I do not own Koe no Katachi.
At once he is struck by the realization that she is not beautiful, the locks of hair grasped tight in his aching fist too stringy and the soft shape of her eyes too fiery. Her teeth are grit hard and the skin is stretched at her cheeks, her body twists and turns and it becomes clear she is not going to bend to his will anymore—far too late, far too soon.
This is perhaps the first time he feels as if he's really seeing her, something pounding in his ears as he watches her lips pull up in a rueful smile. He wonders if this is how the world sounds to her, garbled and confused and unclear. He is trembling right down to his bones and he's never been so angry and so afraid at the same time. Her hand wraps tight around his wrist and he cannot bring himself to feel surprised by the softness of her palm and its fingers, the stickiness of her skin, how absolutely real she feels.
That's it, that's it right there. Far too late. Far too soon. The understanding that he did not know her and that he never would, that this had all been a mistake and a part of him had just been terribly curious and in that terrible way that all kids do he had not understood how to turn about his questions in his own two hands.
It rings, again, against his eardrums, staring through unseeing eyes at the ugly words across his desk. Oh, this has to be cruelest way karma could possibly choose to teach him; his chest constricts and he cannot wrap his mind around the sheen of the one that used to be hers, how clean and untouched the surface had been. This is the way he realizes it had never stepped beyond the boundaries of paper, of chalkboard, of blue lines and soaked notebook and whispered words until it had come to him, until his grasping hands had found their way into her stringy hair and pretty dress and bruised her pale skin.
This is the way he realizes she is not beautiful, she is not out of reach, she is not something more than or less than or even really on par with the likes of him but really exactly the thing he had thought she'd been from the start.
This is the way he realizes some people are beyond his understanding and boredom had never truly taken a backseat to every thought laced with her—smiling so sad and so sweet and so infuriatingly forgiving his blood boiled hotter than ever before.
And had cooled as soon as she no longer existed within his gray world.
.x.
The process of reassembling his own mind is long and tedious; it taxes on his nerves like no other. The bags underneath his mother's eyes and the tired smile she offers in the mornings and then the evenings before and after school are a fuel he cannot quite burn through fast enough. As a child he had not imagined taking up a job as soon as it was legal to, had nestled into the comfort his mother had offered when she'd told him they were well off enough as they were. The weight that rests on her back now because of his mistakes weigh just as heavy on his, he does not dare sink his fingers into her words when she asks why he jumped too soon at the opportunity, why every pay check he received fell right into her equally calloused hands. There is more food on the table and his niece has grown plump, cheeks round and pink and bright.
That is far more than he has ever hoped for.
Something is chipping away inside of him the longer he spends, voice wrapped tight within his throat, alone at school. He feels himself melt when he returns home after a long day, wonders if perhaps none of this had happened he would have gotten the chance to learn his mother's favorite color or how his niece's eyes curved when she laughed or how the table seemed blissfully cramped sometimes when they gathered for dinner; if he would've gotten the chance to grow far too close to his family, coiled their every trait and flaw and quirk around his fingers and seared them into the back of his mind.
The old paint that was once him peels like dead skin, it is almost satisfying if not frightening. One day, he presses too many bills against his mother's suddenly small hand and something about her smile makes his heart twist, he's never seen her make that face before. She reaches up to smooth his hair down against his scalp like she used to, pulls him down to her level and brushes a kiss against his forehead. It will leave an imprint of her ever practical lip balm on his skin and there will be a stinging longing to hide himself against her like he did as a toddler—a forgotten trait, a long abandoned habit he will not have remembered until this moment—but he will close his eyes and he will feel the last wisps of the old him fall away like shackles.
He will bite back the tightness in his throat and the wetness in his lashes, he will force his mouth to soften and his jaw to unlock.
He will remind himself to try harder.
For her birthday, he buys her new shoes, ones as pretty and simple and ever practical as her.
He marks how many pairs he has left to pay back and wonders if one day he will run out of things to make up for.
It is only a passing thought.
.x.
Death is a funny thing and he will one day wonder why he had taken it so lightly, will look at the crumpled figure of a little girl collapsing under the weight of her own loneliness and detest every second he had assumed stealing himself away from the world would have solved anything at all.
But today, he does not know this. He has not hated himself so deeply.
His mother is sound asleep and she almost looks her own age, downy hair spread across her pillowcase like wings, and he wonders what she is dreaming about. She had told him once she dreamed of adventure—taking to open seas as a pirate or the endless skies as a bird, all things she'd never be—and he almost flinches. He lays the envelope lightly beside her head so as not to disturb her losses and slips away before it can bleed into him heavy enough to keep him there, to change his mind.
It is a long walk and during he allows his mind to picture her, stringy hair and fiery eyes and all. He has not let himself think of her like this in so long, it has become clear he'd never deserved to lay eyes on her in the first place this is just like larceny, what he had taken once only softened by time.
When he catches sight of her for the first time, again, he almost doesn't believe it's her. His imagination had not done her justice, and this, too, he feels guilt over.
She has grown out her hair now, the way he thinks she might have had before ever stepping foot in that classroom so many years ago. It frames her face, falls like waterfall and looks just like sunset. Her eyes are wide and surprised and not at all resentful. She has not grown as tall as he.
When her finger traces feather light on his palm he is not surprised it is still soft. Something about her gaze is still so kind and so forgiving he struggles not to drown in it, sucks in a breath silently and fumbles moving his hands correctly.
Her palm is hot against his and her skin is just a little sticky.
She is so real and so human and so far beyond his reach he feels himself choke on his own air.
She is nothing he once thought she was.
.x.
The searing slap her mother deals him is a godsend. It reels him back to reality so quickly, shakes him back into the realization that he did not deserve her smiles or her friendship, no matter how determined either one of them might be to cultivate it.
Just as he is grateful her sister keeps him at bay for so long. The wall created between them is just as palpable as the years he has stolen from her, he dares not touch it as he dares not touch her.
Her hands are smaller than his mother's, the movement of muscle and bone underneath the skin so delicate he is reminded of bird, of something breakable. He accidentally snaps his niece's tiny doll and he wonders what other things he is not allowed to touch any longer, if the callouses along his fingertips and palms will grate all they come into contact with.
At the top of the list, he figures her name will permanently stay.
Sometimes her shoulders shake with laughter when he does something stupid and something deep inside of him wants to press his hand against her back, to feel the vibrations against ribcage, muffled by her cardigan.
It is the same thing that wonders how her lips feel or taste, how her body would mold against his, if her voice and its jumbled words could ever formulate his name and if it would sound as pretty as her laughter bouncing off the concrete.
It is the same thing he shoves down and far away, out of sight.
She always smiles with delight when he signs that he'll see her later and this he thinks is enough.
Being in her company is more than he can ever possibly deserve.
.x.
When their old classmates express interest in seeing her again, and every time they ever come near her, it is more for her sake than his that he desperately wishes them away.
But it screeches to a halt every time, recalling every tight-lipped smile and every bruise on her pale skin and the single scar underneath her ear, and he knows there has never been a greater threat to her than him.
Her little sister no longer reminds him of this but every time he moves too quick in her presence there is a tremble those tiny hands take, a sharpness in those narrow eyes, a distrust nearly as deep as his guilt, and this he understands all too well.
Her mother once offers him an umbrella and he thinks the world is becoming too kind and too harsh.
Karma has taught him in always the worst ways.
He doesn't think he is worthy enough to think she looks nice with her hair up. He doesn't think the moon holds a candle to her.
.x.
When her sister suggests he kiss her, something seizes up inside of him.
His mother smiles funny when he mentions her at dinner, and he realizes he mentions her often. When he doesn't, the topic tilts toward her anyway and always the question of him inviting her over for a meal or two, or three or—
"Forever?" his mother suggests and it is the same as when her sister says, "Kiss her."
That is perhaps the more painful thought, that the wall built between the two has turned from stone to brick to flimsy sheet of spider silk, here he can reach his hand to touch and it will most certainly collapse as soon as he does. That is perhaps why he doesn't, the thought of moving too quick for comfort pervades the downward spiral that leads him, how this is leaps and bounds when he figured for increments, mere centimeters at a time.
But every time she laughs he wants to draw closer, every time she stands before him bright eyed and erratic gestures he wants to tuck her underneath his chin and pull his fingers through her hair—and now he knows how her hair smells, her sister had told him so and sometimes she shakes her fingers through it in his direction; now he knows it is more silk than string, it scattered over his knuckles when he reached his hand up too fast to tell her she looked nice that day and maybe she always did.
His looks like spikes, or feathers, or crashing waves; she tells him this over crumbs of bread and smiles quick and kind when he touches his hair sheepishly. Sometimes like fire, sometimes like dreams, but this she does not elaborate on.
She tosses bread to the fish clambering down below and her smile turns absent, more inward.
There is a different one for every situation and that same part of him that longs to touch her wants even more to know every one of them.
.x.
There was a girl that once sat beside him in the sixth grade. She was pretty in the way girls tended to be, and she hit him so often he thought no girl was worth the effort.
One day, his mother might have told him once or twice, he would grow out of it and interest would prevail in this case.
One day came, it surely did, but that same girl asked, impish and sneering, "You a virgin?"
There was a girl that once sat in front of him in the sixth grade. She was pretty in the way girls tried not to be, and she never once flinched.
One day, his mother might have told him once or twice, there would be someone he'll never stop thinking about and in this case he would suffer over it.
One day came, it surely did, but that same girl asked, hands moving quick and palm too hot against his, "Can we be friends?"
He will recall this in the middle of the night and press the heels of his hands against his eyes and try not to imagine all those things he never had as a kid, covered in band-aids and mud and tears. He will try not to curl in on himself. He will try not to let her not-words brand themselves against his skin.
There was once a girl that sat beside him in the sixth grade and now she tells him that she likes him, that she always has, that she hates what he's become.
There was once a girl that sat in front of him in the sixth grade and she tells him she does not love herself, that she never has, and that falls atop his shoulders like another added weight and he has not appreciated all the years he's spent scratching away at the old him more than he has now.
The words that once pressed against her pale skin, unwarranted and unbidden, now stretched a wicked smile on another's face; "I hate you."
.x.
Death is a funny thing, and she looks terribly pretty wearing all black.
It is a strange wedding ceremony, he lets her little sister say. It is so strange he wonders why no one is laughing; he'd never met their grandmother but something about her little sister seems to crack and slip away, seems to soften and crumble, and just as suddenly she seems too young and too small and the way she folds within her older sister's arms makes perfect sense, when she had stood too proud and too confident and too certain—not certain at all.
Death is a funny thing and her little sister snaps photos of it all the time, waves it flauntingly in her face and asks if she is scared.
He gets it. He gets why she's doing it and he knows it won't work.
Part of him isn't surprised when she attempts to fly off the edge of the balcony, but the same part wonders why she hadn't bothered asking for wings to be sewn to her back, why she hadn't spread her arms—after all, he'd stolen dreams, he hadn't stolen this yet.
There is a blistering moment he thinks, "Death isn't funny anymore," and in that moment he hates himself for ever thinking it would ever solve anything, hates himself for ever probably putting in her mind that it was a viable option, hates himself for ever thinking she was worth even an ounce of his all those years ago.
All the years he stole from her, ticking away at them as he tears at himself trying to save her.
His life isn't even worth a fraction of hers.
The trade is easy, comes like breath.
The moment cools, he thinks he understand what his mother was feeling that day.
He thinks he understands what love is.
.x.
The night is cold against his skin and he is so tired, so heavy and aching and just a little hungry, but the second he sees her it all falls away—chipped paint, old skin, spider silk sheet.
The want to wrap her in his arms is gone, but in its place lies helplessness, an equal need for comfort. He is split between intense relief and a terrible worry, hands twitching with all the things he needs to ask and tell and apologize for but she is far quicker than he.
The not-words never come, not the way he's used to.
There are tears burning down her cheeks and he is at once struck by the realization that she is too beautiful, locks of hair stuck to her skin and soft eyes searing. Her teeth are grit hard and the skin is stretched at her cheeks and she crumbles with him. These not-words are far louder than anything he's ever heard before, they steal all thought away.
There has always been a part of him that has dreaded the day he would see her cry again, but right now, hands drawing up and then seizing and then settling too light on her shoulder, there is a sense of a release, a newfound desire to share in her pain as they have shared in this fear—this understanding that they can lose one another at any moment and they had brushed the very edge of that.
When the tears begin to well and then spill down his face, he feels closer to her than he ever has.
This is perhaps why he allows this moment of weakness, why he decides he is not strong enough to shoulder all of these responsibilities any longer.
"I want you to help me live," he tells her, voice catching in the middle. He cannot look her in the eye, he knows it is terribly selfish, but right now there is something much greater teetering between them, over them, hanging very much like a blade.
This smile is equal parts sad and happy, and his heart is bursting at the edges.
He dares not think he is glad he ever met her, he knows what that entails.
But he settles himself into the knowledge that to let her walk out of his life would be to give away a giant piece of himself, one he thinks perhaps he cannot live without.
She is, in this moment, so beautiful he cannot possibly hope to have her.
.x.
The air tastes different now, and he thinks it might have everything to do with her.
There will be too many miles between the two of them and he can almost feel them, stretching too tight. The knowing look his mother gives him when he contemplates the nicest way possible to tear down someone's dreams reminds him why he cannot possibly do that, reminds him he has taken enough for the two of them.
There are photos of her as a little girl, the years before and after the fact, what he has missed and will never know. She still wears pretty dresses and still tucks her hair behind her ears.
Yes, a larger half of him is afraid for her. There are things in the city that do not dwell here, and from the distance he cannot shield her quite the way he's always hoped for. He is tethered to his mother and his niece and all the things he's yet to make up for, anchored in this place in ways she isn't anymore. The strings her mother had once knotted around her have fallen in clumps and he is partially to blame for that, too. She is so much smaller now than he once thought, cast in shadow by her own future unraveling before her.
Yes, a larger half of him is worried about her little sister. The strength she'd shed and gained anew is still fresh, still pink at the edges and soft as baby skin. He doesn't think she'd survive without her older sister, there is still so much hanging between them he's yet to help them unpin and fold.
There is still so much left for him to do, still so much left for him to fix.
To imagine her, alone and wide-eyed and so far away, causes a panic in him he cannot quite place.
But his mother smiles knowingly and sets aside his worries so easily it jars him, to think it is so small it can be compartmentalized in this way makes him wonder.
He lies sleepless in his room that night and knows there is no place in the world he'd rather be than here; if there is more than one life for him he thinks he'll spend this one mending all that'd he'd destroyed.
How to do that when the one he'd broken most is too far away to touch or see.
A smaller half of him just doesn't want to see her go.
.x.
The air tastes different now.
Her face is pink and she is smiling, this is where her resolve sits, right on the crook of her lips. There is a sense of understanding between them, an awareness that had not been there before. He can almost feel her emotions, warm and bubbling against his skin. It melts him until he is smiling back, until he cannot help but share in her excitement.
And there, there is something banging from behind a glass wall he has noticed before. The same thing that wonders about the skin underneath her clothes and the sensation of her arms around him, imagines bringing her close and whispering her name over and over again where she can hear him. It is the reason why he knows exactly what he feels for her, and exactly the reason why he knows he shouldn't be feeling it.
It makes the thought of her any further from him than she is now unbearable, too painful to even dwell on.
And so he smiles back and thinks he wants to make her proud, that if and when she returns to him he will be a better man.
One worthy of even her.
.x.
A.N.: I'm really sad there aren't any fics for them.