TITLE: Stone Roses
GENRE: Light Shounen-ai (Dark Drabble Fic)
PAIRING: Inui/Kaidoh
DISCLAIMERS: The series I'm referring to does not belong to me… only this weird story does.
Stone Roses
It had been a couple of months since we broke up.
I tried to forget him... forget everything about him... forget everything about us...
It would not ever happen again, it would only remain a distant memory... nothing more, nothing less.
I didn't know what spurred me to break up with him in the first place. Maybe it was the constant fear of my very conservative parents knowing that I was dating someone behind their backs... and a boy too for that matter. Or maybe it was the fear of being a constant society reject... that when I get to look for a job they would discriminate me and I would end up a penniless waif on the prowl in the streets... or maybe it was the fear of not being able to sustain the healthiness of our relationship... the fear coming from the fact that I could not look out for him all the time... and he could not also look out for me all the time...
Through all of these... the fear remained constant... immovable... unchangeable... irrevocable...
And I could not handle it...
Or maybe I didn't want to handle it.
I never thought the sound of a sigh could hurt so badly. I could pick up even his whispers among the throng of people gathered around him. His solid but nevertheless gentle voice that gave me the chills as its trill shivered down my spine. The voice that I learned to love for such a short while... the voice I had lost the day we went on our separate ways.
He had a car accident before, while he was training... and he was, at the moment, prohibited from playing tennis. He wasn't exactly an invalid, since he could still walk regularly, however, if he tried stressing his leg muscles and bones even minutely, he would have to deal with a major pain that would turn him into a living vegetable... he'd be confined in a wheelchair all his life. No more tennis competitions... no more fun.
Maybe it was the primary factor why I began having doubts about our bond. I thought that if we didn't have fun anymore... then maybe he would stop loving me. We began to fight then... we fought regarding issues of his resignation from the tennis team, since he didn't want to attend practice and even games anymore.
I told him that it would mean much to me if he did.
At first he complied, rooting for me ever so silently... but he couldn't deal with something only he understood and suddenly freaked out, tears streaming down his face in total abandon. There was much pain inside me to see him immobile when I won the doubles with his rival Momoshiro-kun. His eyes blanked and then after a few seconds, he turned and walked almost dazedly towards the exit.
I had never taken him as a quitter before, for he had always been full of life – even after any huge failure, ready to take on the world and prove them wrong about him... That no one should ever underestimate the power and skill of Kaidoh Kaoru.
This time, it was different. He looked like a deflated balloon. Lifeless... hopeless... completely defeated. And the way he walked out of the playing courts – it was forever etched into my brain.
My nightmare.
I confided with Tezuka about it, and he told me that I should be the one to make the first step in order to make both Kaidoh and I stronger. He told me that I should be careful of any decision I would make... and would leave my younger half to make. He told me to use my head first above anything else.
But my heart got the better of me.
I ripped the knot that had bound us together for such along time now.
Perhaps I would never understand or even determine the reason why I did such thing. Perhaps I would never know exactly why I felt almost nothing as I watched Kaidoh break down in front of me... as if his world had just collapsed... as if he had just lost his soul.
Something that even the best of my concoctions would never get back.
And still there was the fear.
Through all of the ceaseless drama, the fear remained constant... still immovable... still unchangeable... and ultimately irrevocable...
And I never handled it...
Perhaps I didn't want to handle it.
It had only been two months since we broke up, but for me it felt like years.
My soul died as I tried to forget him... tried to forget everything about him... tried to forget everything about us...
Surely, it would never happen again, it would remain a distant memory... nothing more, nothing less.
A memory of warm summertime roses turned stone cold, gripped by the night.
OWARIA/N: InuKai was my former primary choice in PoT pairings, and I felt quite guilty for not writing anything about them. I was just struck by inspiration when I did this one... and struck by the Melancholy Bug too. Sigh I do hope you will forgive me for doing this to them lovely boys... Oh, well, maybe next time I'd try my hand at writing a livelier InuKai! Reviews, reviews!
