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:)
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Knowing what you all think inspires us so much that even though we are up to our necks in uni stuff, we found the time to be writing~ Yey~ We promise to do our bestest in every chapter~~~~!
And without much ado... Enjoy~
Crimson Waves
03
Three years ago, Shiba Saori dipped her hand into that bowl, and drew Tezuka's name. The revelation came like a strong kick straight to the stomach, and I stood there, my eyes wide, unbelieving and I could barely breathe because Tezuka was walking away and I felt as if he was walking off to some place I could not hope to ever reach. The dread that settled into my stomach was a horrible, sickening thing, I was dizzy with disbelief, my heart was pounding in my head, and I felt as if I was about to throw up even though I had eaten next to nothing that morning.
There had only been one slip amongst a thousand others with Tezuka's name, and I remember screaming inside my head, shouting why, why, why.
I do not feel anything like it at all now.
Instead, I am happy.
Shiba Saori is chirping to the microphone, crying out, "Come on out, Fuji Syusuke!" as if I am scared and about to hide or run away. I am not. In fact, I could barely restrain myself from running to the stage, grabbing the microphone, and telling everyone that yes, I am Fuji Syusuke, take me. Take me away from here, pull me away from all the home I have ever had, make entertainment out of me, and I would do it.
I would do everything, so long as my younger brother is safe.
I smile, so, so broadly it hurts my face. I want to kiss Shiba Saori, because I am so happy, so full of relief, so content and I did not care about anything else but my name on her lips, if only for the fact that the name is not Yuuta's.
The crowd of kids part as I make my way up the stage. I could feel their eyes, and the rest of the villagers' eyes watching my back. Challenging and assessing. Their gazes are saying that they knew it, after all, that I was secretly training, that I'd be their next black-sheep-victor, just like Tezuka had been. They are whispering lies behind my back, but I do not care. They could believe all that they want. Whatever it was they believed in, one truth remained the same.
Yuuta is not going to die. Not now. I have bought him at least one more year of training and safety, and I am depending on no one to keep him safe. No one, but myself. For the first time, just being me is enough to save those that I love, and I think that perhaps, I might be of some worth after all.
I am so happy.
I begin climbing up the stairs towards the stage. I am careful here, because the steps are slippery, caked with the familiar greenish tint of seaweed, just like the rest of this whole district. The smile is still on my face, but I stare at the steps for so long, and look at the patterns the slippery seaweed has formed against the dirty white background.
I do not know why. They are normal steps, a constant in District Four, and I should not at all be new to this fact. I see this everyday.
...Every
Day...
I shake out of my reverie because Shiba is singing my name out again, as if she can barely keep herself from saying it. She probably still remembers Fuji Yumiko, and she probably still remembers how popular Fuji Yumiko had made her. It did not matter that she died, Fuji Yumiko was her prized lamb. One of the very best, in fact, because this prized lamb had not waited to be chosen. Instead, it walked right into the feast and asked to be slaughtered.
I take a deep breath and look up, only to meet a distinctive set of hazel eyes. They are Tezuka's, because no one else in this district had eyes like his. They are as intense as they have been, when he had promised me my brother's life, but now they are terrified. His entire face spelled horror as he watched me climb the steps, and his posture is rigid against the chair. To everyone else, he would still have looked normal, but to me, they are hopelessly, unbearably terrified.
I do not think I have ever seen Tezuka terrified before. Not even when he had been Reaped. Then, his face had been set with defiant determination, coupled with a sort of resignation and the beginnings of the tiredness I now associate with the eyes of those who have been crowned victors in these Games.
I smile at him, reassuringly, and I try to show through that smile that I am happy. It does not help him, and his hands twitch as I pass. I do not know what he intended to do, but he did not do it, and I am far away from him now, and getting closer and closer to Shiba Saori's bouncing figure. I feel the pull of that missed action through, and it is strong, as strong as it probably would have been if Tezuka had truly done something.
Shiba grips my wrist, tightly, and steers me towards the center so I could face everybody. I do not realize that I had expected her hand to be cold until I am feeling surprised that she is, indeed, warm. She smells like nothing I have ever smelled, and it is so strong it blocks the smell of anything else as she throws her hands up and announces my name for the fifth time.
I see Yuuta now.
It is easy to spot him onstage because the other fourteen-year-olds are parting for him, too. He is cutting a furious path towards us, and his face is pinched and white, and maybe he is angry with me, or maybe he is terrified for some inexplicable reason, like Tezuka, and I know he will never live it down if I am this year's tribute and he is not.
It only makes me happier, because Yuuta being angry with me means that he is still alive to do it.
Shiba is less enthusiastic as she begins to face the crowd again. It is the time for her to ask for volunteers. She is unhappy because she is unwilling to let me go. Just my name will make her legend in the Capitol, though she did little more than draw it out of a bowl that was supposed to contain it in the first place, and I did little more than be born.
The people of the Capitol sicken me with their superficiality.
My gaze drifts back to Yuuta once again. He is almost hugging the stage now, and his eyes are so very eager, and so very impatient, and he is constantly shifting his weight from one foot to the other as he waits for Shiba to go ahead and ask already. I know he wants to volunteer so much, but there are protocols to be followed, and if there is something the Careers are forbidden to do, it is displease the people of the Capitol.
I fall out of the clouds enough to realize that this will ruin everything. I glance frantically at Shiba, and she is drawing breath at the same time Yuuta is opening his mouth, and I know that if the words leave Shiba, Yuuta will end up going anyway, and he can't, he can't, because I am on the eave of saving him and I will not stand here and let him die.
It won't be Yumiko all over again.
I am stepping forwards before I comprehend what I am doing.
"No!" My voice is clear and loud against the mutters of the crowd. I feel relieved, because it is not dry or weak like I would have imagined it to be. Shiba turns to me, her blood lips half-open in surprise, but her eyes sparkle with delight at the drama she is getting. I feel everyone's gaze on me, but it is Yuuta's and Tezuka's that I feel the most, because they are horrified and disbelieving and perhaps more than a little angry. I do not know which emotion belonged to whom. It could be one or another, or maybe a combination of both, but they weigh heavily on my back, two separate heavy burdens that I ignore, because this is something I have to do.
"No," I say again, stepping up beside Shiba. My hands are shaking at my sides, so I crumple them both until they are fists. From the stage, I could faintly hear the ocean's waves crashing into the shore, and Yumiko is singing at the back of my head. I smile when the song tells me to, and bring a hand up towards my chest. My heart pounds against it loudly, but I am glad that my shaking is not visible at all.
"No volunteers." I open my eyes, and I hope they are sparkling. They feel wet enough to me. There is no other reason why they should be wet. "I will represent District Four in this year's Games."
I look at Yuuta as I say this, and his eyes are so furious, they fill me with a sense of relief. His mouth is opening and closing, rather like a fish, and he is going from white to red. Perhaps later, it will become purple. It would have been the cutest thing ever.
I smile at him, like the brother he had never wanted, and wish he would never stop being angry with me.
If he stopped, that would probably mean he is dead.
Shiba is ecstatic. She crows to the microphone, puts her arm around me, and smothers me with her mystery scent. I try to pull away, but her grip is too tight. I do not know why I want to pull away in the first place. My eyes dart around, until I see a part of the sea that has been my home ever since I can remember. It is so far that I see very little, and my breath hitches in my throat because Shiba's perfume is drowning out its familiar salty tang.
I am so alarmed with this I hear nothing of the Treaty of Treason the Mayor is reading.
And then I am facing Meiko, and Shiba is asking us to shake hands, and everybody is clapping so loudly, my smile widens unbelievably.
...I am happy. That is why I'm smiling. But I do not understand why it is beginning to hurt. Happiness is not supposed to hurt, is it? I cannot comprehend why this happiness is coming out more as a sort of pain than anything else. My smile begins to slip.
It is Meiko's eyes that keep me steady. She gives me a reassuring, motherly smile, exactly like the one she gave me when she swore to look after Yuuta. She mouths, "Calfling," and I know that by this word, she is swearing to look after me, too. I wonder why. Only one person ever comes out of the arena alive.
Only one person.
She does not let go of my hand as we are steered towards the Justice Building, the crowd's cheering still behind us. And it is only when she squeezes my hands tightly that I realize that I am smiling and crying. I did not realize that people are able to do both at the same time, but I touch my face and the tears are really there. They would be salty if I bothered to taste them, but I do not because they can never be as salty as the sea.
And I am already hurting enough.
She pats my hand as we are led to separate rooms, and I sit on the only stuffed seat that is there and stare at the wall. It is green, and it is painted to resemble the patterns the seaweed makes on all our houses, but it is too ordered to be anything at all but paint and fake patterns that do not even look pretty. The green is not even the right color. It is too bright, too happy, and it looks as if it is not a color that would be present in this district. The awful color makes me double over and suddenly I am gasping and shuddering against the seat, and I realize exactly why I stared so hard at the steps a while ago.
It was because it was the last time I would ever get to see anything like it at all.
I have been so happy that I am saving Yuuta I did not let myself realize that I have signed up for my death sentence. No matter how small Yuuta's odds are, mine are even smaller, slimmer, because I have never been trained, I am so small and so skinny, and I will never be like Yumiko had ever been. Once I leave, I am never coming back, and I could never see the seaweed patterns on the wall ever again, nor can I see the ocean, or my tridents, and it is the thought of Yumiko's trident still embedded on my pillow that has me curling around myself until I am small enough that I could have convinced myself that I am disappearing.
Only one person comes out of the arena alive. A long, long time ago, it wasn't Yumiko.
This year, it won't be me, either.
Disappear, disappear, disappear.
I hear my mother before the door opens, and when she rushes in, she is not wailing, or crying, or anything at all. She gathers me into her arms wordlessly, and we stay that way for a long, long moment, before she rips herself away from me, and angrily wipes off my tears.
"Do not cry," she demands. Her words are harsh, but her voice is barely audible, and I know she is just as strangled as I am. "The people from the Capitol do not wish to see crybaby tributes."
I do not know why she cares at all, but I obediently wipe away the remaining tears she has missed.
"Yes, I know," I tell her, because she wants to hear me say it.
"Syusuke," she says, and she grips my shoulder and raises my face to meet her own. Her own eyes sparkle, too, with the tears she refuses to shed. They are red on the edges because she had cried herself to sleep last night. I know, because I was in the other room, crying along with her. "I will ask one last thing of you, and I need you to listen to me very carefully, and follow my instructions to the letter."
I do not know what I can give my mother. I am dead now, and what can the dead ever give? But I nod my head, because there is that wan smile that kills me every time and I think that I should at least let her be happy because I don't know what else to do.
I wonder how she will survive. Yuuta hates the ocean. Yuuta cannot bring her the fishes that would make her smile or the shells that she would use to make jewelry with. And neither can I. Not anymore because then, I'd be on the ground, right beside my sister.
What will make her happy?
"Syusuke, you will come out of the arena this year," she tells me, and her voice is hard. "You will be victor. You will win."
I smile, sadly, because my mother is cooking up an impossible illusion. I know and I know that she knows that I have no chance at all. All I have ever done all my life is fish. I doubt that swimming naked in the sea could help me kill anyone. Perhaps I can hope that they will be astounded for long enough that I can hurt them, but that is a stupid hope, and an even stupider scenario. But it makes her happy, or at least, it keeps her going, and I would do anything I can do now to make her happy.
I would probably get no other chance to do so ever again.
"Yes, Mother," I say, though it takes so much effort to say it. "I promise." I have never seriously lied to her before, and this first time scrapes out a large part of my heart until I feel strangely hollow and heavy at exactly the same time.
She smiles. It is not a believable smile, but I thank her for trying. "My baby," she says, smoothing my hair back. "I know you could do it."
This is probably the last conversation we will ever have. It hurts that it is the last and we squander it by lying to each other. I am lying to my mother, my mother is lying to herself, and we are both lying to the world. But it is probably better than her telling me she knows I will die. Lying to each other is infinitely better than that awful, ugly truth.
I decide that makes it okay.
My mother hugs me. She has not hugged me this way ever since she started mourning Yumiko's death, and I wonder if this kind of hug that Yumiko has also received from her, before Yumiko left and welcomed her death. I think I am comforted by the thought. Or perhaps, it only makes me feel worse. Right now, I do not have the strength to tell the difference.
"I love you."
She smells like the sea.
"I love you, too, Mom."
I press my face closer to the fabric of her blouse and breathe and breathe and breathe. I inhale huge lungfuls, because I do not want to forget. I do not want Shiba Saori's awful scent to mar this smell, and I do not want to not be able to remember anything at all about the family I left behind when I die. When I die, I will think of this, how my mother smelled like the sea, and how her hands are as soothing as the waves. They will be the same scent and fingers that will soothe Yuuta tonight, and all the other nights I am at the arena and he is not. And Yumiko's voice will be singing me a soft lullaby, and it will be exactly like I am just drifting off to sleep.
Even though in that time, I will never be able to wake up.
She pats my head one last time before she is gone. I do not have the heart to look at her hurting eyes. I stare at the door that closes behind her, and just stare because I do not have much more left in me to give.
The door opens to many other familiar faces that tell me that they are sure I would win. They had never talked to me about the Games, not directly, but now, they could not stop talking about how my win is assured, and I could not even talk because I am not sure at all. I try to think of any indication I have given them that I am 'just like my sister.' I think of none, so I think that maybe they are lying through their teeth as well. It makes them feel better so I let them, even though they, too, are just deluding themselves.
I am glad when the door closes for the last time. I do not recognize many of the people who have come, and I don't have the energy to name them all. People from the market, some of our neighbors, maybe even one or two people who had just happened to swim with me.
Yuuta does not come at all.
I should not have been expecting anything else in the first place. Yuuta hates me for taking his place. He will forever hate me for it, and that would be the only thing he would ever remember me for. He was not going to show up and wish me luck. He is probably wishing for my death.
I tell myself that I am alright with this.
It works, in a way. After all, it is just another lie in the mountain of lies that my life has become in the past few minutes.
When Shiba Saori all but pushes us onto the train that would lead us to the Capitol, I look back for one last time. It is the time the cameras take to get as much of what they could get from the tributes, but I do not look at them.
My mother is there, and it does not surprise me that she is. I cannot tell her goodbye enough, and she cannot tell me goodbye at all, so we do it by watching each other as I leave and set out for my death.
I think of the promise she has made me give, but I know in my heart, as she does in hers, that I will not come back.
Yuuta is there, too. He is scowling darkly, but he is holding our mother's hand, so tightly his knuckles, and hers, are white. He meets my eyes and his chin juts out defiantly once again. His mouth opens, and it is loud even amidst the noisy crowd.
"Bastard," he says, and though I cannot really hear his voice, I imagine it as it had been. It is a scratchy thing, just right on the edge of becoming deep, but not quite there yet. It is gruff, and it is angry, because Yuuta has only ever been angry at me.
It is the most beautiful sound in the world.
"You win!"
I do not know whether he means that I win and he is letting me off of being this year's tribute instead of him, or if he is telling me to win the Games. It is the first time he has ever acknowledged me in any way that is not hatred, or some form of it, and I want to cry because it is too late. I would have wanted to be closer, but I am going off to die, and all we would ever have are angry glares and nonsensical words that can mean anything at all because we do not know each other enough.
We would never have anything else.
It is too late to have anything else.
I give him my sweetest smile. It takes away the last of the heart that still remains in me, but I decide to nod and lie to my brother, too.
I am such an accomplished liar that he nods curtly back and holds my gaze in a way he has never had before. Perhaps, just perhaps, it is trust that fills his eyes. He has never trusted me with anything other than keeping him fed before, and it is sad that he decides to trust me about something I cannot give. I wish I could tell him I am sorry. I wish I could give him more than just this.
But I have given everything I have.
I am already empty.
And it is not enough.
Of course, I am not surprised by this. I am too little, that my everything is always not enough.
When the trains doors slam shut in my face, I do not move, or look away.
I barely notice the train's motions, but we are slowly, slowly moving away. I keep my eyes on the same level they had been when Yuuta's eyes were still there to see, and I keep on looking until it is not hard to pretend that the gray, metal doors were the exact same shade of Yuuta's eyes. Even then I continue to stare because I imagine that my mother and Yuuta are still looking at me, so even though they cannot see me, I have to look back.
I have to.
It is only when a hand falls into my shoulder that I look away, and I meet Tezuka's eyes. I want to ask him so badly if it gets better, but I am afraid to hear the answer because I know he will say no. Tezuka would never lie, and there would never be a more truthful answer.
"Yuuta, he..." Tezuka tells me, his voice scratchier than Yuuta's. "He attacked me once you disappeared inside the Justice Building."
My mouth opens in surprise. Tezuka is Yuuta's idol. Yuuta had only ever worshipped Tezuka, had only ever wanted Tezuka to replace me as his brother and I wonder if Yuuta thinks that it was Tezuka's fault that I am Reaped and he is not.
"He told me," Tezuka continued, the grip on my shoulder tightening painfully. I do not complain because no matter how much that hurt, my heart is hurting so much more. The physical pain distracts me from the throbbing of emptiness, but it fills up nothing, and pretty soon it would only be me and my hollow self once again. Perhaps this is the reason why I deserve to die. "He told me that he would hunt me down himself if you died."
My heart flies to my throat. Yuuta is yelling "You win!" at the back of my head, over and over once again. I remember all those moments in my mother's lap, watching Yumiko in her Games, knowing one day she will come back, honored and worshipped, because she is the best victor the Capitol could ever hope to have. I remember the crushing disappointment, and deep, cutting pain when I realized she would not.
Yuuta had been too young to comprehend anything then.
He is not as young as he was now. He will be hurt when I die. And I will be the one hurting him. Just like I will be the one hurting my mother, just like I am the one making Tezuka so scared.
I hurt everyone.
All I wanted to do was save my brother. This is the only solution. My being tribute is the only solution. So why is it killing everyone I wanted to save?
My nails dig so deeply into my palms, I feel the slow trickle of blood in my fingers, but I say nothing because the words go away before I think of wanting to say them.
"I promised him I'd bring you back alive," he finishes. There is certainty in his voice, but his eyes are still terrified. I know because my eyes were terrified, too, and I can tell that he is lying as well. To me or to himself, I do not know, but he is lying, and today is a day full of lies.
So I laugh because it is all very ironic, and even though Tezuka does not laugh with me, he holds me the moment I collapse, when I cannot distinguish my laughter from my tears any longer. I look up at him again, and maybe his eyes are wet and sparkling as well. It may be just because of the glint of the light on his spectacles. It may not.
I do not know.
But right now, away from the cameras and the prying eyes of the people of the Capitol, we are just two people who are so terrified and scared we can barely breathe, and I think, at least, it is good that we are terrified together.
Preview Wave 4:
"Do you trust me?"
"I'm going to kill all of you."
And then, there is the disaster of Seven.
"Wasabi... It seemed like the sort of thing you would like."
"I'll see you win... If it's the last thing I do."
Clary: Um. So not much happened in this chapter SO, we're giving you guys a sneak preview of the next one to make up for it (also, to give you guys something to look forward to)~~~
We'd decided to do this for every chapter from now on (we voted~ my team won, yey~) We hope you guys enjoyed the third installment, and the sneakies of the next one~
So, um... Please do drop by, and leave a review? We'd like to know what you guys think about everything (we're still, or I'M STILL, at least, fairly new to the first person POV thing so... :)) and we love hearing from you~ Who knows, we might even update fast because we're so inspired (yes, I know, I'm shameless)~ :DDDD
