who has the right to and does feel hope, of course it doesn't make sense. But for me, I have no other way to turn. My path in life is defined by pain and sacrifice. Aspiring for a brighter future is a waste of time. He must die. I must die. But until it is your time, you must not. That is what reality has taught me. You must not risk your life for my sake. It would be a wasted effort to try and better a life destined for misfortune."
Sometimes you wonder if this fight is worthwhile.
The precious moments are all lost in the tide.
His breath tickled her nose as he sighed. "Despair. I never thought I would see that in you. You were always so purposeful, so confident and strong. What happened?"
"My strength was mere fancy, and my confidence was misplaced. I was purposeful only because I was naïve. I was still a child, thinking that it could all be happily resolved. Someone is always destined to suffer, and that someone always has been and always will be me." She placed a hand under his chin and gently lifted his head away. "No one should try to help in bearing that weight."
"What if I want to share in your suffering?" he queried, grabbing her hand.
"Then I will make sure you don't see it," she responded, smiling despite her seriousness. "Neither you nor any of our friends. I will hide it so well that you will never discover it, will never try to save me from the fate that is rightfully mine."
They're swept away, and nothing is what it seems.
The feeling of belonging to your dreams…
His fingers gently entwined with hers. But what normally felt like a gesture of affection seemed to promise something ominous as well. At the very least, there was definite sense of discord in that soft grip. "I've already told you: I know you better than that. We all do. We can read your eyes, your voice, your smile. Pain leaves its own kind of blight on all that it touches, a blight that the accustomed eye can easily see."
"But not in one who has already been so deeply immersed in blight that no one can see when it grows worse."
"Of course we'd see it." He raised their tangled hands to touch his cheek. "We are a family, one forged of bonds even stronger than those of blood. We are bound by choice. Such a family is finely tuned to each of its members. We would know," he clarified, "no matter how hard you would try to hide it."
Listen to your heart…when he's calling for you.
Listen to your heart…there's nothing else you can do.
"Then I won't hide it," she responded, unconsciously stroking his cheekbone with the pad of her thumb. "I will let the world around me see."
He breathed a sigh of relief. "So you unders—"
She continued as if he hadn't said a word. "But I will make sure that none of you are included in that world."
His hand, which had tightened in his gratitude, abruptly slackened. "What?" he whispered hoarsely, studying her face uncomprehendingly.
The woman breathed in slowly before saying, "I had already decided before you came to see me. I'm going to leave, and I'll make sure you can't follow me."
The man's eyes, normally so adept at shielding all emotion, bared his inner confusion and turmoil to the world as, bit by bit, their sparkling depths were imbued with hurt. "You…you're leaving us?"
Her own eyes briefly squeezed shut, hiding her from the haunting look of betrayal he was giving her. "I am. It's all I can do now. I must carry on with only myself for company. I cannot continue to endanger my friends…or to endanger you. My mission remains the same; the means of achieving it do not. From now on, I fight on my own."
With that, she gently squeezed his hand, then pulled away from him. She picked up the weapon that she had only minutes before cast aside, so filled with horror she had been at the identity of the person who had almost died at her hands.
He watched her, seemingly frozen. "You mean to…"
How unfamiliar this smile felt on her face! "I mean to carry out my duty, and I can't allow anyone to interfere or to be hurt as I do so. Good-bye."
I don't know where you're going,
And I don't know why.
But listen to your heart before you tell him good-bye.
-- -- --
The woman stared up at the night sky, her experienced fingers automatically checking her weapon's condition. "Beyond the beautiful stars, there is always the lonely darkness," she whispered. "So complete, so utterly overwhelming, that not even the bright moon and stars can overcome it." Her lips tightened, and she impatiently brushed a stray hair out of her face. "So am I the one to journey through that darkness, occasionally finding a star, then tearing myself away from its light?"
Sparkling tears…that was they looked like. Just like those that had fallen from her friend's eyes ('My chosen sister's eyes,' she thought ironically, remembering the man's words) when she warned them not to follow her.
And the unfathomable hurt in the others' eyes. Abandonment, resentment, sheer agony. Even now she saw all of their faces, one blank and cold, one open and troubled, two shining wet and puffy-eyed.
'Am I doing the right thing?' she wondered abruptly.
Just as abruptly, her mind countered, 'Better their feelings than their lives.'
'Feelings? You talk about hurt feelings at a time like this? You are stabbing them straight through their hearts, and you have the nerve to call it hurting their FEELINGS?'
"At least they have hearts to be stabbed," she murmured. "At least they're still alive. It's better this way."
The voice in her head did not respond, a fact that brought her both relief and a vague sense that she had somehow lost the internal argument.
"Okay. I'm ready," she said to no one in particular. She picked up her weapon and lightly traced it with her hand. She had washed the blood off, knowing full well that someday soon, it would be covered in blood again. "It's just you and me, now," she murmured to it. "Alone."
Shudders of apprehension rippled up her back. It was not her first time being alone. She had braved her world alone before, although it had been safer than it was now. But she was stronger now, and wiser.
'And you're desperate,' whispered that contrary little voice. 'No one is braver than the desperate warrior.'
She settled her weapon and checked her supplies one last time. 'So maybe I am desperate,' she thought testily. 'So maybe I will be alone for the first time in months. Does that change my task? Does it mean I still don't have a duty to kill him?' Shaking her head, she began to walk down the dark, lonely road.
She had gone only a few steps before a raspy voice stopped her. "Is that it? All this time we have fought together; the months we've spent dancing around what cannot, yet must be, brought to light; the days of anger and forgiveness; the hours we spent simply enjoying each others' presence; are you just going to walk away from it all?"
And there are voices that want to be heard;
So much to mention, but you can't find the words.
Her free hand clenched into a fist as the other tightened on her weapon. Him again. Why did he insist on fighting this battle, when loser and victor had long been determined? "I've said it before: happiness has nothing to do with me."
"Laughing at our friends' antics, playing matchmaker, fighting side by side. Those had nothing to do with you?"
"A moment of respite from a life dedicated to sacrifice," she shrugged off, feigning deafness against the echo of her friends' indignant voices in her ears.
"Turning down another man's proposals, risking your life to save mine, being saved as I risked mine. Was it all for nothing?"
"I stayed true to my heart. Now, I must remain true to my destiny."
"'Destiny.' You say it like it's such a grand thing," he said bitterly. "Whatever happened to the simple beauty of being with those you love? What of your vows of friendship? What of being able to sleep deeply because you know you are being watched over? Was that not even more grand? Why are you throwing it aside like this?"
The scent of magic,
The beauty that's been,
When love was wilder than the wind…
"Because I'm scared!" she responded. It wasn't until she heard her voice resounding through the still air that she realized that she had shouted her answer. Silence settled over the pair again, heavier than ever before, and she inexplicably found herself blushing. "I'm scared," she whispered again, both ashamed and relieved.
One corner of his mouth quirked up in a cheerless smile. He approached her again. "I am, too. I'm scared that, someday, I will die. I'm scared that our friends will die. I've always been so afraid that I would lose you…like now."
One of his hands gently gripped her arm. She tried to shrug it off, but found that she seemed to have temporarily lost control of her body. Her only option was to stare up into his deep, warm eyes, and wonder at how he didn't hate her for acting upon one of his greatest fears. "I just don't want you to be hurt," she whispered helplessly. "Until he dies, I will only be a danger to you all. So, at least until that is accomplished, I can't stay with you." She ducked her head and softly added, "No matter how much I want to."
Suddenly, his body pressed in closer to hers, and she felt a warm presence hover briefly around her forehead. She glanced up in astonishment, touching the spot he had kissed an instant ago. His doleful smile had become sweeter, adding in that familiar flavor of encouragement.
"We've been over this before. Our ends are still the same. We all have the opportunity to harm each other, yet each of us trusts the rest like none other. Why must you be excluded?"
"I already told you, there's no point for my having hope—"
"No hope?" He cocked his head. "Hope for what? You future? Your heart? No hope, even for this?" With that, he leaned forward once more, bestowing another kiss upon her, this time on her lips.
Listen to your heart…when he's calling for you.
Listen to your heart…there's nothing else you can do.
Her eyes involuntarily slid shut, and she leaned toward him as well. An inaudible sigh escaped her when he pulled away. "No hope?" he asked again, an impish spark dancing in his eyes. "You seemed to have been hoping for that."
She frowned at him. "That's what I have telling you. I had no reason to hope. I can't expect anything out of life. Anything joyful is sheer luck, and fleeting at best."
"You think we met out of sheer luck? You believe that my love for you is anything less than eternal?"
The weapon clattered onto the ground. An owl screeched loud and long. Her entire body tensed.
He had finally given voice to the forbidden words. He had brought their shared devotion into the world, finally for all to see, had finally acknowledged their bond. He had chosen to brave fate's dark shadow of Death.
And for naught.
I don't know where you're going,
And I don't know why,
But listen to your heart before you tell him good-bye.
With an enormous effort, she turned away and bent to retrieve her weapon. "No. But travelers on the road of life can only journey together for so long."
His grip on her arm tightened, and he swung her back around to face him. "Why? Why must you leave us like this? Why do you insist on binding yourself to a life of suffering and loneliness? Why do you reject companionship when you have already accepted it for so long?"
Her gaze once again fell upon her stained garments. "Because it's all my fault," she said shamefacedly. "My fault that I must kill him, my fault that you were hurt, my fault for causing you all so much pain."
With a gentle tug on her arm, he encouraged her to kneel on the ground with him. His hand slid down her arm to gently stroke her palm. "And you try to save us from pain by causing more?"
He sighed and stared at the ground between them. "I love you so much. Separating from you hurts more than any physical wound." His earnest eyes sought hers. "Do you not feel the same?"
Her forehead wrinkled. "You know I do," she replied almost reluctantly.
"Then why do you insist on parting?"
"Because I don't deservethe love of a man who I can only hurt!" The reply came out much more snappishly than she would have liked, so she tempered it. "I don't want you to suffer as much as I have…as much as I will."
Listen to your heart…
"Fate has given you a harsh responsibility, but that doesn't mean you can't share it. That doesn't mean you are doomed to endure only life's cruelties for the rest of your life. Your life has been filled with pain, but there is hope. No matter what you say, you can't stop hoping. I won't stop hoping that you will decide to stay."
"Even when I can only hurt you?" That something that had stirred inside her showed signs of life once more.
"Yes." Holding his wounded arm out of the way, he gathered her up in his one good arm and pressed her close to him. She squeaked slightly when her cheek nestled against his garments. "Hurting others is a natural part of life, no matter how we wish that we wouldn't. I know that I've hurt you a lot in the past."
She tried to shake her head in protest, but he tucked it under his chin, holding her still. "Yet you are willing to forgive me, are willing to try and atone for what you believe you have done to hurt me. Don't you think that I am capable of the same?"
He nuzzled the top of her head. "Please…stay. Don't punish yourself for what never happened, for what doesn't matter anymore."
'When did his clothes get wet?' she suddenly found herself wondering. She pulled back to examine the small dark spot that water had somehow made on his robes. When her vision blurred and refocused, she suddenly realized that she had been the one to wet his clothes with her own tears.
A hand under her chin forced her to look up at him. "I…" His face brightened in anticipation. "I'll stay." It was no longer easy to overlook her tears as she buried her face into his chest once more. Hiccuping, she managed to say, "You're right, I have to keep going forward…I can…if you're with me, I know I can…"
His hand traveled soothingly up and down her back. "Even without me, you could have," he whispered, so softly that she didn't hear. "You just got lost for a little while. I'll always be hereto guideyou back."
As she sighed into his chest, she thought once again, 'The results of the battle we've been fighting were already determined from the beginning; the winner and loser had long before been chosen.'
She, she realized with an internal chuckle, had been the loser.
I don't know where you're going,
And I don't know why,
But listen your heart before you tell him good-bye.
(end)
-- -- --
And we're done! It's actually kinda short.
So who do you think they were? Huh, huh, huh?
Of course, looking back on it, their identities seem blatantly obvious (sweatdrop).
Either way, let me know who you think the man and woman are when you review. Then, advance to chapter two and the answer shall be revealed!
DO NOT GUESS THE COUPLE AFTER CHECKING CHAPTER TWO! THAT IS COMMONLY KNOWN AS CHEATING!
Domo arigatou!