THE TEARS THAT OVERFLOW YOUR HEART
"My body refused to acknowledge the sadness engraved deeply within my heart. I didn't know that at some point, it would become too much for me to contain."
Vendetta returned to the den that day with a heavy heart. Without so much as a glance towards her fellow gods eaters, she immediately heads inside the elevator and returns to her room. Not even finding it in her to switch on her lights, she flopped herself down to her bed. Her mind wandered somewhere she would rather avoid but she hadn't the ability to control its direction.
A part of her realizes that to hope for a relationship with Soma at this point would be foolish but another part of her screamed out in dissent. After all this time, keeping her feelings inside the depths of heart, too ashamed to set it free. Was she really just going to walk away?
But therein lies the problem, did she really walk away from him or was there never a chance for her to begin with? Taking a minute to soak in the harshness of her own thought, Vendetta closed her eyes, willing to let the exhaustion take her over. Anything to get away from the state her mind was in. As soon as her consciousness started to drift however, the loud beeping of her terminal instantly jolted her awake.
Unwilling to rise from her bed but still worried that it could be an emergency, Vendetta shuffled reluctantly to the terminal only to find that she had received an email from Lindow. The subject read in bold capital letters: YOU ALRIGHT?
"Hey rookie, I called out to you earlier but you didn't respond. You were like a walking zombie. Did something happen? Oh, and by the way, Tsubaki's REALLY pissed at you so be ready for another 'lecture' from her." As lighthearted as his email sounded, Vendetta knew that Lindow was genuinely worried for her. Feeling bad for worrying him, she noted to apologize to him in the near future and also ask him what a 'zombie' was.
However, Vendetta still wasn't willing to return to the cheeriness of their usual days just yet. Even she needed a day to brood her troubles. After logging off her terminal, she sat near the edge of her bed, finding the coldness of the floor more appealing than the warmth of her mattress.
"What am I doing?" She sighed deeply. It wasn't like her to do this. To just sit in her room all day, throwing her one-woman pity party. 'This is stupid!' She thought to herself. She closed her eyes once more, hoping that her dreams would take her from her reality. Again, she felt everything around her start to fade and a multiple barrage of thoughts invaded her mind as if grasping at the edges of her fading consciousness.
How will she face Soma the next time she sees him? Will he even acknowledge her existence anymore after witnessing the hideosity of her heart? Can she really let go of what she felt for him? Would it be as easy as it sounded?
Even in deep slumber, dreams of him and Shio haunted her. She loved them both too much for her to admit what she felt for him. Truth be told, even she didn't know how it all started. She didn't even like him all that much in the beginning, seeing as their first encounter couldn't even be considered as remotely romantic.
There was just something about the gloomy, snarky and unsociable man that attracted her attention. Wanting to get to know him better, she started talking to him whenever she could. Although, she would admit that even then, there was nothing romantic about any of it.
Their conversations (if one could call them that) consisted of mainly her blabbering her mouth off about the most useless things and him telling her to shut up and leave him the hell alone. Then she started to seek him out, she didn't even need a reason anymore. She would search for him every day just to have a two-minute 'conversation' with him.
She found that a day without arguing with him and annoying him to no end felt empty somehow though she knew that he would probably feel relieved to be away from her even for just a few seconds.
"I must've been nothing but a pain in the ass for him." She scoffed at herself. Her dreams started to become more vivid and in the blink of an eye, she was at the Forgotten Temples. Their playful banter replaying like a painful memory right in front of her.
It was their anniversary. A full year after Shio left for the moon. One whole year and he still loved her. She had waited all that time, knowing that the person she loved would never love her back, foolishly deluding herself into thinking that he could. Still she waited.
"For what? What are you expecting to accomplish? Are you hoping for him to just suddenly forget about the love of his life and be with YOU instead? Why would he?" The sound of her own voice mocked her. Surprised, as the words were not her own, Vendetta stood dumbfounded as the scene before her blurred into an image of Soma and Shio sitting together at the Forgotten Carriers.
"Stop it." She pleaded but it persistently continued. Her surroundings changed once more with another blink of her eyes. Now they had gone back to the time when Soma forced himself to devour Shio. The whole scene played cruelly in front of her as she could think of nothing but the relief she felt at the time.
"You're hideous. You were actually happy when he devoured Shio, weren't you? You're worse than a monster. You're nothing more than an aragami, deprived of a human's heart, driven only by your own emotions."
"Stop it!" Vendetta demanded this time. It was too much for her to handle. She had refrained herself from declaring what she felt for him. A lifetime cursed of being close to him but at the same time ever more distant. Wasn't that punishment enough?
"Tell me, why were you so happy when Shio left? How could you have been so heartless?" It continued as the scene faded once more. Now, there was nothing. She stood in nothingness surrounded by nothing.
"I cried and cried but you never accepted me." It sounded sad, almost like a child deprived of the attention it needed.
"What are you?" Vendetta asks. Defeat has never stung so venomously. The voice was right. She was just too foolish to accept it all this time.
"I am the heart you left behind."
"I am broken. I am torn. You refused to accept me so you looked the other way. Pretended that nothing was wrong but inside of me, you already knew."
Her own voice was only met with silence. In the centre of the darkness within her own mind, for the first time in her life, Vendetta sheds a tear. She had clung on to this hopeless love for so long. She had hoped for too much. Her knees gave way and she knelt lifelessly to the ground, allowing the tears to flow freely from her eyes.
"He will never love you. He loves Shio. He always has and he always will." Even her own voice started to fade now.
"I wasn't happy when she left. I was just...glad. I thought maybe...just maybe...would he look my way and love me instead?" She said between choked sobs and heavy short breaths.
Suddenly, she was jolted awake at the sound of her terminal beeping incessantly yet again. Rising from the cold floor, she logged into her terminal to find that she had gotten an email from Tsubaki labelled as 'URGENT'.
"This can't be pretty." She said to herself in disdain. A cringe eminent in her features. Bracing herself for either the shortest email saying 'Come to my office' or the longest email just consisting of a very detailed plan explaining to her how her own death would be executed. Honestly, with Tsubaki, it could go either way and it would still be most hellish experience you'll ever have.
The subject read: I Need To Talk To You
"Hibari informed me of your escape and your return from where ever you thought was important enough for you to defy both my and Doctor Sakaki's direct orders. Come to his office immediately and if you're worried about me chewing your head off then be glad that this isn't about that. This is far more important so don't be late."
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Oh wow, has it really been that long since I updated? (0.0) Sorry guys, I just...kinda...sorta...forgot that I had a story I haven't finished yet. Not an excuse, I know. Well, I doubt anyone still remembers this story but I hope you continue reading it. :D I make no promises on when I'll be updating it again (because we all know how THAT went *rolls eyes*) but I will try my best.
Also, I know that Vendetta sounds quite off in this chapter :'( Have I lost touch with her, I wonder? I have this image of Vendetta as a strong, happy and completely independent person but here she turns out to be quite the opposite.
But I didn't want her to make light of the whole situation and treat it like a joke because I wanted to convey how she really loved Soma despite knowing that he and Shio already had a thing going on.
I just tried asking myself 'if a guy I really liked and a good friend of mine got together, would I still be able to continue acting like nothing's wrong? Wouldn't everyone break down at some point in that situation?' Am I just overthinking it? What do you guys think? I really want to know so leave a review :)
Oh, and don't worry. I'm not particularly fond of sad stories (though there are some that I do read despite this) so 'Over The Clouds' won't be angst, angst and angst until the end. I want them to be happy as much as the next fangirl! :3 It's just...hard to get a character like Soma to accept a character like Vendetta so I'm working on it.
But at least I have ideas for...a few more chapters? Who knows.
Ack! One last thing. The truth is I lost inspiration for writing altogether but then I got an email on Saturday telling me that a person named Kuiroshi Ryoka read my story and said that he/she loved it. I forgot how happy I always felt whenever someone told me that they liked reading what I wrote so here's to you Kuiroshi Ryoka, thanks for reminding me why I loved to write in the first place. :'D
- FreakishMind Cheers!
