*bursts into tears*
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Shi-chan: Two for two...
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Glass
By Shimegami-chan
AUTHOR'S NOTE: AU, some Taito here. Rated for suicide, angst, and death. Not part of a series, but part of a set. You can read the others if you desire, and they can be read in any order at all. See the links below. ^_^
:Insanity: :Clarity: :Grief: :Pride: :Memory: :Hate: :Silence: :Glass: :Love: :Failure: :Loneliness: :Despair: :Desire: :Forgiveness: :more to come:
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Now-customary shameless plugs.
'In Your Shoes,' Kenyako, chapter 5 updated on June 11.
'Sadness-Colored Sandglass,' Kensuke, chapter 12 updated on May 26.
Thanks minna-san! On with the fic!
I was the favorite.
Or so he always told me.
I am a free spirit, yet condemned.
I was damned to this life and the personality I masqueraded in.
My mask has broken and my tears have fallen.
My heart was made of the thickest glass that had been thrown around, stepped on, and crushed beneath the heels of people I called my friends, and yet it never broke. My mask held perfectly, never wavering for a moment, except in those long moments when my life passed before my eyes and I didn't realize that I'd never done anything that I was really proud of.
I didn't share my heart with many people. My parents, my brother, my friends. Especially Taichi, who I always liked a little bit more than I was supposed to. He didn't mind when he found out, for once one of Daisuke's screwups ended up doing something good.
It wasn't what you'd call the heat of passion, no. We were teenagers, and too shy with our preferences to make them known in public. So every time something happened between us--a quick kiss, a wistful hug, a stolen guilty look or a simple anonymous gift--my stomach erupted in a flurry of butterflies, and my heart swelled until I feared its shield was broken and I would be vulnerable.
But the thing that broke my heart was something I never could have expected.
He went into the hospital on a cold, rainy day, perfectly ordinary but for that minor detail. I hadn't known at first. Kaasan left a message on my cell phone, but I was at a band practice and never checked it. When I got home Otousan hadn't even been there, I could tell. I was always late on Tuesdays, and he usually got us take-out. But at nine o'clock, there was no sign of him.
Then, at nine-thirty-two, I heard the deadbolt slide back and the door open.
Praying my father had gotten some form of food for us, I ran to the porch, surprised to find Taichi there. He seemed equally surprised to see me. Turned out he had just come from the hospital after dropping Hikari off there. I wanted to know if Hikari-chan was sick; was she all right?
Taichi replied with a negative, shock evident on his face. It was Takeru that she went to see.
The bottom fell out of my world.
I begged Taichi to give me his car keys. He didn't know anything except that Takeru had collapsed at school and Hikari had come home crying before asking her brother to bring her to Odaiba General Hospital. The elder Yagami complied, and my mother had asked him to pick up some things for my father as he wouldn't be leaving the hospital for a while, and then find me, wherever I was. The keyring in his hand was one I had given to my little brother on his birthday last year.
He threw some clothes in a bag while I collected some of my own things. Toiletries, clothes, sheet music, and my Digivice. I left Gabumon with instructions to go to Jyou's if anything went wrong before flying out of the apartment, leaving Taichi to lock the door.
At the hospital, Takeru was lying pale in the bed, an IV inserted in his slender arm. I couldn't breathe. Something was terribly wrong with my little brother, the blond-haired blue-eyed troublemaker that I tried so hard to bring up to be a good kid. Over in the corner, Patamon cried in Daisuke's arms while Hikari cried in Miyako's. Taichi gently held me, his arms clasped around my waist.
I couldn't breathe.
I couldn't speak.
Cancer. My baby brother had cancer. Sixteen years old and his lifeblood draining away with every breath.
I stared, stonefaced.
But I never cried.
Maybe they thought I was heartless, but I don't think so. Only weeks later we lost Takeru, my sweet otoutochan, my only connection to sanity through all those lonely days and nights in the Digital World when I hated myself and my life.
Gone.
What could I do? I comforted my distraught parents as best I could, found solace in only Taichi's company, and stopped going to school. I couldn't face any of Takeru's friends anymore, especially not Hikari. Her eyes were dead. Lifeless.
Like mine.
I came home from the funeral, and I cried so hard I couldn't breathe.
The days became small eternities. My mother moved back in, but I didn't care anymore. She slept in my room. I slept on the couch, or at Taichi's or Jyou's when I couldn't stand to see my parents anymore. When I couldn't stand to see that little box of Takeru's belongings in the corner, or Patamon sobbing in the room that had once been mine.
I couldn't stand it anymore.
Looking back, I guess Takeru would be upset with me for doing something so stupid. But today, I really don't care, or at least I didn't up until now. My glass heart is shattered in a million glittering peices on the floor. There in an endless sea or red pooling out around the shards, or are they tears? My vision is blurred from the tears and the pain. I'm wondering if I'm making a mistake.
But it's too late now.
I wish I'd done this in the bathroom, so my parents wouldn't come home to find this mess. Two children dead within days of each other. Two lives lost. It would probably kill Mom. I think I'm beginning to regret.
I wish I'd told Taichi that I loved him, even though I think he already knew. I think this will destroy him. I'm sorry, koi. I think I'm beginning to regret...
I wish I'd done things differently. The blood is spilling out of my wrists, so dark, like liquid death pouring forth. I regret...
I wish you didn't have to die, Otoutochan. I wish I didn't have to follow you so foolishly. I regret, I regret, all the things I did and didn't do, I'm sorry Takeru, forgive me!
It's getting dark, and I'm getting sick to my stomach. I'm sorry...
The crystal shards are glittering, and a tear falls from my eye. It's too late.
I'm sorry!
I love you, Takeru. Taichi. Kaasan. Tousan.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I--
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Shi-chan: Sweet Jesus...I have never written anything like that before...