O_o Trippy. I dunno why I wrote it, much less, HOW I finished it, but it's pretty much a spin-off-type thing from the first chapter of Tank 4 (The summary's up on OFFRAMP XD). Think the day after Daisuke and Takeshi visit Satoshi at his apartment. Or something. -_-; Satoshi POV, slight angst, no UST, just a stream of consciousness deal. It Vacuums. ~_~
I absolutely refuse to admit listening to too much "Scarlet" by Iwao Junko while writing this. Oh no, no no no. XD
This is my absolutely FIRST in my lifetime fic attempt. So don't throw those rotten tomatoes at me - PUT. IT. DOWN. =_<; ... Are they gone now?...
Oh well. On with it? ~_~
I open my eyes to the spotless white ceiling, dashed with color from the sunlight trickling in as the day ends.
The only things greeting me are the restless length of paper that prints mechanically out from the fax machine against the wall, probably detailing the plans to finally capture Dark when he makes his appearance at the museum in future days. Or maybe it's Father again, asking me not to act on my own but keep close to whatever he has in mind.
I grope around for my glasses - not that I need them, but it's become something akin to a habit - and wander into the kitchen. There *was* something left over from last night, I remember - when he came over with Saehara. Saehara's a good cook - quite unlike his father. Must be a pretty big job doing all the housework for two men, no wonder he's skilled. And Niwa...
I pause, with my hand still on the refrigerator door.
I wonder who greets him when he returns home, every day, at the same time that the sun returns to its celestial chamber. I wonder if he still has to survive the rigorous kaitou training that the Niwa family is unwittingly infamous for. I wonder if his mother would greet him enthusiastically, asking about his day, asking about Harada-san and everyone else. I wonder if that creature of his would clamber all over him, begging for him to be distracted from homework for just one moment to pay attention to it and play... I wonder if that's what a normal family would function, despite the Niwas being about as normal as my own family is. Or was.
Such thoughts.
I toss the plate in the microwave to heat up, and return to the humming fax machine and the pile of paper that has since accumulated on the tile floor. As expected, it consists of reports and plans... reports of how and why the department failed to catch Dark, setup plans of where the guards will be situated next, et cetera. Boring details of things that I know are useless and will undoubtedly fail.
Sometimes I wonder why I obsess over catching Dark so much. And along with that comes the nagging voice in my head, asking what will happen if I fail to capture him - and what will happen if Dark Mousy is sealed once again, for another generation, into the Niwa family. What will happen to me, when I lose the one pillar of my life that I hang on to, day and night, like a nightmare that will surely kill me if I awaken from it.
I throw the pages over my shoulder, and they flutter away like ghostly white feathers onto the bare tile floor. The balcony beckons me out into the red sky that melts into shades of lavender and purple, amber and liquid ruby... the two shades that I both love and hate.
I wonder what will happen if, indeed, Niwa confesses to Harada. And what will happen if Harada accepts it. I have no doubts that she will, and with all my heart I wish the best for Niwa... and his happiness, above all. I know he holds Harada as the most precious person in his life - they both deserve each other, I know. But my heart says otherwise.
Is it really my own selfishness to capture Dark that prevents me from honestly hoping the best for the two of them? That if, in the near future, Niwa and Harada really open their hearts to each other, Dark will be sealed in the Niwa blood, away so that no one can see his face for another generation? That I would then have wasted my entire life, lose what I have lived thus far for, and lose my identity, even? Or is it otherwise, that I may want Niwa for myself? And that these unspoken feelings, emotions that I sought so hard to suppress, will harm me more than anything in the world could...
I shake my head slowly as the slight breeze flows past my face, perhaps like a mother's gentle hand stroking my head. I know...
... I know.
I know, better than anyone else, that I am afraid.
The sun has already gone behind the grey rooftops of the mansions in the complex, but I can still see the stretch of red from the stark white railing I'm leaning on. Red, just like his hair. The rays don't help much in warming up this cold apartment of mine - or rather, this poor apartment inhabited by a cold little junior highschooler. A cold little junior highschooler who is the last of his family, who already has a degree, who knows everything he needs to know and more.
A junior highschooler who doesn't know anything that he wants to know.
But Niwa...
Niwa probably doesn't know - and wouldn't want to know - that he is the only source of warmth I felt in all these years. That yesterday's visit, brief as it was, gave me a piece of something that I might have been searching for all 14 years of my existence. And so I want to keep him safe. Away from the iciness inside me that is growing stronger every minute, away from the loneliness that invades me every so often... and because he belongs in the sphere of warmth, in the family he belongs to... and in the heart of the one he loves.
And yet, I wonder as I gaze off into the cold, blackening sky beyond the jagged horizon, what it would be like to feel warm.