Warning: Angst and tragedy… ^_^" extremely inappropriate for a supposedly
cheery occasion like RuHana day…. *coughs sheepishly* ^_~" ehehe… if you're
looking for something high-spirited today, read this another day ne? ^.^"
Author's Notes: *falls down on knees* First of all, I need to apologize.. only an incurable baka would write heavy angst on an occasion like RuHana day _~" But.. erm, such bakas exist ^_^" *sheepish* So don't flame me, please!! *begs* ya see ~ I couldn't think of another plot, and I couldn't stand to not contribute anything, after all, RuHana means a lot to me ^_~ kekeke.. so, I figured, this is better than nothing right? ^_^"
Tell ya what.. if you're looking for something jolly to read today, don't read this _" read it another day ^_^" 'cause it's not very appropriate *kicks herself* .
Disclaimer: SD ain't mine, all characters do not belong to me. I am but an aspiring fic writer making a humble contribution on the anniversary day of her favourite pairing. ^_^ hee hee…
~* HAPPY RUHANA DAY!! ^.^ *happy dance* This is my contribution! Tee hee.. *somewhat sheepish* ^_^"
~* Michiru-chan, this is the gift I promised you for your one year anniversary at babble ^_^ *huggles* Hope you.. erm.. .like it? *face faults* ~_~"
~* Just an additional note to mitchan, toshigoh, lotus, tea rose, frack.. and all the people who've bothered with me.. ^__^ *beams* Love ya guys!! ^.~ *big suffocating bear hug* [oh by the way, Ka-chan.. are you there? You promised to be in babble on RuHana day!! *squeals*]
HEAVEN AND THIS MOMENT"Damn you, kitsune! Damn you!!"
He struck yet another blow to my nose, and this time the raw, metal taste of blood trickled down my throat.
I sniffled but as usual, felt no pain.
It was strange how his blows never ached when he was near. It was only when I was alone afterwards that they began to tear my skin apart.
They didn't hurt at all, but rather left a numb, tingly feeling on the places where his skin had touched – a somewhat pleasant tingly feeling that was what I had imagined to be the way it would feel to have his breath on my skin. How strange.
I automatically returned his blow with a kick that sent him staggering back a few steps, instantly regretting it afterwards.
He placed his hands on his stomach and winced.
Deep down inside I wanted to move towards him, take him in my arms and kiss all the pain away.
I hated myself for being this way.
"Damn you…" he spat venom in his voice, in too much pain to attempt another attack.
I hated this. I hated seeing streams of blood as red as his hair fall down his chin, I hated seeing his features tightly scrunched up in their stubborn way of suppressing screams of agony. I hated seeing him in pain.
But I engaged in these all-too-frequent fighting games all the same.
Why? Often I avoided confronting this question, even though the answer was as clear as glass and as booming as loudspeakers.
I fought with him because that was the only way for me to be close to him. I fought with him because that was the only way to feel his skin on mine.
I was losing control.
Of all the answers to that question, I just had to choose this one.
The answer could have been, 'because I can't stand him', 'because he deserves to be taught a lesson', or even better yet, 'because I hate his guts'. 'Because I hate him.'
Why couldn't that have been my answer? 'Because I hate him'.
There was once a time where I could deceive myself into believing that was true. Into believing that the truth in his crystal copper eyes, the naivety in the music of his voice, the unusual honesty in every syllable of his speech, the unbelievably simple bliss that was Sakuragi … that all of this had absolutely no effect on me.
But that time had long gone.
I fought with him because I…
I…
I promised myself never to admit it.
I turned around wordlessly and began walking away from him. This was more than I could take.
"Oi!!" his infuriation yelled after me in fiery persistence. "Don't you walk away while I'm talking to you!! Damn you, kitsune!!"
I wished I could stop, spin back around, then hold onto him and never let go.
But things were never that simple.
I didn't know why I said the words. Maybe I was tired, tired of being something I wasn't supposed to be. Maybe I was angry, angry at feeling so much emotion that was all so wrong. Or maybe … maybe I just couldn't understand what he was doing to me.
"What do you care." I said.
I walked on, the fervent pain in my heart pulsing because I knew that I could never turn back. I closed my eyes and sighed an emotionless sigh. How did things become like this? How did I become this way?
Something unmistakable crinkled in the air – the same unreadable element of something that had gathered around us so many times before in so many times like this.
"Don't you walk away from me!" he screamed violently. "Don't you walk away!!"
Never turn back, I chanted mentally to myself. Never turn back.
And then came those words.
"Damn it, kitsune, don't leave me!!"
I stopped in my tracks, paralyzed.
I turned back to look at him.
He immediately averted his eyes onto the ground, a frown and an unrecognizable expression etched shakily onto his features.
Was it just my imagination … or did he really say those words?
"What did you say?"
The question escaped me before I realized it. Unknowingly, I advanced forward.
The silence that hung over us carried something that cast a intoxicating spell on me right then and there.
I didn't know what I was doing anymore. I was losing control.
"What did you say?" I repeated, hope and desperation escaping in the insuppressibly heavy quivering of my voice.
There was a different meaning hidden behind those words. I could feel it.
Could this be a dream?
He didn't answer, neither did he look back at me. I watched the crystalline beads of sweat trickling slowly down his neck, utterly and helplessly spellbound.
He stood motionless, silent. It was as if he was at a total loss for words.
A barely detectable breath echoed in my ears, and for one split second I thought I saw his body tremble in something that seemed akin to frantic speechlessness.
When his eyes finally locked with mine, they shimmered with something I had never seen before.
He opened his mouth in an attempt to say something. But nothing came out.
I didn't move – I couldn't. I was drowning in the copper clarity that was the inconceivable beauty in the orbs of his eyes.
It seemed like forever, still, silent, eyes connected and souls serene.
And then he suddenly coughed – a sharp, shrill cough that broke us both out of the inexplicable trance that we were in.
He fixed his eyes on the ground in the same agonized frown as before.
"I … I…" he stuttered breathlessly.
I could see he was having a hard time.
My hope blinded me then. The desperate hope that what I was seeing in Sakuragi … was a reflection of the emotions conflicting inside the turmoil of sensations that made up my soul.
I took two steps forward.
He stared up at me, and from his glinting irises the blatant mark of fear screamed out to me like a terrified child.
He broke into a frenzied sprint, and before I realized it, he had disappeared out the door of the hall.
On a normal day like this I would stand back and watch the outline of his back receding into the distance without an ounce of movement whatsoever.
But today …
My legs instinctively jerked me forward, my eyes hectically scanning the scene before me for any spot or shade of red, my body contracting in haste like never before.
That was when I heard the sound.
It was loud, deafening, high-pitched like an infant's scream. Then came the echoes of thunder rumbling, the vibrations of an explosion, hollering blasts that gave me the urge to yell and cover my ears with my hands.
And then - silence.
It was a cold, hollow, lifeless shell of silence. It was the type of silence that screeched so loudly in your ears that the sound waves carried so far into your being that you could feel the foreboding pulsing and shaking in each and every chord of your consciousness.
That was when I knew something was wrong.
And then I saw it.
I saw the murky, scarlet clouds of blood streaming across the uneven cement of the road, I saw the glooming stillness of the towering truck before me.
And when I saw that all-too-familiar halo of fire-red hair calling out to me from the centre of all of this, my heart stopped beating.
When my eyes connected with that all-too-familiar outline, now horizontally sprawled across the centre of the road, shell of skin bleached dark red with only a few splotches of pale paper-white, I couldn't breathe.
I stood there, transfixed.
I would have liked to think it was some form of shock, or some kind of psychological disorder.
But the truth was that I simply couldn't believe my eyes.
I simply couldn't believe that this broken individual lying before me, motionless and drenched in a river of blood … that this individual was none other than … Sakuragi.
This couldn't possibly be true. No, this couldn't possibly be real.
This is a nightmare, a voice inside me choked. This is a nightmare, Rukawa, and soon you're going to wake up.
But … I never did wake up.
A fright-filled voice shook me out of paralysis.
"K-Kami-ss-sama!!"
A middle-aged man climbed out of the truck and stared at Sakuragi, hyperventilating
and trembling like an epileptic patient.
He stared at me, panic and pleading written all over his face.
"I didn't mean it! I mean, he… he just appeared out of nowhere… I didn't see him coming… I mean… I… I didn't mean it!!! It was an accident! Oh god… it was an accident!!"
Something inside me snapped at that precise moment, and I leapt over to Sakuragi like an arrow to a bull's eye.
I kneeled next to him and cradled his head in my arms, laying his back as lightly as I could onto my lap, my chest tightening excruciatingly with the strained rhythm of my wheezing.
Streaks of scarlet red blood stained my fingers and clothes like dye, but I didn't care. I didn't have the time to care.
Everything was happening so fast; it was as if someone had come along and decided to give the wheel of time an extra push just for the fun of it.
His eyelids quivered uncontrollably, his mouth slightly open as if he were half-asleep, sweat rolling down his forehead like drops of rain sliding down a windowpane. He flinched, eyebrows shaking in agony.
"I'm bleeding…" he breathed. "I'm … bleeding …"
He looked up at me weakly and frowned a childish frown of innocence – and I realized how much my existence depended on this innocence of his.
"You're gonna be all right …" I could hear emotions seeping uncharacteristically into the air from the tones in my voice. "You're gonna be all right, Sakuragi …"
He wheezed, and instantaneously, fear hit me like a bullet to my gut.
For the first time, I was faced with the screaming realization that I couldn't lose him. That no matter how much I hated the fact that I didn't hate him, I couldn't lose him. That no matter how much I hated to admit it, I needed him.
And I couldn't lose him - not now, not ever.
For the first time, I felt scared. Really scared, scared out of my wits – downright petrified.
"I'm bleeding…" I heard him say.
I tried to answer him, but somehow, no words escaped me. I swallowed and tried to breathe.
"It was an accident!! It … was … an accident! Really!!" the truck driver continued to stammer, chewing at his fingernails with his feet rooted to the spot.
"Call an ambulance!!" I yelled as loudly as I could. "Call an ambulance!!"
The man's eyes widened and immediately he scuttled off in the other direction, muttering something incoherent to himself along the way.
When my eyes met with the cold, pale features of Sakuragi once again, surprise was written all over his face.
I didn't have time to wonder what this surprise was for.
It soon disappeared, and was replaced by unmistakable trepidation.
"I'm going to die … aren't I?" he whispered, brief sobs barely audible in his breathless syllables. "I'm going to die …"
I shook my head with all the energy I could muster up in those moments.
"You're not going to die, Sakuragi…" I whispered back, unconsciously grasping him tighter. "You're not going to die …"
I wanted to believe that what I was saying was true.
He coughed, and suddenly I felt like this was the last chance I would ever have to hold onto him and never let go.
"I'm cold…" he said. "I'm … cold …"
Was it just me, or had his lips turned a worryingly icy shade of blue all of a sudden?
I could feel his body trembling in my arms, and with as much haste as I could manage, I ripped off my blood-stained sweater and wrapped it around him.
"You're gonna be all right …" I repeated, leaning closer into him and begging desperately that my body warmth would give his face colour again. "Everything's gonna be alright, Sakuragi …"
This time, the surprise stayed longer in his eyes. Those eyes of his, scaring me with their mist and dimming of the energy that belonged to him and him only.
He stared at me, surprise fading away into the same unreadable expression I could never seem to decipher.
And then, his lips curled – not into a grimace of pain or inexplicable dread, but … a smile.
He smiled at me, the beautiful smile of an angel that sent rays of blinding sadness charging straight through my soul like electricity.
"I'm going to die."
It wasn't what he said. It was how he said it. That tone of voice; wistful yet somehow hopeful, suppressing an insuppressible sadness but yet expressing such overwhelming serenity – like Sakura blossoms the moment before their fall; despairing at the inevitable end, yet harbouring a vague, unsaid hope of what may come.
I didn't know he had this in him. Such wistful wisdom – it was as if he knew the fear of dying, yet was completely at one with himself, completely at one with the underlying and cruel truth of life.
I didn't answer him because … I didn't know what to say.
When I saw his weak yet familiarly strong eyes glimmering up at me, I immediately wiped my tears away.
"You know …" I listened silently to his breathless whispers. "…my mother once told me .. that in the moments just before you die … you keep seeing visions of the people you love most …"
I watched as his face contracted into a sob, tears pouring from his eyes.
"God I miss my mother …"
I reached out and opened my mouth to talk, but he laid a finger across my lips, his features converting back to a smile.
"Tell my mother I love her, won't you?" he said. "Tell her I'm sorry … so sorry … tell her I'm sorry I never studied well … I'm sorry I got into so many fights … tell her to take care of herself, will you? Tell her I didn't mean to leave … without saying goodbye …"
I wanted to tell him that he wasn't going to die, that he was going to live, that he was going to survive as the strong spirit he always was. But … I didn't feel the need to anymore.
Each time he coughed, or hesitated, or closed his eyes, I held him tighter.
"Youhei … Okusu… Takamiya… Chuichiro…" he grinned as more tears shone upon his skin. "tell them .. they're the best friends a guy could ever ask for … tell them – thankyou …"
"Shohoku …" he choked, his chest rising erratically. "Gori … Micchy .. Ryocchin … Megane-kun … Haruko-san … Ayako-san …"
He hesitated, and when he continued, his whispers softened, as if he was slowly running out of breath, slowly running out of time.
"Tell them … just tell them goodbye, okay?"
I nodded a solemn promise.
"I'll tell them …" my voice had become a series of sobs suspended in the air. "I promise you, Sakuragi … I'll tell them …"
I blinked away my tears, refusing to let them fall.
There was a moment of silence as I looked at him and he looked at me and we both knew of the infinitely many words unsaid.
"I'm sorry …" he sobbed.
To see him crying like this … tore my heart in two.
"Why are you sorry?" I shook my head. "You never need to be sorry, Sakuragi … you never need to be sorry …"
"No," he persisted. "I'm sorry, kitsune … I'm sorry for all those times I hit you, I'm sorry for all the horrible things I said to you … I'm sorry …"
I wanted to tell him that he was the last person on the face of the earth who needed to say sorry, that he was the one who had saved me, that he was the one who had made me human again … but I couldn't say a thing.
"You know … I never meant any of them …" his eyelids quivered feebly. "I never meant any of those words, kitsune … never…"
Maybe it was the spur of the moment, maybe it was the fact that I knew this was my last chance.
I traced my fingers across his cheeks and felt tears suffocating me.
There were so many things I wanted to say. But I just watched the tears streaming down his chin in choked silence.
"Oh man…" he scoffed, and once again I sensed the fear in his eyes. "I'm in for it now…"
"I'm going to Hell for sure…" he whispered, averting his gaze.
I reached out and gently turned his face back in my direction.
"You're not going to Hell," I said. "you're going to Heaven."
He hesitated, cocking his head barely detectably to one side in an unmistakably Sakuragi-like gesture.
I felt the urge to smile and cry at the same time.
"How do you know that?" he asked, followed by a cough.
"I just know it." I stifled a smile. "I just know it, Sakuragi…"
He lay there speechless for a few seconds. And then he looked at me, the expression on his face so painfully full of regret and sorrow that I was almost compelled to look away and wince.
"If I could choose … between Heaven and this moment …"
His breaths drifted along with the wind.
"If I could choose … between Heaven … and you…"
His whispers were muffled by his sharp, heavy sobs.
"I would choose you…"
The tears broke free from my eyes. I tried to blink my vision back and slowly brushed his tears away.
His eyes began to dim drastically, yet his smile still shone.
He had always been this full of light.
"Kitsune …" he breathed his last breath. "can you call me do'aho … one last time?"
I trembled desperately and felt an overwhelming pain spreading from my soul to my heart to every bone, joint, and organ in my body.
"Do'aho…" I choked. "Do'aho."
His features shook in a sob but almost immediately curled back into a smile.
"Thankyou…" he said. "thankyou …"
For a moment, I thought I could say the words.
But they were lost, whirling beyond that time and place.
And I watched in silence as his pale eyelids faltered and sealed, the barely detectable heaving of his chest ceasing to motion.
Then I knew it was too late.
I knew, with a frightening type of certainty, that now he would ever know.
He would never know how my heart slammed against my chest whenever he was near, how visions of his smile were forever replaying in my mind, how he made me feel and made me hurt and made me hope all at the same time. How he was the only meaning in this meaningless world of mine, how he was my world.
I knew that he would never know how much I loved him.
How he was the only person I had ever loved.
I trailed my shaking fingers over the cold skin of his motionless face.
And I trembled as tears poured down my cheeks, burning tears that stung my skin like acid.
"Hanamichi …" I choked strenuously through sobs and wheezing.
Don't leave me, Hanamichi …
But I knew … that it was too late.
I tried to brush the tears away. But they kept gushing up from deep within me and blurring my vision.
Three words. They were three simple, one-syllable words. It was nothing more than a three-syllable phrase. Yet it spoke volumes, volumes that would have taken me my whole existence to express.
Why hadn't I said it to him when I had the chance?
How stupid. How hopelessly stupid.
Don't leave me, Hanamichi … don't die …
At that moment I could sell my soul gladly just to see the copper brown depths of his eyes again, just to hear his shrill, familiar 'kitsune' one more time.
I would give anything to see the flickering of emotion and sincerity in his being again, to feel the warmth of the glimmer of his smile – the warmth only he possessed.
But he remained motionless.
And as I looked at him, everything around us faded away, the only consciousness remaining being what might have been in the receding seas of time.
And as I leaned forward and held him against me, it was as if everything inside me had died, vanished without a trace.
What I would give to see the shining of his smile just one more time.
"I love you, Hanamichi …" I whispered shakily with every fibre of my being. "I love you, do'aho …"
And existence gave way to nothingness as I held his lifeless body against mine and wept.
He was gone.
And now …
So was I.
End
Notes: Don't flame me!! ~_~ Arrghh!! *runs away*
*Turns back* Oh and have a great RuHana day y'all!!! ^.^ *breaks champagne*
*bounces away into the distance*