AN: When I thought about this again, it all started because me and my friend, Alpaca Desu was falling head over heels with Kuroshitsuji. We read the manga, we watch the anime, we watch the musical (all of them), and we squeal like crazy every time Yana Toboso updated a new chapter.
But then, if I really really get technical, it all started on that day where Alpaca Desu and I agreed on something crazy. Crazy enough that I wished we both wouldn't die quick to finish this story.
Take note that it took us 2 years before we committed to this fan fiction. 2 years! I feel that I should warn all the readers that the updates are sporadic.
There is an OC in this fic. I'll let you know that right out of the gate. Also, I have to say that we love reviews and ideas from readers but if all you're going to do is blast us because you don't like this fic, the idea, or our writing, then save it. No one is standing over you, making you read it. If you don't like it just go back to the menu and pick something else.
Both of us love the manga, it's definitely our favorite, especially when we found out that Undertaker is smexy as hell.
Disclaimer: Kuroshitsuji is Yana Toboso's toy, we are just playing with it.
FALLACIOUS
[CHAPTER ONE: Misleading]
Life isn't measured by the number of breaths you take. But by the number of moments that take your breath away.
I'm sorry, but despite all of our efforts, it is confirmed you have terminal cancer.
"We're moving to Baltimore," Dad had announced, three weeks after I was diagnosed with terminal illness, our world fell apart. "We need a fresh start."
I had agreed. My life was a mess; my family didn't stop fighting, my friends and my boyfriend didn't know what to do or to say around me anymore, and my stepmother was like a little child who'd lost their favorite toy.
But I didn't think that Baltimore was the ideal place for a fresh start. My boyfriend had once described it as a welfare trap to create poverty; a thriving blue-collar city lined with beautiful independent ethnic family shops, marble steps and a strong sense of community. It was worlds apart from Manhattan, the big city I'd been born and brought up in. It had enormous white mansions atop rolling hills, antiseptic gardens that were cleaned and pruned within an inch of their lives, perfect-looking residents, and greenery that was so lush and so fresh that it made me feel like a dirty old tramp.
But it was the place my father's hospital had transferred him to, and it was where we moved a week after dad's announcement, before I had the chance to talk with my boyfriend of my best friend. Although I doubted we'd have been able to talk properly anyway, because they begun to treat me like strangers.
Never in their lives experienced anything but normality, and by then, I had.
The day everything started, it was very well for her family. It was all very well for her father and her step-mother to be happy. After all, today was the day of their wedding anniversary.
But I was not happy.
Every single day, the day's schedule was the same. Wake up, take a bath, and eat a very healthy because breakfast with grease or oil could very well affect my health very much. Get ready to go down to get some checkups and therapy until the late evening, go to sleep.
I glared at myself in the mirror, my eyes narrowed in ferocious scowl. My blond hair is getting thinner because of the exposure to the UV-light. At this time, I know I wasn't at my very best.
I hated the Doctors who told me about my illness bluntly. Can't he be a little more considerate? I mean, you are telling a nearly 16 year old girl that she was going to die in about 5 months. Unfortunate for me, the woman who usually took care of me had a holiday and my personal Doctor was sick. But still, it was exactly a month and 14 days ago and I still haven't forgiven him from being so tactless.
I looked for my new room in my hospital gown. They were moving me into another ward where people with no aspiration of surviving were put.
I'm just glad they put me in a single room anyway. There isn't much to hope with considering that my death was near. My life; destroyed. My love; gone. My dreams; forgotten.
Sounds horrible, doesn't it? How can someone be so happy to see their own culmination coming to get them? The memories I have in my mind is not sufficient enough, even if I can't count on two hands my family eat dinner together, or the times where they are always supporting me in reaching what I wanted to do the most. And I know, I can't count on one hand about the stupid, silly little things that I thought were insignificant to do compare to the other teenagers.
Whatever the reason, I knew in my heart I was never going to do what I wanted to do the most.
I opened the door to my new room. White curtains are currently floating in the evening breeze. I saw my bags or stuff were on the bed. I sorted through the stuff; clothes, books, sympathetic get well cards that I never read, and my manga collection.
I liked all sorts of manga, but the one I read the most is Kuroshitsuji. I looked at the battered first book of the series and smiled inside. I haven't smiled for a very long time.
They said I will be occupying this room for the few months that remained in the rest of my life. Well, they didn't say it like that, but I knew they meant it that way. I lived most of my life in a hospital where my dad works, so I guess I should know the truth behind those bland smiles.
I collapsed on the bed, taking care not to make too much noise. I just wanted to relax, curl up and contemplate about my useless, forgettable life.
I went undisturbed for about a whole blissful hour, before I heard the unmistakable sound of something scraping the window. I sighed, managing to make it to the window, something of a little miracle.
When I draw back the curtains and opened the window, a black cat hopped inside my dim room, snuggling against the warm bed as it purr in the silent night.
I cursed silently. A moment later, the act scampered up towards me.
"What do you want?" I asked at it irately as it rub its ear against its paw before he meow-ed happily.
It just looked at me, inquiringly, sitting there in front of me in almost a peaceful manner.
"What? You want to be fed?"
It meow-ed and I took that as a yes. I don't know how to take care of an animal, so I willingly pour a small amount of milk on a small plate and put it as far as I could from the bed, then walked back to resume on staring on the ceiling.
But only for a few minutes later it was back.
It purred happily, leaping on the bed next to me. It then shuffled up beside me, our head almost touching in its endeavors.
I know I'm complaining a little, but I suppose things weren't all bad. I much preferred having the cat here than having the tactless Doctor. I know it sounded awful, but I can honestly say I hated almost every single thing about that Doctor.
Out of curiosity, I reached out and pet the cat lightly on its back; before I knew it, the cat succumbs to my touch and purr lovingly against my ear.
I shrugged, why not? I needed a friend anyway.
"You know," I started rambling. "I'm gonna die in three months."
I smiled nervously, hoping to see a reaction from the cat. Of course, nothing came out. I doubted it would understand me anyway.
"I wanted to do so much in my life in a useful way instead of dying like this. Maybe in another world? But I'm not physically strong so I may need someone to cling on to and survive. I also wanted to play normally like any other teenagers, I wanted to dress-up, go to parties, and I want to have fun too..."
I guess it seemed more and more like a list as I kept on rambling about what I wanted to do and have in the long run of things. But during my listing, I started to get tired. I slept more and more these days. So I added one last item to my list.
"I know it sounded stupid, talking to a cat and all, but I would really like to meet Sebastian Michaelis."
Shinigami Main Branch, the Library.
Undertaker sighed a long sorrowful sigh. He was bored, the library is no fun and he was getting old. He was lucky already a legendary grim reaper has its perks, for example; he won't get punished for the late returning of the Cinematic Record. Of course, he made sure that no after effects were significant.
He squeezes in the thick books in the gaps available. He smiled at the records when he remembered how fun it was to collect those souls, before he could get bored anyway.
After he was finished, he silently wandered at the great Library, there were times when his job was to read them, collect the souls and stamped them; a complete waste of his time. When curiosity got the best of him, he pulled one book out from the shelves and read them.
Name : Ren Astarr
Born : December 9, 1886
Date of Death : January 19, 1990
Cause of Death : Cardiac Arrest
Additional Information : Die in the age of 24. Not rich, not poor.
Well, typical death. Nothing to special, all in all it wasn't a fun death to begin with. Pretty normal stuff. And Ren was very unlucky to die young.
Undertaker reach for the second book on the next shelve.
Name : Daisy Smith
Born : February 29, 1996
Date of Death : March 17, 2029,
Cause of Death : Suicide, blood loss
Additional Information : Die in the age of 33. Came from a multimillionaire family. Parents won't let her take plastic surgery. Very ugly. Die in the hand of her gentle husband
Another typical death.
Name : Orion Law
Born : August 19, 1998
Date of Death : October 30, 2014
Cause of Death : Terminal illness
Additional Information : Die in the age of 16. Only child.
Going to die in...3 months? He skipped over the next details and started reading the record because he reasons. It would take a long time, but as he started reading, his eyebrows nearly blended with his hair.
A smile was starting to creep its way towards his lips. Her disenchanted death, can he manipulate it? But he knew, it will certainly be amusing if he connect her to his fake records. He knew he didn't felt anything sympathetic towards the girl's death.
Now, what would happen if this girl's end had a continuation?
He stretched his body lazily under the warm sun streaming in through the library window, bathing the large room in golden light. With a big smile on his face, he closed the book and put it under his sleeves before padded out silently to his parlor.
He decided then and there what he had to do.
He had to be this girl's fairy godmother.
Three months later...
It was late October. Autumn was coming to a close and so was her life.
As much as she hated it, Orion was pretty much used to the four white walls caging her from the outside world in her last moments. Well, it's not like she had much of a choice. Even if she was allowed to go out, it's not like she can go far by herself. She couldn't even sit up without assistance, let alone stand on her own two feet.
Her whole body had become a useless, dead weight wedged between the bed and her blanket, connecting her to the world and she forced herself to welcome the fact. She felt so lethargic that her mind had no strength to fight against reality.
She was thankful, however, that she could still turn her head towards the window where the black cat would visit by every evening. Her chapped lips would curve upwards in the widest smile she could muster with her remaining strength as said cat came to her line of vision.
The sight was pitiful, to be brutally honest, as her smile only looked like a pained twitch on her lips.
The nurses whom kept watch after her were always perplexed at her behavior. In the earlier months when she was still able to get up from her bed, she would stand at the window and talk to herself. Yes, to her. They tried to question her about it, and her sanity, and she always told them about a black cat. They didn't have the heart to tell her that she was probably hallucinating, so they just left her to do whatever she wanted.
Seconds away from her death, a man clad in a black suit came into her room. She had no idea how he got in here and before she could think about it, he whipped out a scythe and slashed it at her.
Orion's eyes widened at the attack and she saw her life flash before her own eyes
"Hadley, you little bitch!" my grandmother's shriek was loud enough to shatter glass.
I had been lying in my bed for the past half-hour, feeling nervous about my first day at school. Now, I sat up, safely ensconced in my room as my family started another one of their fights. Those meaningless pointless fights that had now become almost as regular as brushing my teeth.
"Please, mother...just calm down." My stepmother's tired voice just couldn't match the volumes of their shouts.
"Who the hell do you think you are?" Grandma demanded of Hadley. "Walking around and calling me your mother like you own the place?"
"My brother married to you, you fucking whore!" My aunt, Ann shouted, raising her voice even further, refusing to back down.
"I'm not a whore..." Hadley's voice dropped almost to a whisper.
"Of course you are!" Ann rounded all together. "You're screwing my brother around like your entire previous husband and take all their money, you fucking bitch! Like the way you begged my brother to buy you a new, bigger house in Baltimore?"
I sat very still on my bed, frozen. We had worked so hard to be a family. How had things changed so much? Why were we palling apart? Dad had promised that moving to Baltimore would be a fresh start for us, that it would give us time, a chance to heal the gap in our lives.
But that wasn't what was happening. What was happening was that things were actually getting worse.
Unlike on that sleepy August morning four weeks ago, the school gate was wide open when I scrambled out of my Dad's car, and boys in their black pants and white shirts and girls in their tunics and shirts milled around, making out, talking about their vacations in Europe and Asia, laughing and hugging. I watched as a guy lifted a girl on his back and stumbled around as she whooped, then as a gaggle of laughing girls with French manicured whispered and pointed at a good-looking guy in a lacrosse uniform. Standing in the crowd, on the outside looking in, I felt lonelier than I'd ever felt before.
And intimidated. Each and every student on the grounds, besides being impeccably groomed, tanned and supplied with designer backpacks, looked like they belong on a runway in Paris. They were all drop-dead gorgeous. It seemed as if one of the requirements for getting here was looking like models and movie starts. A requirement I didn't fulfill.
"Thinking you don't belong?" a voice purred softly from my right.
I turned my head. Roxanne Cartwright, in all her power-filled glory with her uniform fitting her like a condom and every inch of her face and body flawless, was standing there with a smug smile on her glossy mouth.
"Roxanne," I said evenly. My mouth felt slightly dry, but I refused to display fear.
"It's Miss Cartwright to you," Roxanne said sweetly. "That's what the losers call me only my friends and equals call me Roxanne."
I crossed my arms over my chest, subconsciously registering how small my chests were compared to Roxanne's perfect C-cups. "I see."
My phone was ringing, and I forgot to care about everything that happened in my entire life when the screen was flashing my boyfriend's name.
"Nathan?" I answered on the first ring, not caring how desperate and breathless I sounded.
"Hey," he said softly. "It's you."
Of course it was me. Who had he expected, Justin Beiber?
"Long time no talk," he said, when I didn't respond.
I wanted to ask him whose fault that was, but I didn't want to waste time on accusations when I wanted him to be with me so much. "I know," I said. "I missed you."
"You left so suddenly," Nathan said. "We didn't get a chance to talk."
You could have called me. "I know. But Dad wanted to do it quickly."
"I've missed you," Nathan ventured hesitantly.
"What's up with that?" I asked, wondering if my longing for him was penetrating through the phone.
"I don't know." He heaved a sigh. "What are we now, Orion?"
He was asking me? That was like the sun rising in the west. "What do you want us to be?"
"I want us to be a couple. I want you to go on being my girlfriend."
The happiness that was rapidly filling my chest threatened to choke me. I want that, too. But we haven't talked in months, Nathan. You can't just call me and think we can go back to where we were—"
"I was scared to call you," he interrupted.
I stopped talking. Wasn't that what had stopped me from calling him too? Fear. Doubt. Uncertainty. "Honestly? Me too."
The man nodded absentmindedly to himself and was about to collect her records, seconds he reached for his stamp a large shadow was looming over him and yet the reaper was oblivious to the fact.
Undertaker appeared without warning, his scythe glinting in the dark shadows; he and his scythe are both eager to stop this reaper from collecting the girl's soul. Before the other reaper could turn around, his life was ended in one swift, simple, yet elegant move.
"I'm so sorry," he whispered to the other reaper in an ostentatious smile. "But this one belongs to me."
The other reaper's body falls with a loud thud, but of course, no one can hear what undertaker do or did.
He did all of that without blinking, stole the girl's soul and left without anything but a sympathetic smile to spare.
The loud chimes of the church bell reverberated through the air; usually it signifies the start of mass, but that day it rung for the funeral of a barely sixteen years old girl.
Clothed in the most beautiful white dress she will ever wear and accompanied by countless matching colored roses, her corpse was laid in a wooden casket, deaf to the cries of despair of her loved ones.
Not a lot of people attended her funeral, but everyone was there.
Her stepmother rose up from her seat, walked over to her opened coffin, and stood still. Traces of dried tears were present on her pale cheeks. She had been crying for months for her stepdaughter. Her tired and bloodshot gaze fell upon Orion's peaceful face and she couldn't hold back her tears anymore. Her knees eventually gave away and Mr. Law rushes to her side.
His hands massaged her shoulders tenderly, in an attempt to comfort his sobbing wife. As much as he wanted to cry, he forced himself to remain as composed as he could be. He couldn't break down when the rest of his family was practically on the verge of breaking point. Her daughter was loved by everyone and her departure had made a big impact on them.
He felt remorseful. Despite being a doctor, he couldn't save her.
It was only for a split second, but in the midst of mourning over her death, the nurse who had taken care of Orion saw it. The black cat that she had spoken about.
Its beady black eyes, devoid of emotions, were scanning over her corpse. Before the nurse had the time to confirm that it was that black cat, it disappeared from her coffin's side and was never seen again.
Closing words from the greatAlpaca desu: Hey. Thanks for reading this. I love you so much hahahaha this chapter was edited and mostly written by 15interesting facts but I contributed to a part of this chapter. I wonder if it's noticeable hahaha.