I'm so terribly sorry for how long it took me to update this. I've been feeling pretty out of KND lately and school is hassling the hell out of me. Anyway, this chapter is for all my faithful reviewers but dedicated for one person in particular: lovebird3000. Thank you so much for the unbelievable support. :)
Disclaimer: I don't own C:KND or 'The Three Libras' by A Perfect Circle.
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PART 8: The Day the Music Died
The light shone on the stage, revealing the exquisite enigma that was her. She sat on a tall, formal stool, legs crossed neatly at the ankles with her angular sitting position, and her head was bowed. When she raised her chin, a lock of raven hair fell across her face; when she lifted her face to the crowd, her eyes were filled with sorrow.
"Threw you the obvious and you flew
With it on your back, a name in your recollection
Thrown down among a million same…"
-
"Who is it?" Questioned Wally, who was sitting on his bed, as she entered. He seemed to be staring straight ahead; when she looked down on his lap a metal book lay open there. Of course. Reading in Braille.
"Um… I'm not sure you'll remember." It was all she could do to keep her voice from cracking. "We… we only met a week ago, at the Orange Island."
His face fell. "Oh, pardon me, then. Ah… ah guess they toldya about me?"
"You gave me your number; I called your house. Your mom answered."
He winced. "Ah apologize if she… overreacted. She does that a lot."
"No, it's alright."
Then… silence, more awkward than any she'd experienced before. The all-too familiar tingling sensation started in her nose. The sensation of crying.
"So, um, how d'ya say we met again?" He said in an attempt to make the visit actually worthwhile. Just being modest, she guessed. Was there truly no hope after all?
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"Difficult not to feel a little bit disappointed
And passed over, when I've looked right through
To see you naked and oblivious
And
You don't see me…"
Her voice had gone unintentionally eerie, almost inhuman, in its splendor. The awestruck audience's tiny hairs stood up on the backs of her their necks. She had the façade of a sad, dangerous siren.
-
"Oh, yeah. I work at the Orange Island, and…"
"As a what?"
"Huh?"
"What d'ya do there? Ah'm sorry but ah don't remember…"
Kuki winced. Of course he didn't. Damn destiny that he didn't.
"Oh, no problem." Though her mind was saying something else. "I sing."
He seemed to lapse into thought. "A… singer?"
"Yes?" She asked hopefully. Could it be…?
He glanced at her with remorse on his face. "Ah'm sorry… ah really don't remember. But go on, please."
Before, she had been thinking of certain words she thought might trigger a recall, but then, not anymore. Not after this.
-
"But I threw you the obvious
Just to see if there's more behind the eyes
Of a fallen angel
The eyes of a tragedy…"
She might have once loved to sing, maybe even lived for it; but it wasn't too clear now. Her talent was mesmerizing, her voice lovely, but the passion, the spark behind her eyes, had gone, leaving only the whispering melody of empty words and the tragedy of remembering.
-
"I was performing that night, and I noticed you singing alone at your table. After my number I approached you and we started talking…
"You told me about some of your interests, and about Sheila, and…" she was interrupted suddenly by a question.
"Will ya sing for me?"
"S-sing?" Was he really asking what she thought he was?
"Yeah. Ah know what ah'm askin' might be a bit much, but ah just had an idea that maybe… well, neva mind. Ah won't mind if ya don't wanna, ah really won't." There was a smile on his lips, but there was something missing from it.
"No, no, it's okay. It won't be any trouble at all." Anything for him. "What would you like me to sing?"
"Anythin' would be great, but maybe ya could do what ya sang that night…" A flitter of hope ignited her heart. Did he want to remember her as much as she did?
"Whenever sang
my songs, on the stage, on my own
Whenever said my words, wishing
they would be heard
I saw you smiling at me…
Was it real, or
just my fantasy?
You'd always be there in the corner, of this tiny
little bar
My last night here for you, same old songs, just once
more
My last night here with you? Maybe yes, maybe no…"
He leaned back and stretched, as if trying to relish every instance of her harmonious cry, though it was merely an acapella. She reached a feverish pitch in the height of the ecstasy that fact had brought her.
"I kind of
liked it your way, how you shyly placed your eyes on me.
Oh- did
you ever know, that I had mine on you?"
He might
have said "Kooks?" in one brilliant flash of remembrance, or
maybe it was just her mind playing tricks on her again, but she would
never really know, because at that very moment came a voice that was
familiar to both of them, but ironically shouldn't be.
-
"Here I am, expecting just a little bit too much
From the wounded, but I see through it all
And see you…"
A tear now descended her cheek, though those only on the frontline would know. This was too close, too close to something in her heart, and it was punishment, it was cruelty, to make her live through it again.
-
"Wally, who you got there with ya? It sounds kinda like… Kuki!"
She had barely had the chance to turn around before no other than her best friend, Abigail Lincoln, had thrown two brown arms around her.
"Girl, whatchat doin' here?" She exclaimed. "Waitaminute, do you guys know each other?" Now referring to Wally.
"We're just getting reacquainted, Abby," the Australian replied. Then something happened then that truly shocked Kuki. Abigail leaned down, past her seat by the bed, to place a soft kiss on Wally's mouth, which he gladly returned.
-
"So I threw you the obvious
To see what occurs behind
The eyes of a fallen angel
Eyes of a tragedy…"
It was a wonder, or perhaps a miracle, that she hadn't been reduced to a sobbing mess. All her dreams, her fantasies of being with the only man she could and ever will love, was interrupted by her best friend, the same way she did so while singing the song that might have let him know that he was supposed to be with her, and not anyone else.
It wasn't fair. It never was.
-
"A-abby, you didn't tell me you got over your 'hot numbah' at the O.I." She managed to say teasingly, putting up a brave front because she couldn't do anything else.
"I'll tell you a secret, girl." Abigail patted Wally's cheek fondly. "He was the dream boy I saw there. Talk about fate, eh?"
"And she was the angel who saved me. I owe her my life."
The explanation came to her in shatters, but now it all made sense. That night when he walked her home, he encountered the accident, and while Abigail was rushing to make it to her Big Night, she saw him bleeding in the street, and helped him when no one else did.
She gazed at Abigail now, and though she was her friend, her best friend, the only thing that filled her was jealousy, and the slightest touch of anger. How badly she wanted to be in her position right now, with Wally's hand entwined with hers and looking too much like the perfect couple everyone envied, only the gods knew.
Her nails dug hurting crescents in her palms to cover for the bigger one in her chest, though she kept her eyes directed forward in lieu of being suspicious, though the welling in her eyes might have already done that.
Abigail sat on the side of Wally's bed, between her and him, too akin to her location in the battle of souls.
"So, Kooks, you never told me how you guys met…"
Maybe none of it matters now.
-
"Oh well… apparently nothing
You don't see me
You don't see me at all…"
As she finished with a lingering last note that would wipe away any memory of the performances before her, she didn't wait for the applause and cheering and the flowers thrown at her feet like she was supposed to. She left her audience confused and dazzled with the clickety-clack sound of her heels across the stage, fleeing to the dressing room and sinking down into the miniature hall of mirrors. This was all happening much like when she found out he was blind, but now it was with a different one-track thought that echoed great and terrible beauties in the passage of a lifetime.
It could have been her; it should have been her, but it wasn't. It wasn't, it wasn't, and the resonance of those words was enough to break the girl that had never really been there until she met him.
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I'm sorry if it was so incredibly sucky, but as I said I haven't been in my usual writing self lately and this is all I could come up with. So forgive me if it wasn't worth the wait. There are two more chapters to go, so if you wanna see what happens then, please do REVIEW!
