AN: All I can say is that I'm really sorry about the second chapter of Pregnancy. It's really, really bad since I wrote it when I was really tired and I don't know if I'll have the time to fix it anytime soon.
She glances at her watch, wondering why he asked her to meet him in the middle of the night. It's almost three; surely it could have waited until morning or sufficed with a quick text. Yet there she is, in the park with the clock tower where she first met Kaito. Aoko pulls at her pale blue coat tighter as a piercing wind catches her off guard in the cloudless night sky. The stars seem brighter with the absence of the grand, pale moon. But somehow the casual vacancy of the moon shines down a vague melancholy feeling. It's a forlorn sign.
She sees him walking in front of the base of the clock tower. He's taking slow, deliberate steps. Almost as though he's avoiding speaking to her. But that's ridiculous.
She calls out his name and takes hurried steps to close the distance between them. The fallen snow crunches softly with each step. He turns away from the loyal timekeeper that stands proudly in front of him; the token of Aoko and Kaito's new life with each other since childhood.
"Kaito," she utters with a warm smile fighting the bitter coldness. She hugs him the way they often do but it doesn't feel as natural. It feels stiff and awkward as he doesn't return the embrace. "What's wrong?" she asks, genuine concern leeching through her words. "It's really late. Dad'll kill me if he knows where I am." She's shivering, anticipating the time when she'll be back in her warm, comforting bed.
"It's not working," he replies flatly. His blue eyes suddenly seem to take an interest in her shoes. They're blue keds she'd owned for nearly a year that matches her coat. The snow on her shoes is slowly melting, sinking closer to her already cold feet. "What's not working, Kaito? Come on, talk to me. You're scaring me," she says quietly. It's too cold for her and she closes the space between them, resting her head on his shoulder, trying to gather fragments of heat she is in desperate need of.
"This." He snaps, taking a step back, causing Aoko to stumble and look at him in shock. "I can't do this any longer. It's not working for us Aoko, you've got to understand that." He's looking at her now. And she can see her pain reflecting in his eyes.
"What?" she tries to say, but nothing comes out. She mouths it instead, hating herself for not being able to say the word with confidence. "I think you heard me," he says in a tone he never owned before then. It hurts, almost as much as the words do.
It's too cold to be outside. In the peak of winter, far from the sun's inviting rays, she stands in the midst of snow and an icy silence. She takes a deep breath. It's over. "So that's it then? We're through." Her voice is dull, and carried off with the strong winds. Her coat isn't enough to stop her shivering.
"I found someone else. It never would've worked out between us anyway, you should've known that," Kaito says, refusing to look at her. It's too cruel. It's so unlike Kaito. And it hurts, god it hurts so bad.
"Kaito," she says the name gently. But the tone changes just as her emotions do. She gives him a sincere smile, one that drew him in, in the first place. "Why didn't you leave sooner?"
She keeps her smile; really it's frozen onto her face. She feels her cheeks become even colder with the wind cruelly blowing her tears away. She cries and she doesn't try to hide it from him. He knows her too well to know that she'd be crying either way. With muffled sniffles and broken sobs and cracking chokes, she cries.
"Why didn't you leave sooner?" she asks again hoping for an answer when she knows there will be none, there was never one. "Bakaito," she hisses over the screams of wind that swirls deftly to form a wall between them.
He looks at her straight into her blue eyes for the first time that night. They lock eyes and he sees the untamed anger and hurt in hers but she's too overwhelmed to see anything in his. Nothing.
She shakes her head at him with her hair, like a mane, pouring over her face, angrily. Aoko turns on her heels and quickly walks away to find refuge from the cold and her ex-lover. "I'm sorry for the trouble I've cause you," she says bitterly, with her head held high.
And just like that it's over.
He watches her until she's swallowed by the darkness of the unforgiving night. His emotionless face slowly contorts into one of pain. It crumbles like a building holding too much weight for too long. It's too cold. His body is shaking, but it would have even without the frozen air biting his exposed cheeks and arms. A few tears slowly slide down his cheeks. Something he hadn't done since his father's death.
It hurts him too. And he almost wants Aoko to know how much it hurts him too, but then everything would be meaningless. He shakes his head with acute, fast jerks and his knees grow weak. It comes naturally to him, apologizing to the darkness. "I'm sorry Aoko," he says gulping the cold air that his lungs strain to absorb. "It's better this way, it really is. You're safe now. Forgive me."
He roughly palms at the tears with his dry, cracked hands and turns to walk in the opposite direction from where Aoko ran. The opposite direction of his home. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his own coat and takes his first steps away from his previous life into a new one. The life that began at the clock tower had to end at the same place, no matter how inconvenient, no matter the stinging pain. He walks on.
A small white monocle falls out of his pocket and lands without a noise into the pure, soft snow. Whether he noticed it's absence in his pockets or not, it makes no difference. He leaves without picking it up.
Review?
Sorry I haven't written any stories recently, I've been really busy with everything.