Another Shortfic, once again translated- so please be so kind and donate me a review if you spot any grave grammatical or orthographical mistakes (of course, you may also review if you actually liked the story ;))
It might appear somewhat strange, but I always wanted to write something like that- and well, so I did^^
Again, reviews are highly welcome- enjoy!
A lunar eclipse. An impressive spectacle of nature, rare and fascinating, which Tokyo's inhabitants had the pleasure to observe that night. Almost all did they stare up into the obfuscating sky, all those very busy ones who only too often allowed to have their time be stolen, and who now collectively, as if spellbound, looked up.
Ruki Makino didn't do anything like that. Quite the contrary, she pulled the blankets almost as if seeking protection over her head, in order to not have to listen to the noises which tried to reach her ears.
All of them were well-known already. Her mother's slightly hysterical appearing laughter, who was just having her fun with some tanned male underwear model with a washboard stomach. Her grandmother's partially understanding, partially desperate sighing. And, above all, the voice of Renamon, which had never left her head since the day of parting. Every night did she hear its confided, melodic, calming words, and each time it was both, comfort and torment. She would never admit it- especially not to Rumiko- but she was missing her digimon. She was longing for its warmth, as much as for her mother- her mother like she had been after the defeat of D-Reaper, a true paradigm of understanding and care. However, she soon had fallen back into her old part as a top model- and this did, however, cause her to never be at home, and if she was, then only to sleep with someone who could force her career.
Were that tears, flowing down over her cheeks? Ruki was honestly startled. She would have thought that she had forgotten how to cry a long, long time ago- at about that time when she had been forced to give up her childhood…
With a flip, she sat straight. It was useless. She couldn't handle this life any longer; and it was surprising her she had borne up that long. But now her self-control and fake-strength were gone. She wasn't able to cope with that nightmare that was her life any longer; too badly had her heart and soul been wounded, too deep the scars left behind by all the terrors and chimeras.
Determinedly, Ruki got up and searched through her bedside table. Sleeping pills. She had took them ages ago, before she had realized she wouldn't find nightly dormancy anyway after Renamon was gone. In the meantime she had almost forgotten about the medicament- but only almost…
Calmly, almost bored, she took the first pill and flushed it down with water. A second one followed, and a third, and eventually she began to feel their effect. The world around her wore off in flickering shreds of colour, and was sucked into a whirling maelstrom of eternal obscurity. The last thing Ruki heard before the clement night surrounded her was Rumiko's appalled cry…
Ruki awoke. Everything had changed, yet it was so familiar. Endless, comforting warmth flowed through her body, even though she lay there totally naked. Her body (or was it?) was bedded onto rose leaves, and the air was filled with ambrosial fragrances. Ruki licked her strangely sticky lips, and tasted something to which pretty much applied the description of nectar in Greek mythology. She tried to raise, but an invisible force tied her down onto her unordinary "bed". At the same time (but what did time mean anyway), there was a glistening light flashing up right in front of her eyes, blinding her. After regaining her vision, she saw a pallid figure standing in front of her- a man, she realized. Sallow, almost translucent skin spread across his bony face, and dark motorcyclist-clothing covered the rest of his body. Ruki couldn't quite detect his figure, since the strange stature had additionally enwrapped itself into a wide, black leather coat.
"Welcome." His voice sounded dreadful, as if the dead themselves would free their maggot-eroded bodies out of the humid earth of their sepulchres and start singing a horrible chant.
"Where am I here?", the girl asked, puzzled.
"In a place you can impossibly understand, Ruki Makino. This is the Otherworld- and still, it doesn't deserve the title "world", because it isn't. In fact, it is a mirage, a phantasmagoria of the incomprehensible and elusive, and you cannot stay here. You either have to go on, Ruki Makino, or dare to go the way back, because you are not allowed to do like you'd wish and stay here in the middle. He stepped towards her and kneeled down, in order to place his hand on her shoulder. To Ruki, it was as if she had been striped by an icy breeze. She was shuddering all over, and downright shivering just because of the stranger's sheer presence.
"Who… are you?" the girl managed to stammer.
"It is not important who I am," the man responded. "I am just a toll keeper, a way companion and a ferryman. Pay the tribute, and follow me. Or return to the pain and agony."
"Which tribute?" Ruki whispered weakly, although she thought to already know the answer. A mild smile appeared on the man's face, and instead of answering, he gently stroke over Rukis left breast with his left index finger, where once her heart might have beaten…
"I… I can't…" Rukis voice almost wasn't audible anymore, but the stranger understood her well. "But you fled into my arms. Why else if not to flee with me into eternal light?"
The girl didn't answer. She simply couldn't. Nor could she resist, as the foreigner lay his hand on her front. She felt as if her head was been plunged in purest ice.
A first puzzled, then understanding expression appeared on the bony face in front of her.
"So… there is something binding you…You shouldn't have come here…"
Another lightning, this time accompanied by an infernal thunderbolt, caused Ruki to pass out.
When she awoke again, she wasn't bedded on roses any longer, but lay on a meadow. Butterflies were floating in the wind, and flowers of all types and colours were there closely strung together. Directly in front of her rose a gigantic gate, seeming to consist of pure light, to which's both sides there were kneeling twelve white-clothed maidens, playing euphoric melodies on the fanfares they had on their lips. Again there was that ambrosial scent in the air, which became more and more intensive and alluring the nearer one came to the gate.
But Ruki didn't approximate it.
"There is something binding you…"
Those stranger's words were suddenly echoing in her head. Yes- he had been right… There was something… or, to be more precise, someone…
"Takato-kun…" It wasn't more than a whisper, a faint melody, seemingly unheard fading away through the paradisiacal airs, but it was Ruki's last rest of living will, manifested in that one single name…Takato… It was he whom she wasn't willing to leave; and solely the thought of him held her here in the otherworld, and far away from the realm of that weird stranger. That incorrigible gogglehead who had become her very best friend, that walking example of clumsiness- but that exactly was it what made him so likeable. Ruki suddenly was longing for that boy, that Takato Matsuda with whom she had survived so many adventures and fought so many battles. The only human being on earth who had managed to win and inflame her cold, scarred heart… She wanted to go back, to return to him…
She turned around. Just to her feet there now stretched a pitch-black abyss, in total contradiction to the heavenly gate just a few dozen yards away. So plenary, so unbearable was the darkness, that she thought her mind would completely break at the view of it. However, it only got twisted (like it appeared to her), feigning to her a cloudy illusion. She saw Takato, squatting in an inhospitable waiting room with tears in his eyes and grief-marked face, over and over again repeating her name.
"Ruki-chan… Please don't leave me, Ruki-chan…"
Words, not more than words- and still, they touched the girl deep inside like nothing else before. With a last, slightly wistful glance back, and a whispered "Takato-kun" on her lips, she threw herself into the gaping voids of the abyss…
"That's it." With a resigning sigh, the chief physician of the distinguished Tokyo hospital took a look on his watch. "Time of death…"
"Doctor? She has recovered- there's a pulse!"
Unbelievingly, the doctor swirled around. The regular beeping of the controlling monitor and the clearly visible sinus curve confirmed the nurse's exclamation. That girl was downright filled with sleeping pills, and yet had survived…
"Take her to the ICU, from now on she's under constant supervision. And inform the mother- oh, and that boy, Takato Whatever, he seems to care for her a lot…"
While taking off his unsterile gloves, the doctor left the attendance room, with a relieved smile on his lips.
Contemplatively, he gazed at his talisman, that medallion his wife had bestowed him shortly before her death. His colleagues had always perceived him as a bit eccentric, since he was always carrying that thing with him, but to him, the symbolism was important, and he, as a matter of principle, never put it aside. On the small metal plate, there was visible the image of a haggard, black-cloaked figure- Charon, the dead's ferryman of Greek mythology.
"That girl wasn't meant for you yet," he murmured, before pocketing the piece of jewellery again and turning to his other patients.
It still lasted a few hours until the doctor gave Rumiko and Takato the permission to enter the room. She wasn't sleeping, but still under medicinal treatment, and thus very worn out. She wasn't surprised by Takato's presence, after all she had seen him in that vision in the otherworld…
Hardly had her mother entered the room, she had left again already. Her cell phone had rung, and since those things were forbidden in hospitals, she obviously was on her way outside to receive the- surely enormously important- call.
However, that wasn't of note for Ruki. The main thing was that Takato was here…Like he has always been there for her…
Takato sat down on the side of her bed. Ruki closed her eyes and, for the moment, didn't say anything. An instant later, she felt the boy's hand caressing her cheek, and couldn't help but shudder under his touch, so incredibly pleasant it was.
"Ruki-chan… I should have been there for you… It's all my fault… I didn't want this to happen, never…" Once again, Rukis closed eyes began to dwell with tears, but this time tears of euphoria and joy to hear this voice again…
The next moment, she felt as if her heart had skipped a beat. Takato had kissed her on the front… So gently, and still so endearingly and lovingly…
Ruki couldn't stand it any longer, opening her tear-filled eyes and watching Takato.
"No… it isn't your fault, Takato-kun, far from it…"
Never, as long as she lived, would Ruki forget that expression of overwhelming bliss and joy on Takatos face as she saw her awake again.
"Ruki-chan! I've been scared to death about you…"
Tightly he embraced his best friend (who actually meant so much more to him), and, without much thinking, firmly pressed his lips on hers…
The kiss didn't last long, but was far enough to let them both blush furiously. But soon, they both relaxed, because now they definitively knew that they were meant for each other, joined together in life and death…
"Aishiteru, Ruki-chan," the brown-haired boy spoke under his breath in Rukis ear.
"Aishiteru, Takato-kun," came the whispered response. And then, in exactly that moment in a small hospital room in Tokyo, there confirmed itself that what the stranger had already prophesied to Ruki; that Ruki was bound to someone, forevermore, and beyond the limits of time and realms…
Well, a bit strange, as I said- however, I hope you liked it anyway. As usual thx to all readers and special thx to all who review and thus help me improving my writing skills (geez, now _that_ sounded clichéd^^)
Oh well... cYa next time, and: RUKATO ITSUMADEMO!