fandom: Zetsuai
title: in mercy and depravity
pairing: koji + izumi
rating: pg
Description – Taking place while Koji was in a coma, he can't distinguish between dreams, nightmares, and reality…
Disclaimer – Zetsuai isn't mine.
in mercy and depravity
By miyamoto yui
I have lost all sense of color.
I have lost all sense of time.
Won't you turn around for me? Won't you face me anymore? Is there something that you don't want to share with me? Why are you running away from me?
I have often wondered why do my thoughts always derail and come back to you. It is so one-tracked. It is more various and convoluted as the JR System on both sides of this country.
Why must I always try to find you in everything and everywhere I go?
I do not need you. I didn't need you before.
And yet, my thoughts cannot lie to me, they lead me back to you.
This isn't gravity. It is obsession.
It is necessity.
It is my life within your hands.
And as this desire builds, it is something that I cannot control anymore. It overcomes everything, even reason. The apathy that I have tried to stray away from is overwhelming. I always tend to blame myself for everything, but was I too strong? Was I too aggressive? Did I do something to make you scared?
If I did everything right and I didn't do anything wrong, why do you punish me with your memory?
You're not here but you are here over and over killing me.
I even fear going to sleep, because if I find you there, I don't want to ever wake up.
And still, I am attracted to you? Isn't just an image I built of you inside of my heart? I wonder about that sometimes…
If you felt so guilty, why am I living the terms of the punishment?
I don't know what to do about myself. I am becoming self-destructive again. My heart hurts and I cannot let anyone know why.
I don't want to explain anything. I don't want anyone to know that I am really this weak.
Even if I am humble enough to acknowledge this, I don't want to say anything to anyone. I don't want anyone knowing how much power you had over me.
Empty me out.
Rip my heart clear away from me. I can function better that way. You already filled it with nothing but you.
Take what is yours, you are selfish anyway.
I give it to you for you to feast on, I am martyred that way.
Deeper and deeper, I regress to that person I was before. It was the one that didn't trust people: The one who couldn't say anything to anyone because he was ashamed of his own tears.
Though I tell myself that I will be all right and that this is a part of life, I wanted to be nice. I wanted to be fair as I'd always been.
So why, if I had played fair, do I feel so cheated?
And the worst is that I don't regret it. Because you gave me a confidence I had never known, I was able to learn to fly.
But in doing so, I had become someone that was far ahead of others even though we were on the same road. Little by little, not because of arrogance but out of determination, I became the person I wanted to be.
In this place, I found myself alone however.
The place that you had promised to keep me from, you plunged me there with your hands. You strangled my head into the deep blue ocean, which I had thought was the sky.
I can barely feel my wings anymore.
I fell out of my own unending desire for you.
And you let me know how silly I was to believe that someone like me could find what my heart had always wanted. Then, at the moment you turned your back on me, I realized that experience and dreams were on two different realms. They didn't really intermingle in the real world.
An experience is momentary, which works as a stepping stone.
A dream was something that would last your whole life within your heart. And then you could move on to the next one.
I felt so sick to my stomach at all these dizzying thoughts that I began to throw up.
Days later, when I went to the doctor, I wondered, "Why was my body rebelling against me? Wasn't I getting better because I didn't have anxiety attacks anymore? Wasn't I the one that said I wouldn't cry?"
My body did for me. Not through my eyes, but through every pore that went unnoticed.
As I laid on the white bed with the doctor touching my side, I winced in pain. Despite my inner protests, my eyes watered in response. And knowing my tolerance for pain, I wouldn't have even noticed if I didn't have a feeling that there was something wrong.
I am swimming and I don't know where to go.
Without a reaction, why did you watch me die so quietly?
I couldn't shout out because I was so shocked. Surely, you would never do that to me. I trusted you. Surely, because I had believed in you.
Yet, this wasn't a dream. It was reality.
You watched me without saying a word.
And that word 'love' that I didn't associate with 'cruelty' ('torture and pain' but not downright 'merciless') instantaneously became one.
I had always wondered why some people went with others who were not good for them, who didn't make them 'better' people. Now I know:
At the most important moments, you chose between two things - yourself or your need for that person you 'love'.
It wasn't about selfishness or selflessness anymore.
It was about giving yourself with no point of return or coming back to yourself without the person who led you there.
I chose myself.
Not because I wanted to survive.
I knew I was better than just 'being satisfied'. I would always want more. To become more. I wouldn't ever settle to becoming second to any person or thing because I myself wouldn't you put in that position.
This is the extent of my selfishness. And though no one will ever admit it, deep within each human, everyone craves this as well.
You were always my priority.
And if you let me go voluntarily, I cannot fight alone. If I was just a burden to you, why didn't you tell me so? Out of compassion? Surely, it wasn't out of my feelings. For if it was, you would have said point-blank, as I had asked you to.
I fought by myself for all my life, you see? So, I couldn't do it for two.
And if you think this a brutal thing to hear, at least you heard it in songs and you didn't have to wait for months for just a word of response. It must have been fun to watch me sing to someone who wasn't there. It's no better than a mental patient talking to colors in a white mental institution.
I hope I was amusing to you because I certainly was entertained for quite a time, finding myself making excuses like a battered wife who kept saying, 'It's okay. It's only this once."
Once...Twice...
These numbers accumulate.
I am sure that even the gods laughed at me for my prayers about you.
And here I am locked away in my room unable to open my mouth for anyone. I go about my day doing what I must but when I come home, I have to sleep because my body is breaking slowly and the doctor couldn't tell me why. He couldn't give me medicine to 'make me better'.
And for a few moments, just like before, I didn't want to 'be better'. Yet this wasn't suicide or giving up.
It was my own body choosing for itself, cutting itself off from my mind and my will.
Everyday I struggle to stay alive and I seductively smile at everyone I see. But deep inside, I am scared of why my body rebelled against me. But I did take care of it.
Again, this cycle begins once more.
I am fighting myself all over again.
Suffocating, I listen to my own voice on the radio. I laugh so loudly as the rain pours outside to drown me out.
Though I turn away from the mirror, I feel the tears falling down my face.
Ironically, in letting everything go,
I am trapped within my own words.
Then, when I am about to let go of myself, I hear your voice, "Koji. I'm here."
Our voices intermingle in mercy and depravity.
Yet I loathe myself for still wanting you so much,
my mortal wound and my grace.
As I open my blurry eyes,
I wonder if I am still dreaming…
Or am I already awake?
Owari./The End.
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Author's note –
This wasn't supposed to make any sense, but I really wanted to write about Koji for quite some time now. It is in a simple form yet stream-of-conscious structure.
I hope that at least the feelings were honest. If you could feel them, then it could ease my temporary insanity…
Thank you for reading.
Love always,
Yui
4/9/2007 8:24:27 AM – LA
4/10/07 12:24 AM - Tokyo