Title: Five Things That Never Happened to Kotori Monou
Author: Tiamat's Child
Rating: R
Fandom: X/1999
Pairing/s: Yuzuriha/Kotori, Kamui/Kotori, Fuuma/Kamui, Fuuma/Kamui/Kotori, and I'm going to hell.
Disclaimer: I don't own X, and I'm not making any money off of this.
Summary: Five ways it didn't happen.
Notes: Beware the non-con. And the freakiness. And the gratuitous mildly obscure references to classical literature. And I think I'm on a kick.
Five Things That Never Happened to Kotori Monou
I. The Quick and the Dead
There really isn't all that much gun related crime in Japan. There are even fewer gun related fatalities and injuries. Of those, most are self inflicted.
Which is not to say that bursts of rage induced violence and killing do not happen. They do. Why, one happened just a few years ago in a nice little residential neighborhood, right outside a corner bakery.
Sixteen people were shot. Of those, four died. Two were dead by the time the ambulances came. One died on the way to the hospital. One hung on for a few days. The other twelve were just wounded. Four were injured severely. One recovered with minimal loss of bodily function. Two will struggle with the pain and difficulties caused by their injuries for the rest of their lives, but there's no way to tell from the outside. One was paralyzed below the waist, permanently.
Kotori knows the boy never really intended to hurt her. Oh, he meant to hurt someone, but he did not go out that day thinking of hurting her. He didn't hate her, or wish her any harm. The only specific person he wished harm to was himself, and he proved it by turning the gun to his head and blowing open the fragile bone that protected his brain. She feels sorry for him.
She doesn't mind her wheelchair.
Really, she doesn't. It makes her life difficult, but it hasn't ended it. She can still get around. She just can't do all the things she used to.
She's had to give up dreams. But that's all right. There are new ones.
She can handle the way everyone's eyes slide over her, too polite to see. Japan is not a country kind to the crippled, but she doesn't mind. All the places she's ever heard of have their hang ups and their problems.
And she knows she shouldn't think of herself as crippled, but really, that's what she is. Her body is ruined, and her life... Her life has been changed. Irrevocably twisted, bent and deformed into a shape completely and utterly like what it might have been. What it... sometimes she thinks should have been.
It's given her a new way of looking at the world. A different way, and she's been reading the Greeks and she thinks she knows now, what people mean when they talk about mercy. It's not pity, and doesn't mean you look at people and don't pay attention to who they are and how they got there. It means you pay as close attention as you can, and you look for the way their lives have been crippled.
Crippled. It's a good word, though an ugly one. It bites the air, and she finds that there's something infinitely satisfying in that.
There are so many people who have been crippled. Not in bodies, though there are plenty like her, who are, but in minds. Or spirits. Or lives.
And so she has new dreams.
There are people, she knows, who have reached out, taken the world in their hands, and changed it. Some of them, she knows, have not been able to walk. Or see, perhaps. Or hear. Physical perfection is not a prerequisite for power.
And Power is the wrong word for what she wants. Because, yes, all right, she wants power, wants it terribly, but not... not the kind of power that power implies. Because she doesn't want to control the world just... just fix it. Only not. Because that's too much.
She wants to heal. Heal lives, not minds or bodies. Lives, and the society that is made up of them. Because she belongs to those who society doesn't do such a good job of helping, really.
She's going to be a judge.
She will be. She's got law books, and she's working on learning, and she's got all kinds of philosophy, and she's always been a good student, but she's working really, really hard now because it's about all she has left that she can easily do. And she's going to get into an excellent college, and she'll make the bar and then...
She will.
She'll reach out to take the world in her hands and show it mercy.
II. Trading Places
Kamui knows that he's staring, but he really can't help it. Kotori is... That girl is Kotori, isn't she? Yes, yes, she has to be. No one else he knows has eyes like that, except for Fuuma, and Fuuma is dead.
The skirt is short. And black. And the blouse is tight and low cut. And black. And both are very ruffly and covered in lace. Well, at least that last isn't exactly a surprise. The boots are though.
She looks good. Scary, but good.
Kotori turns around from the balcony. Kamui has to bite his lip when he sees her smirk. There's something about that look. It's nothing like her, but it's everything like her too. This is Kotori, and he's loved her since he was too young to realize that that was the word.
"Kamui," she smiles and steps forward, "I thought you'd come."
"Kotori. I," he wants to say something like "I miss you," or "I want you back," but what comes out, because it's what has to come out, is, "I... I can't let you hurt anyone."
She licks her lips and crosses the space between them faster than he would have thought possible. "Can't you?" she says, tracing over his cheek with a single finger. He shudders, and doesn't move. "That's what I thought."
A block away a building goes down in a rumble of collapsing infrastructure and thrown rubble. Kotori sighs. "A bit too late to stop me, dearest, but it was very rude of you to distract me. I did so want to watch that one fall."
"You...!" He's shaking. "You can't! You're not..." She turns her head to one side and looks at him. He steps back. "You're not like this, Kotori!"
She steps forward, catching his collar in her hand. "But I'm not Kotori anymore. I'm Kamui." She smiles, and it's so sweet and gentle that for a moment he thinks they're standing in the garden, under the lilac. "I'm only what you want, love. This is what you want."
"It isn't." He tries to pull away, but she holds on tight.
"Is." she says, and tugs him towards her, kissing him. It's a gentle kiss at first, coaxing his mouth open and sucking sweetly on his lower lip. But then she bites down, hard, and he yelps. She purrs, and kisses him just a little more before pulling away and licking his blood off her lips. He watches, fascinated.
She smiles and lets go of his collar, running that hand down his chest, to his hip, and down. "See? You like this." He whimpers and pulls away.
"No."
She smiles and reaches out again. He lashes out, attempting to get her to back away. Her head turns with the force of the blow, but she is still smiling when she turns back to him and strikes him across the face with the back of her hand. He stumbles and falls to his knees.
Has she always been this strong?
In a fluid movement she snatches a broken piece of glass up from the ground and leans it against his throat. There's just enough pressure to tell him that the edge is sharp and finely honed. She crouches down next to him, holding him by the shoulder with the hand not pressing the glass against his skin.
"Silly boy," she says, and kisses him, firmly, sensibly, as if she was forgiving him for ruining a cake she had been baking. "Now then," she slides her hand down from his shoulder back to his hip, "Where were we?"
This time he doesn't tell her no.
III. Changing Minds
Kotori meets Yuzuriha Nekoi at her brother's funeral. The girl hangs back quietly, her face softer than any of the other faces that Kotori has to look into and reassure with a tiny smile. She looks out of place, though no one would notice but Kotori. Most people don't know how to look to notice when someone's spine is just a little too stiff, their chin just a little too determined.
Someone sent her.
Kotori sighs inside, and wonders if the reason she's here will make the blankness inside her even worse. Sometimes, since, well, Then (she prefers not to think of what Then is), there are things and people that make her feel like she's drowning somewhere in all the huge white walls her mind threw up so hastily to keep the madness out.
After everyone else has gone Yuzuriha crosses the floor and comes to stand lightly in front of Kotori. She'd introduced herself earlier, in the reception line. "I am – was, a friend of Kamui's," she'd said, and smiled, a wry little twist to it that turned the words rueful. "Or, at least, I tried to be."
Kotori knew what she meant. Kamui is not hard to love, but to be his friend... It's nearly impossible, even for her. She's not sure even she can manage it anymore, because Fuuma is dead, and Kamui killed him, and there's a constant echo in her mind of what Kamui said as he hugged her close, covering her in her brother's blood. "Please. You have to be everything I ought to and can't. Please."
It's that, more than anything, that makes the walls slam up. That and the fact that, dear heaven, she knows what her brother's blood smells like. She can't get the almost taste out of her mouth.
Yuzuriha smiles now, and it's the saddest smile Kotori has ever seen on any face except her mother's. "I... I wanted to wait. But... You're the Kamui now, Lady Hinoto says, and..."
"You want me to come with you."
Yuzuriha sighs. "We have a house. It's safe. There's pie."
Kotori laughs. "Pie?" She wants to say, 'Are you trying to bribe me?' but she's afraid the answer would be yes.
"I thought you might need it," Yuzuriha shrugs, a little sheepishly, "Pie is... a comfort."
Kotori nods. Yuzuriha holds her hands out to her. "I'm sorry," she says, "I'm so, so sorry."
There's something so strong and sincere in that voice, and Kotori knows, with a sudden near blinding sureness, that this girl would never, ever ask her to be what she, herself, cannot be. Her eyes prickle, and she can feel what she doesn't want to say, what she promised, when she woke up from her faint, that she wouldn't say, pushing its way up past her lips, through her teeth. "I didn't ask for this." And she hates herself for saying this, she really can't stand the sharp bite of the words in the air, but Yuzuriha doesn't back away, or wince. She just looks sad, and she steps forward and wraps Kotori into a hug that's almost terrible in its gentleness.
"I know," she says, "I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry."
Kotori starts to cry. Yuzuriha rubs her back and murmurs soothing nonsense to her. Kotori knows something's breaking inside, but it feels good, and she's so, so afraid.
When this is over will she still be able to love Kamui?
Will she love this girl instead?
She can't know.
IV. Shakespeare's Women
There was never any reason for Ophelia to die. She just wanted to. I've thought about that, from time to time, since we read the play.
Is there a reason for me to die, or do I just want to?
It's easier to be dead than to be alive, I'm certain of it. Being alive is work. Getting up each morning is work. Pretending I'm not out of breath during gym every day is work. It's hard, and I like living, but I'm so, so tired, and it feels like there's something pushing at the back of my mind all the time, trying to get out, and I know that if I do it'll tear about from the inside out, but it's so hard to keep it back behind the tissue – scar tissue and why does that seem the best thing to call it?
Maybe I am Ophelia.
But do I have to be? It's true, it's true, it's true that I'd rather die than watch other people – watch the world – shatter. But, but, but... Does one have to shatter? Can both stay whole?
Must I be Ophelia?
If, and if, and only if, I can save myself and not sacrifice the world, shouldn't I? Do I want to? Shall I sing hymns as I drown?
Yes, and Yes, and No.
Perhaps both may be whole.
V. Geometry
It's dark by the time Kamui finds Kotori again. She's down at the park they used to go to as children, watching the water.
"Are you mad at me?" he asks.
She twists about and stares at him, her eyes wide and startled. "Oh, goodness! No!"
"Oh." His feet are suddenly much more interesting than usual.
"I thought you'd be mad at me." she says.
"Why?"
She blushes. "Um. Kissing. Privacy."
"Oh." He shakes his head. "No, that was really my fault."
She sighs, and stares ahead. "It's just... You kissed me yesterday. I mean... Fuuma is one of the most beautiful people I know. I love him. I know why you would, but you kissed me yesterday, and I didn't expect to find you kissing my brother."
"So you are mad at me."
"I am not mad at you!"
"You're mad at him?"
"How could I be! I know how much he loves you. I'm just confused." She turns around, looking up at him. "Kamui, do you love me?"
"Yes."
"Do you want me?"
"...Yes."
"Do you love my brother?"
"Yes."
"Do you want him?"
"....Yes."
"Oh." She returns to staring at the lake. After a moment she turns back around. "So why didn't you just tell us that?"
"What?" He's genuinely shocked.
"I'm sure we could have worked something out. We both love you, Kamui. We've both known that for a very long time. We just... We decided who ever you picked... That would be that. But if you don't want to pick..."
"I don't."
"Then let's go home, and talk about it." She stands up and holds out her hand to him.
He doesn't know what to say, so he takes her hand and nods.
Somehow he has a feeling that whatever he's going to get is going to be far more than he's ever thought he could handle.