Disclaimer: Wallflower's not mine. I'm just using the characters for my own evil purposes. Buwahahah.
Warnings: Character death, insanity?
Author's Notes: Trying to get back into a writing mode although I daresay that Juunigatsu no Unmei is on a permanent hiatus... or I might rewrite it in the future. I dislike how I started out with it. And I wanted to write something depressing and angry... The timing is really weird, so I'll say right now. It rewinds, but then jumps to the present at the end.
--
When Yuki, Takenaga, and Ranmaru found Sunako, she was sitting on the bottom of the slide in the local park, looking as ragged as the first day they met. Her black hair was matted and dirty and in tangles, as if she hadn't brushed it for ages, or washed it. Lips a dark ruby red not from lipstick, but from a gash from being punched in the face multiple times to the point where her lips bruised and spilled blood. Dried brown specks of that liquid of life splashed all over her face and torn gown, like a broken princess from a long forgotten fairytale. Her skin was pallid, a sickly white, either from cold or from malnutrition or from insanity, they don't know. They're just not sure anymore.
No one's sure anymore when it comes to Nakahara Sunako.
Despite looking like that, Yuki works up the courage to sit at her side and scrunches up his nose as a reflex. The smell of bodily fluids and excretions such as sweat and vomit didn't bother him as much as that overwhelming smell of blood. He turns to face her, parts his mouth to beg her to come back to the mansion. To come back to them. To return to herself. It's futile and he knows it once he gazes upon those once vivid violet eyes. They're not so dull and lifeless like the many broken and lost individuals he's seen, but they're frightening. Ice and poison and madness all swirl around the black pupil that stares off into the distance. A small smile tilts her lips, but there's no emotion in it.
It has all gone away.
"Sunako-chan... please come back..." Unknowingly, tears slipped out from his eyes and landed on her shoulder, scratched and scraped and dirtied and bare. The dirt and grime are parted by his tears, but she doesn't notice.
"...If I cook his favorite meal, will he come back...?" Sunako smiles to herself as her fingers twitched. They are all torn and bent in ways fingers shouldn't bend, but she no longer feels it.
"What?" Yuki whispers as the thunder roared in the distance, the first sign of heavy rain falling down on them in little droplets that clung to his long eyelashes.
"Kyohei. No matter where he is, he'd come back, right?" She croaked as her body trembled, as she's nothing more than a mess of broken bones now. "He has to come back..."
"But Sunako," Yuki murmured as he worried his lip, Ranmaru and Takenaga surrounding her, their lips open at the same time.
"He can't come back. He's gone."
:
It has been three days and four nights since Sunako disappeared from her wedding. It wouldn't be weird of her if it was five years earlier, when they were fifteen and it was a trivial matter. But they were all twenty, all adults, and even with Sunako's love for darkness diminishing, they still feared for her.
She has gone mad.
Takenaga sat in the main hall where they dined, all as a family, except two were missing now. His eyes were red as he leaned over the edge of the elaborate casket placed in the center, the preserved body in it a pale white, dressed in the Armani suit designed and tailored to perfection for the special night. The black stood out against the dead blue skin of a corpse, like one of those ball-jointed dolls with the perfect complexion and perfect lips and perfect eyes. Sunako would be proud.
Except it's not perfect. The only flaw was that it was perfect. Because there was no other word to describe him, even in death. But that small nick on the corner of his lips had sent her into a frenzy, and Takenaga gasped as a fresh wave of tears hit him. He slammed his fist weakly against the chest that no longer rose with each breath, but remained deadly still. Moved it up to pat down the ever unruly mane of golden hair.
"You idiot. Your damn pride..." he choked as he slumped forward, his cheek hitting the edge of the casket. "She's gone mad... all because of you... is this what you really wanted!?"
The eyebrows were furrowed, the lips in a straight line, as if he really regretted it. He should have. There's no way anyone could ever be forgiven for such an atrocious crime as this, as being torn away from the person they loved. Sunako, precious Sunako who made Satan cower in his throne in his kingdom of Hell, has finally calmed down. Has finally admitted that she held emotions for the man that blinded her, drove her up the wall, saved her in the most ludicrous situations. Such a mis-matched yet harmonious couple. Ruined.
And now, and now... Sunako has been broken. For four nights she has lost herself, disappeared, unleashed the wrath of the most frightening of demons in the underworld. She has gone mad. Has vowed to take revenge, and is now doing it in the most grotesque and grisly fashion.
"Last night a corpse was found in the back alley behind a school. The body has yet to be identified, as it has been mutilated and maimed beyond belief. This is the tenth corpse that we have come upon since four nights ago... witnesses have not yet shown up... there must have been a motive behind this string of murders..."
The slight buzzing of the voice on the television screen made it in and out through Takenaga's ears. He already knows the motive, the person behind this, and who the next victim will be. She will not stop until she is satisfied, until she destroys them all. Because that is Sunako, she was beautiful when she gave in to madness and insanity. This time around, it's so beautiful it's grotesque. Hideous. His fingers slip under the collar of the blazer and clutches it as he screamed.
And meanwhile, in the other corner of the room, Ranmaru leaned against the wall, his heavy eyes finally shutting for the first time in seventy-two hours.
"Where are you now, Sunako...?"
:
Sunako cackled to herself as she stumbled out of the alley, her wedding dress ripped and torn, her pumps long gone. Glass shards dug into the sole of her foot, but she no longer cared. Air recycled through her lungs in wheezing breaths, felt like trying to push away steel bars as they collapsed on you. Nearly all of her ribs are broken, but it didn't matter. She won't stop until she is satisfied. And she's far from it.
Her busted lip leaked blood profusely into her mouth, but she swallowed it as she limped to her destination two miles away. Blood and guts dried underneath her fingertips, the face of the last kill imprinted into the back of her eyes. She smiled as pain shot through her body. She has not slept for three days and four nights. Revenge was delicious, and she won't stop. Can't stop. Doesn't want to stop. Not until the face of every bastard that cornered him and killed him died begging for mercy. Not until then.
Her violet eyes shone in the orange glow of the streetlights, a perfect picture of insanity and loss of control.
A devil after finishing his meal and proceeding to the next.
She chuckled as she stroked the sapphire ring on her mangled finger, dirty with blood and grime and dirt.
"Come back to me, Kyohei... please come back..."
:
A bad feeling ran down Sunako's spine as she stood at the front of the Nakahara mansion, bouquet of red roses in her hands, alone. It is now ten, he is late.
If it was one thing she trusted about herself, it was her guts. Without saying a word to anyone, she fled from her wedding. Ran until she lost the feeling in her legs and her lungs felt like they would burst. Ran aimlessly into town in her obscenely long wedding gown, mindless of the stares she got from pedestrians that whispered "runaway bride." Dread flooded her stomach and veins and she pushed herself harder, didn't even know where she was running to.
But she knew who she was running to. Felt it in the back of her mind as she approached that alley. She bit her lip as she peered around the corner.
Blood.
Everywhere.
All over him, him, him and oh god it wasn't stopping.
After several franctic moments of shrieks and wails, an ambulance came. Someone had seen her. She clutched onto his chest, tried to stop the bleeding but god damn it, it wasn't stopping. All she could do was pray, pray that he'd make it. Pray that this was just another scare, another joke, and god damn it, bastard, if you don't wake up... It never occured to her that she was no longer holding him in her arms until the doctor gently placed his hand on her shoulder.
"Miss..."
Don't bother me.
"Miss... I'm sorry..."
Sorry? What for?
"He didn't make it."
You're lying. He's right there behind those doors. As soon as I walk in there, he's going to demand me to make some damn tempura shrimp for him.
"I'm very sorry... he was so young too..."
Shut up.
Just shut up.
She was unaware of her feet moving toward the doors of the ICU, wasn't unaware of anything until she reached the bed on which he laid upon. His face, so pale, so bruised, so stained with blood but still so beautiful. It was a lie, all of it. Kyohei wasn't dead. He was faking it like a moron. He'll open his eyes right now and say, Sunako, I'm sorry for making you wait and worry... She swears that he will. But he doesn't move, just stays there, motionless.
I love you.
"You're such a liar Kyohei..." The tears came and she slammed a fist down on his chest, her body shaking. "YOU SAID YOU LOVED ME, DIDN'T YOU!?"
"Ma'am, please don't do that.." The nurses moved to pull her away, but she threw them off, screaming through blurred vision.
"GOD DAMN IT, KYOHEI, GET UP!! YOU'RE FAKING IT!!"
"Ma'am--"
"IF YOU LOVED ME, WHY DIDN'T YOU COME!? WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME!?"
"Sunako!" Yuki, Ranmaru, and Takenaga pulled desperately at her, but it was useless. She clung to the rail, screaming at ears that no longer heard her voice. But she tried to make it through to him, believed that if she screamed hard enough that he would wake up and smile.
"God damn it, Kyohei... " She collapsed as she caressed his cheek, memorizing every feature of his face... every cut and scratch, made a note in the back of her mind to deal out a hundred times more pain than he received... she knew who it was too. He tried to hide it from her, but she knew. And it was already too late to do something about it.
"I loved you..." Sunako hissed as a sudden wave of anger coursed through her veins, the flames of hell licking at the edges of her consciousness. The voices that begged her to calm down were no longer heard, and she leaned down to kiss those lips.
Those bruised, bloody lips that swore at her, insulted her, loved her, caressed her... they're nothing but stone now. Bruised dead flesh. But she loved them, kissed them as if she could give him her life instead. Kissed them for all she was worth, because he was never coming back. A part of her denied it, and a voice whispered to her as she pulled away reluctantly. They backed away at the sight of her eyes. The pupil shrunk and they looked absolutely livid and feral through the tears and she dug her nails into the palm of her hands as she stared at the face of the man she cared for deeply.
She was going to find them, the men who killed him.
And when she did...
They will suffer.
:
When she came to, she was staring at an endless sky, one that stretched for miles into the horizon... one a beautiful mix of the blue of falling night and the deep orange and red of disappearing day... the clouds flew by slowly and the soft breeze ran through her ebony hair, whispering a song into her ears. She tightened her grasp, heard the crinkle of the paper around the bouquet of roses, but she didn't move to push herself up. There was no point in it, even though she knew she was at a place where she shouldn't be for the next twenty years. Thirty if she was lucky. Sunako closed her eyes and sighed, the sound of chirping birds and running water in the distance. Such a peaceful landscape. If only...
"You idiot, how long are you going to lay there in your wedding gown?"
It couldn't be.
A soft thump sounded from close to her and she felt the warmth of another person beside her, but it couldn't be. She refused to believe it. A warm, calloused hand brushed across her forehead before oddly ruffling her bangs, and she moved to swat it away... a reflex, a response to something he'd normally do.
"You gonna get up or what, Sunako?"
She reluctantly opened her eyes, and found herself staring at familiar amber orbs that ridiculed her and teased her, the familiar smile of the creature of the light that she hated for months on end until coming to terms with herself. Here he sat, the last rays of the sun carressing his untamed, unrivaled golden hair, the fabric of his suit pressed and ironed to perfection, the white rose corsage moving ever so slightly with the breeze. Takano Kyohei.
"Why should I? You're dead. This is just a dream."
"I might be dead, but you're not." He said bitingly as he flicked her forehead. She twitched, but still refused to move.
"Listen, Sunako, if you stay here any longer, you really will die. Is that what you want?"
"Yes." Because his smile, as blinding as it always was, relieved her. She didn't want to let it go again. Kyohei sighed in irritation and laid down next to her. They sat in silence for a while before she heard it on the wind.
"Sunako, I love you... but right now, they need you more than I do."
"But this is limbo, isn't it? How can I get back.." She whispered, the voices becoming louder as he came closer, waving a hand over her eyes and slowly shutting them.
"It's quite easy, just close your eyes and..."
...
...Wake up...
Sunako...
...wake... Sunako...
"WAKE UP, SUNAKO!" Yuki shrieked as her eyes snapped open. Pain shot through her body and she let out a loud groan of protest. And strangely found herself unable to move. Oh yeah, that's right, it's coming back to her now. This is reality, the world she belonged in.
"T-Takenaga! R-RANMARU! S-SHE'S AWAKE!" Yuki cried as he laid his head down on her chest, which was bound in layers of bandages and a cast on top of that. Sunako groaned again.
"Thank god," Takenaga sighed as he fell down onto the floor, head in arms.
"We really thought you were going to give a moment ago..." Ranmaru let out the breath he was holding as he stood up.
"Don't ever scare us like that, Sunako-chan! What would we do without you? He's already gone, you don't need to berate yourself over it! Just move on--"
"He came back."
Everyone in the room fell silent as they stared at her, almost expecting her to go insane yet again. But instead, she smiled (or at least tried... she had stitches all over her face and a cast on top of it) as tears leaked out of the corner of her eyes. It wasn't a sad smile though, and the men exchanged glances before they all crowded around her. Her lips parted and she whispered to herself...
"Kyohei. He came back."
Okay, wow, that sucked. It didn't come out the way I wanted it to.
The title, by the way, means "Where are you now?" in Mandarin.
