My Fault
Chapter 4
Reflections
Disclaimer: I don't own Kyo, Arisa, Tohru, Yuki, Shigure, Kyoko, or anyone else mentioned so far.
Thank you to all my reviewers! So far this story has 10 reviews, and it means a lot to me that people took the time to write them. So, a big 'thank you' to Lumias, pinksnow, deadlykitty, Shika's Soul, and Rakal.
My mom thinks I'm doing homework. Well, it is hard work writing this, and I am at home… anyway I want to make this a good long chapter, because I won't be able to update for a while. I have to take an IQ test and my parents want me to study… doesn't that defeat the purpose of the test? How do they even want me to study? Memorize the dictionary, probably… knowing them, that seems pretty likely… Anyway, on with the story!
This is Arisa's POV again. This chapter has a really brief poetic intro and ending. Because I was feeling random.Oh, tell me if you like the poetry. If it sucks, I need to be told so I don't make everyone suffer throught it!
I used to fleeHiding from you
Afraid to see
What I'd put you through
Now we've been torn
Away so fast
You're gone and I mourn
My mistakes in the past
I search in the shadows
For a glimpse of your face
I have just my memories
You're gone with no trace
A reflection in water
Becoming your eyes
Disappears in a ripple
Nothing to find
They say that you have to hit rock bottom before you can see clearly. A moment where everything makes sense and you know what you feel. I experienced a moment like this when Kyoko had saved me from the people I used to believe were my friends, and I experienced a moment like this with Kyo.
"I love you."
The words had just kind of fallen out of my mouth, without me thinking. That didn't change the fact that they were true. Three words that changed both our lives. They summed up everything I felt about Kyo. I guess it was everything I had ever felt about him, I just hadn't realized. Such a complicated combination of feelings and emotions summed up in three little words.
Kyo didn't say anything, but I could tell from the look in his eyes and the way he held me that he felt the same way about me. Sometimes you can communicate without words. And knowing that he felt this way about me gave me the strength to hold on. If a person like Kyo loved me, than I could still see the beauty in a world that had treated me like crap. I could still accept myself even though I had made so many mistakes.
We sat there almost silently, the tears still falling from our eyes and running down our faces. It hurt so much, but I knew that Kyo was there and this helped me deal with the pain. It had been different when Mom left. When my mom had left, my dad had taken up drinking and couldn't be there for me. I had been so completely alone. There was an occasional person who would try to comfort me, who would tell me I was brave and other comments that were just sugar-coated pity. What utter crap, it would make you want to throw up. How did it make me brave? I didn't choose for her to leave, I didn't want her to leave. How does not having a choice make someone brave? Dad and I just had to deal with it.
Dad. We had hardly seen eachother. I had stayed out of the house as much as possible as a kid, and as I got older I had moved out into my own apartment. What a mistake. I had been angry that Dad was never there for me, but now I felt terrible that I hadn't been there for him either. Maybe he was the one who had needed someone to help him through it all, and I had just been selfish.
I wasn't going to make the same mistake again. I was going to be there for the ones I cared about. You never know when something is going to take them away from you.
Kyo had turned back into a human again a little while ago and had silently gotten dressed again while I looked away. Then we held eachother as close as we could without embracing. We were holding hands, and I had my head on his shoulder. I don't know how long we stayed like that. Time wasn't important, what was important was that I was there with Kyo.
I broke the silence with a faint whisper. "What now?" I asked. This was a beautiful moment, and I wanted it to last forever, but I knew it couldn't. Nothing could last forever. Something would happen that would end this.
"You wanna go for a walk?' asked Kyo. I guess neither of us could face going back to class. To be stared at and asked 'what's wrong' by a bunch of near strangers was not going to make this any easier. I needed to get away from this school. I had to get out of the place where I had heard this awful news. I needed to feel like I was going somewhere, anywhere.
"Sure," I said. Kyo stood slowly, offering me his hand to help me up. I took it. In the past, I would probably have gotten upset over him trying to help me. It sounds pretty stupid, but it's probably true. I used to always fight with Kyo over random little things. He was so fun to tease; I never would have thought he had a side like this.
Could I ever go back to being like I was? I had been happy, had fun joking around with my friends. Now everything had changed and it felt like I could never go back to being who I used to be. Did I even want to go back to being like that? Now that I was thinking about it, maybe it was cruel of me to enjoy myself when there was so much bad stuff going on so close to me that I was shutting my eyes to.
I would have said I could stand up by myself, or something like that, but people change. My perception of the world had been shattered only moments ago, and now I saw that maybe I couldn't stand up alone. Maybe it was okay to accept help once in a while. I didn't have to be so damn proud. What did I have to be proud of, anyway?
We walked out of the school. It was the middle of the day, so there weren't a ton of people around. The two of us walked pretty far. The school probably wasn't even in view anymore, but I wouldn't know. I never looked back.
We were in a park, or a forest, or something. There were some dark green trees, some long grass, and a bench. We sat down on the bench. I could see why Kyo had chosen this area to come to. The sun wasn't horribly bright here. If the sun was bright, it would feel like it was mocking us, telling us to be happy and cheerful and all of that. I couldn't feel like that, it was too… fake. I couldn't pretend that everything was great in the world, and it would be stupid for me to try. Maybe some people could live their whole lives in ignorance, pretending that this kind of stuff never happened. I couldn't live like that anymore.
I still was having a hard time dealing with my dad being… gone. It was hard to think that I would never see him again. The concept was so huge, so strange, that I couldn't completely get it through my head. I kept thinking that when I got home, I would apologize to him. Than I realized that I would never be able to do this. A wave of sorrow hit me. I felt like I was drowning in the emotion, like I was going to be swept away. I broke down into an uncontrollable flood of tears. I put my hands to my eyes and sobbed, unable to hold the extreme emotions inside me any longer.
Kyo put one of his hands on one of mine, and I took my hands away from my eyes. I looked up into Kyo's face. I could see the concern in his eyes. I didn't deserve a person like him to care about me. But I needed a person like him. I needed Kyo to help me through this, and I was so grateful for his kindness. I wanted to be with him forever.
The trees blocked out some of the sun, except for a small sliver of it that fell upon us. It shone on Kyo's hair, making it seem to glow in the sunlight. His hair was so… orange. I remembered how I used to tease him about it. I found myself wondering once again if I could go back to that time, or if those moments were just memories that could never happen again. Maybe those times were just the remnants of an Arisa Uotani that had been completely destroyed that morning and could never be brought back.
"Orangey" I said quietly, unable to contain myself.
Kyo smiled at me, a sad but beautiful smile. It was kind of an awkward expression on his face, as though he didn't do it much. Come to think of it, I don't really remember him ever smiling before then. "If that's what you want to call me, I guess you can…" he said. He was so kind to me. I started to cry again. I don't really know why. It wasn't exactly because I was sad, although I was sad, and it wasn't because I was happy. How could I be happy at a time like this? I just started to cry again, because I knew that Kyo was here and I was safe. I guess it sounds kind of stupid, but that didn't matter at the time. All that mattered was Kyo was there for me and that made me so relieved that all my feelings and emotions were sort of falling out all over the place.
Kyo was holding me with one arm around my shoulders and the other holding my hand. I wished we could embrace, but with his curse, we would only get to hold eachother for a few seconds.
The sun had moved quite a bit by now. It was now behind one of the trees, and was illuminating the edges of it. It was so strange. The curse, not the tree. I had learned about a curse that made Kyo turn into a cat, but that didn't seem important, it was no big deal. As I said before, my perspective had changed. Any other time I would have been shocked to learn such a thing, but now it was just another fact I would have to face. Realizing my feelings for Kyo and losing my dad took priority, and they alone were too much for me to get through my head.
I felt like I was going to cry again, but this time I didn't. I guess I had no tears left. "Where do we go from here?" I asked. I don't really know what I meant. Was I referring to our relationship, was I asking if I would I always have such confused emotions as now, or did I just mean where we would go after the park? I really don't know. I guess I didn't really know what was going to happen next for any of these. I couldn't even comprehend what was going on now. Before now, life had seemed pretty simple. Well, it hadn't seemed simple at the time, but compared to this, I mean. I guess it's true, you don't know what you've got until its gone. Now I didn't understand my emotions, I had lost my only family member, and I had no clue what would happen next.
"Where do you want to go?" asked Kyo, quietly.
"Anywhere, as long as you're there," I responded. I don't know why we were being so quiet. Maybe neither of us wanted to break the silence. Maybe it was just the mood. Maybe it was just hard to talk after crying so hard.
"Are you hungry or anything?" asked Kyo.
"No."
"Me neither." He probably knew I wasn't in the mood for eating. I guess he was just trying to show that he cared about me, and was feeling awkward about how to say it. But no matter how he said it, it meant everything to me.
Kyo and I got up after a while. "You don't want to go back home, do you?" asked Kyo. It was more of a statement than a question; Kyo probably knew that I wouldn't be able to bear going back there. I couldn't go to my old house, where I used to live with Dad, or to my apartment where I had gone to avoid him. Pretty pathetic of me, I guess, I had been avoiding while he was alive, now I was desperately trying to find him when I could never see him again. I didn't want to go back there, ever.
I shook my head. I realized that my hair was kind of wet from my tears. So was my uniform, and it was making me sort of cold. It was late winter, and it was not as warm as I was used to. I shivered. "You okay?" asked Kyo.
I guess," I said. Kyo gave me his jacket. Ordinarily, I would have thought this was a corny gesture, I mean, we've all seen it in movies a thousand times. But this was Kyo doing it, so it seemed different for some reason. Kyo didn't do stuff because he wanted to seem important, he did stuff because he cared. And there wasn't a thing about Kyo that anyone could call corny.
"You can come to my place if you want. I mean, Honda-san has some clothes that you can borrow," said Kyo.
I agreed to this and we walked over to Kyo's house. Kyo must have had a really good sense of direction, because he easily led us back to his house. Than again, maybe he just came to this spot often. I remembered the first day he had come to our school, how he had ran away by escaping through a window and running until we could no longer see him. Maybe he had come to that place after fleeing the building.
"School's almost over for the day," said Kyo, as we walked back.
"How do you know?" I asked.
" I can tell from the sun," said Kyo.
It was hard to believe that so much could change in one day that wasn't even over yet. Would there be more disasters and revelations in the next few hours of this one day? I just wanted it to end. I mean, sure, it was the day I had realized my feelings for Kyo and all, but it was just too much to take in all at once.
And Dad was gone. This thought seemed to echo through my head, pushing away all my other thoughts until it was all I knew. I would never see him again, never be able to make up with him for what I had done, I had deserted him. His entire family had left him alone to live a slow and miserable life, and die, a slow and miserable death. We had all abandoned him. Now he was gone, and I would never see him again.
My life would never be the same. Kyo and I walked silently the rest of the way back, both of us lost in our thoughts.
Kyo withdrew a key from his pocket and unlocked the door to his house. There was nobody home. To tell the truth, this relieved me. Tohru was a great friend, but I wasn't ready to tell this to her yet. The Prince didn't seem like he type of guy who would understand what I was going through, he seemed like such an uptight, emotionless person, and he would probably just try to give me meaningless words of comfort.
Kyo was the only one who really understood what I was going through. We both thought the same way, and he had gone through basically the same thing as me.
"Kyo?" I asked, breaking the long silence that had formed between us.
"Yeah?" was his reply.
"The pain… does it ever go away?"
Kyo was silent for a while. He looked like he was thinking really deeply about it. "I don't know yet," he responded. He paused for a while. "But… telling you about it… helped."
"Kyo?"
"Yeah?"
"It helped me too. Thanks."
"It means a ton to me… that I could help you," said Kyo.
"Can I hug you?" I asked. I guess it was kind of rude of me to ask this. He had a curse on him, and I didn't want to make it awkward for him. I could tell that he was embarrassed about his curse. He said his mom had killed herself because of it, I remembered. How could I be so cruel to him and remind him of that?
"You don't have to ask," said Kyo. We wrapped our arms around eachother and had one moment where nothing else mattered. We were together, and even a curse couldn't change the way we felt. We loved eachother, and the rest was just details.
When you're here
I can forget
All of my fear
Of what I have to regret
Angry accusations
From within my own mind
Become just the whisper
As our lives fly by
We have but a moment
Suspended in time
Forever remembered
A truth among lies
Hope you liked it! As always, please review! Let me know what you thought of the poems, I just kind of wrote them for no particular reason (not the best reason to write poetry!)