Tango of Mortality
Chapter 2: Invisible Pain
Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho or Ayashi no Ceres. I'm not making any money off this, obviously. And don't bother trying to sue me because, as I've just said, I have no money.
"You're kidding." Maya stared across the room from where she sat at her desk to where her mother stood in the doorway. Miyako was leaning against the door, phone still clutched in her hand, hair out of place as if she'd just run several leagues; obviously distressed.
"I'm not. I was just on the phone with Shiori. Shuichi….that boy you've known since you were two years old….he's going to Kokusai high." Miyako's voice was quivering, barely over a murmur. Maya's eyes went blank and she dropped the pencil that was clutched between her fingers. It fell to the desktop with a resounding clack.
"There's more." She said sharply, casting a piercing gaze at her mother. It was this gaze, both searching and somehow accusatory, that was Maya's most striking feature. It made others uncomfortable, as if she were looking into their soul. "She wouldn't call just to tell you that. He would've started going there when he was fifteen or sixteen, I'm seventeen now, so since we're the same age, if she were calling just to brag about that she'd have done it when he was first accepted."
"Shiori's pregnant." Miyako informed, voice beginning to shake. "She's got some kind of scheme going. She wants to set up a future for Shuichi. It seems he's changed, he's not like he used to be. Or at least I wouldn't think he could be and still manage to have his own fanclub."
"His own fanclub?" Maya asked, raising an eyebrow. Her mother nodded. "No way. I don't believe it."
"It wouldn't be like Shiori to lie." Miyako said, hesitantly as if afraid of angering her daughter. Maya shot her mother another sharp glance, then her gaze softened and turned heart-rendingly sad.
"I don't think she's lying. She believes what she says." Maya said, her voice soft. "But even if it looks like he's changed, he may just be acting like he's changed. On the inside, I bet he's still the same person he always was. And that makes me worry."
A long silence passed between mother and daughter
"Well, either way, it's not anything I should be sticking my nose into. I'd bail on Kokusai and try for another high school, but it's too late to cancel the transfer. But I'll have to avoid him like the plague once I get there. I don't care what Shiori's got planned, I won't be involved in it. Especially not if she's pregnant." Maya said this with finality, the tone of her voice signaling to her mother that her will was set in stone on this matter.
"Shiori knows you're at that school. Shuichi knows you're at that school. I don't know if you'll be able to fully avoid either of them. You're going there to find Aya Mikage, anyway." Miyako at first tried to sound neutral, but her tone quickly became pleading. "Maya, please, I don't know if the method you've chosen is the right one. What if filling yourself with pain and expressing nothing but negative emotions is somehow making your problem worse? Maybe you should try to humor Shiori, at least for a little while. At least until you know whether it will help or…."
"Are you out of your mind?!" Maya yelled, leaping to her feet and glaring at her mother, who shrank back. Maya crossed the space between them in two paces and stood before her mother, locking eyes with her. On the other side of those fiery brown eyes, her father's eyes, Miyako knew another consciousness was kept chained by nothing more than Maya's extreme effort. A consciousness that wished for nothing more than to inflict Maya's emotional pain on everyone who developed any attachment to her.
"But….Maya….How long can you go on like this? You don't eat, and you don't sleep more than three hours a given night, and…." Miyako's eyes wandered to the desk, where a razor sat, flipped open, its blade gleaming.
"I can go on forever." Maya said feverishly. "I can go on for as long as I'm alive. I have to go on. For him. For Mamoru."
Author's Note: Huh. This is kind of a short chapter. The others will be longer though, I promise.
