Authors Note: Okay, first things first: Soul Eater isn't mine. It isn't any fiction writer's property either. Now that we've established that—I want you to indulge me on this. The first time I ever wrote fiction—or any kind of writing for that matter, I tried to write romance. I know…cringe-worthy admission but for some reason that's my biggest Waterloo and my biggest unfulfilled desire. I can be as descriptive as hell but I don't know if I'll ever have the skill to string together words that tug at the reader's heartstrings' and make them sigh the way those memorable scenes in books and anime do. I just wanted so badly to try and make it happen. Just once.
So this is IT. My one attempt at romance or what I feel is as close an approximation to mushiness as I could get. And I know it's a cop out but I just had to use this piece of music. It's a MUST. Don't ask me why—I don't know why. It just made writing this piece so much more real to me. So I am apologizing to Mr. Urban for selfishly using his product without any permission. Please don't sue.
Please tell me honestly what you think. I know I write most KHR—but please, if you have some time to spare- try and read this. Tell me what you think. And in some way, maybe it would tell me—show me—that I have what it takes to write again.
Thanks. Done with the mushiness. I promise. On to the thing then. Shoo.
WORDS
"You don't love someone for their looks,
or their clothes, or for their fancy car,
but because they sing a song only you can hear."
- Oscar Wilde
The keys felt cold beneath his hands…sparkling in the dying light of the sun…shiny and new…not so much as a single scratch on their flawless gold surface…as if they had never been touched before.. The keys felt strange in his hand...recognized and yet devoid of any cognizance... any sort of attachment or familiarity.
Unknown...alien…foreign.
Words that should have no room in the one place that's served as haven and hideaway ever since he could remember. And yet…for the first time in nearly a decade of staying at the same place, the same address, the same fucking street he was now reduced to using his keys to open the door and let himself in.
The dark interiors soothed his fraying nerves. The coolness was a balm to the surging heat inside of him...the helplessness and frustration that rages inside of him like impotent flame...growing and festering until it was all but consumed his every breath. He knows well enough that the feeling of peace that washed over him wouldn't last for very long. The moment he turned the lights on, his own pathetic attempt at denial will come to its end.
Alone in this house again tonight
I got the TV on, the sound turned down and a bottle of wine
The house was silent. The silence he used to crave was mocking him. It felt so loud now that he had it…now that there was that curious absence of sounds that he has grown accustomed to over the years. The near-silent patter of small dainty feet across the cold wooden floors, the distinctive swish of a turning page accompanying the tell-tale scratch of quill across virgin pages…the unmistakable and undeniable thrum of trance tunes floating softly from a room with its door customarily ajar—signaling its occupancy and its occupant's tacit invitation.
Yet now, the door yields no secrets and extends no invitation. The books are silent…the pen still as the encroaching night. All he had left to greet his ears is the soft whispers of leaves dancing in the wind from the hapless tree outside his own open windows and the taunting echo of stillness and silence. He resisted-mightily-the urge to fill the empty rooms with the sounds of his own created rage. He knows well enough that even THAT wouldn't fill the echoing emptiness that surrounds him.
And so now here he was, consoling his aching core with the cold keys of the piano he only ever played when she was around. it was a gift...from her...bought and paid for with hard earned money she saved industriously for three years-forgoing every form of luxury she ever had to purchase it in time for his sixteenth birthday. The gleaming surface was illuminated by the books that lined the sacred library she was willing to share space with just so he could have somewhere he could play in private. Tonight the familiar smell of leather, ink and paper soothed some part of him. The library was like a wider, more diffused version of her distinctive scent. And tonight he needed even the smallest hint of her with him.
There's pictures of you and I on the walls around me
The way that it was and could have been surrounds me
I'll never get over you walkin' away
He never thought they would ever end up like this. He knew that the situation was mostly his fault. God knows she has given him more than enough of the metaphorical rope to hang himself from regarding their situation. She gave him enough damned rope to wrap around his own next, and the stupid planet and still have material left over to turn it into the biggest ball of yarn in the universe for all the good it did to him.
He never said the words she wanted him to say. He never said anything. He never even opened his pathetic excuse of a maw to issue a single sound. It was she who always spoke. Always she who yelled, screamed, shouted, harangued, pleaded, requested, ordered. It was always her who said the words that both of them needed. Always her. Despite her words, her pleas, her supplications—even with of all it-he never said a word.
No…he was too cool for words...for abject confessions...for honest to goodness heart to heart talks that actually involved more than his own brand of tough sarcastic, snarky wit. No he never said the words. He didn't have the words to say—didn't know any of the ones that would've worked so he gave up. He didn't even try. He argued and convinced himself that it wasn't the kind of thing a cool guy like him did—it wasn't his style. He argued that she should know what he wanted to say. She was his partner, god damn it-she should at least know that much, right?
I've never been the kind to ever let my feelings show
And I thought that bein' strong meant never losin' your self-control
After all—she knew all that was about him right? She knew, more so, she understood and accepted him and his so-called cool-code. She told him so many times before. Besides, it was loads easier to confront her and lay himself bare when it's about their partnership, their fighting prowess that's on the line. It was always easy to find the words when he wanted to berate her for being stubborn and blind and for being too reckless. When it's about that, he could spit out everything and anything and not feel the least bit self-conscious. He could admit freely to needing her—her strength, her mind, her courage, her spirit. He could freely and honest-to-Deathgod admit that he couldn't do anything without her. After all, what good is a weapon without a pair of hands to wield it right?
But when it comes to telling her that he more than needed her-that's when he fails. That's when his own courage, his coolness, his bravado fails him. Telling her what she meant to him meant telling her the truth. It meant revealing every ugly secret that keeps him awake at night. It meant telling her that his biggest fear wasn't that he was weak-it was that he was worse than useless without her.
But I'm just drunk enough to let go of my pain
To hell with my pride, let it fall like rain from my eyes
Tonight I wanna cry
Telling her meant admitting that he needed her far, far too much than was conventional for a Meister and a weapon... That his need surpassed even that of partners or roommates or friends or what other sobriquet people could think of. That he needed her more than he ever needed his family, his name, his strength, his reputation, his everything.
Speaking meant finally admitting to a girl who trusts no man save one that he couldn't breathe without her...couldn't dream without her...couldn't—wouldn't—didn't want to imagine a world that had no place in it for her. That such a world was his personal definition of HELL and that's why he faces death with such glee, such wild abandon. Because he would rather face every day the possibility of death than contemplate the idea of being left behind without her. That death for him meant that she could have one more second, one more minute, one more hour, one more day-one more chance to LIVE.
Would it help if I turned a sad song on
"All By Myself" would sure hit me hard now that you're gone
Opening his lips meant repeating some of the words that her own father-that rank bastard-made a mockery of...repeating the kind of words that idiotic bastard constantly used to lie to HER. Telling her the truth meant saying a string of words she couldn't—wouldn't dare put her faith in because the first man who ever said them to her happened to be a weak-willed, fickle minded philandering jerk with a roving eye who didn't even realize what he was taking away from his little girl with his blind selfishness.
He knows how much she wanted him to tell her what his silence meant these days. But he couldn't risk losing her. So he kept his silence and kept his words at bay. He knows he couldn't risk saying anything and now here he is...just as he feared—alone. Though not yet for good, but then again what the hell difference does it make in the long run? She barely said two words to him...hardly looked at him in the eye for more than a week, hardly acknowledged the fact that she shared the same breathing spaced he did.
Or maybe unfold some old yellow lost love letters
It's gonna hurt bad before it gets better
But I'll never get over you by hidin' this way
It was times like these he wished he was still an incomplete weapon and not the embodiment of his dream. Being a Death Scythe shouldn't have been a death knell to his life—their lives. It shouldn't have been the catalyst that shattered the only peace he has ever known…the fulfillment of their dream shouldn't have been the reason he could lose everything. Now, bearing the title only meant that he could never be completely hers-the only moniker he really desired to have in his world. HERS.
I've never been the kind to ever let my feelings show
And I thought that bein' strong meant never losin' your self-control
HERS. That's all he ever wanted. To be hers. Just the way that he knows in his very soul that she is HIS. The way he knew the first time they met. The first time he touched her hand. The way he knew that she understood his music the way no one ever had or ever will. The way he knew in the very depths of his mind than no matter how insane he becomes—he will never, ever lose her. The way he knew as well as he knew the scars that marred his body that no one else would ever come close to what she meant to him. That tomorrow could come and strip away all that he has, all that he is and all that he would beg, steal and fight tooth and nail for is HER.
But I'm just drunk enough to let go of my pain
To hell with my pride, let it fall like rain from my eyes
She left today. Ostensibly for training but she didn't invite him like she usually does...she just said his name and closed the door. It took all he had not to slam the door or punch the walls to smithereens. It took everything he had not to wrench open the door and chase after her and demand that she stop running away from him—stop distancing herself—stop closing herself from him—stop shutting him out. Stop leaving him behind.
Tonight I wanna cry
