Nadeshiko was sleeping, laying her head on the kitchen table, when the sound of a lock clicking aroused her. She sat up in a daze, the blanket Tadase had draped over her when he left for the day falling off of her shoulders and onto the floor.
"Tadase?" she murmured, glancing at the clock to see that it was much too early for him to be returning home. What was he doing here now?
There was no response, and part of Nadeshiko was starting to get a bit worried. Snapping herself out of her sleep-induced daze she climbed to her feet, moving around the table and across the room, towards the door.
"Tadase, what are you-?" As Nadeshiko rounded the corner she cut herself off.
Standing before her was not Tadase, but someone she wanted to see much more.
It was Rima.
Nadeshiko froze, just for a second, a second that felt like an eternity. Her mind was spinning, not able to grasp that this was Rima standing in front of her.
Rima was alright; she hadn't been hurt (well, at least not physically). Rima was here, in front of her. Rima had returned to her.
Nadeshiko opened her mouth, not quite sure of what she wanted to say. Her heart was pounding so loudly she figured she wouldn't be able to hear anything she said anyway.
"I'm back," Rima said, staring at Nadeshiko with a straight face, a face that Nadeshiko knew did not represent how the blonde was feeling.
Nadeshiko didn't know it was possible for tears to come so quickly, but they were already spilling from her eyes. And she couldn't stop them no matter how hard she tried; the tears just kept coming, an endless stream of the pain she had been feeling for the past few months.
And then, before she could think it through, she ran forward, throwing herself against Rima and wrapping her arms around the blonde's small body."I thought you were dead!"
She could feel the girl shaking, could tell that she was as upset and scared and worried as she was.
Rima was so small and fragile, so delicate that Nadehsiko just felt like she could break right now, in her arms. When she was gone, who-knows-where doing who-knows-what, she could have easily been broken. Sad and alone, confused about everything that had happened, confused about where her life was, anything could have happened. She could have been kidnapped, beaten and raped, extorted or killed. There was no way for Nadeshiko to have known what could have happened to her.
And suddenly, she understood completely how Nagihiko felt. And the words she said were probably true; even though she never let the thought consciously cross her mind, she really had thought that Rima was dead.
Rima brought her arms up slowly to wrap around Nadeshiko's waist, her grip tight as her face was pressed into Nadeshiko's chest.
Yes, this was definitely Nadeshiko's body; Nadeshiko was no longer dressing like a man, and she could feel the other's breasts.
Some part of Rima, no matter how foolish, wished that when she got back home Nadeshiko would exclaim "just kidding!" and reveal that she was Nagihiko after all. And, no matter how silly this notion was, no matter how much Rima wanted it to be the truth, she now knew that Nadeshiko could not be Nagihiko.
Nagihiko was dead, after all.
Rima tried not to, she really did, but she found herself crying as well. Crying even though she had thought herself all cried out a minute or two ago.
She could barely speak at all, her throat closing up as thick tears fell down her face. But even though her voice croaked out as a whisper, Nadeshiko could clearly hear her say, "I thought you were dead too."
~oOo~
Nadeshiko didn't quite know what she was supposed to do. How exactly was she supposed to clear things up between her and Rima?
I mean really, what do you say after you've impersonated your dead twin brother, and married and fell in love with the love of his life, all without her knowledge? Really, why in the hell does such a situation even exist? This is just ridiculous.
Well, Nadeshiko really didn't know what she should say, so the two just sat in silence for a while. Occasionally Nadeshiko would glance over at Rima to see her sitting across the kitchen table, staring at a full cup of tea with a far-away look in her eyes.
Once or twice she had started to say something (having no idea exactly what she was going to stay) but every time she cleared her throat or started to talk Rima's eyes would snap up to stare at her, and Nadeshiko was useless to do anything besides drop her gaze to the table and blush.
It honestly felt like the two of them would be stuck at this impasse for, well, possibly forever, but just as Nadeshiko was beginning to feel as though neither one of them would speak again for the rest of their lives, the sound of a door opening was heard.
"Who's that?"
Rima finally spoke, and the sound of her voice, still so weak and shaky, caused Nadeshiko such shock she almost forgot to answer the question.
After a second she regained her composure and replied, "Oh, that's probably Tadase."
"Tadase? What's Tadase doing here?" Rima asked, her eyebrows narrowing in an almost accusatory way.
"Well, I was rather, um... upset after you ran away," Nadeshiko murmured, unable to meet Rima's eye as her face reddened. Upset was definitely an understatement. "And he thought I could use the company."
"So he shacked up with you?" Nadeshiko hazarded a glance at the blonde to see that she actually looked quite angry at the current moment. Oh god, Nadeshiko wished Tadase would hurry up and get his butt into the kitchen.
"No, no, not quite like that! He's been sleeping on the couch the whole time! We didn't do anything... he was just here to-"
"Make sure Nadeshiko didn't kill herself?"
Nadeshiko gasped, turning around to see Tadase standing in the doorway, wearing a small smile on his face. "I'm glad you're back, Rima."
Rima didn't respond immediately, and instead just stared at him as he entered the kitchen and sat down in one of the empty chairs. "What do you mean?"
Tadase frowned, refusing to meet Nadeshiko's eye as she stared at him, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "You don't know what she was like. It was... it was unbelievable, and not in a good way at all. It was like... it was like someone drained every last once of happiness from her soul."
"You thought.. you thought I was going to kill myself?" Nadeshiko stuttered, unable to grasp such a concept.
"You don't... you don't understand..." Tadase muttered, turning to face Nadeshiko with an almost abashed expression. "You were barely talking, you hardly ate at all and only slept when your body reached the point of exhaustion. You cried for days and when that stopped all you did was stare off into the distance for days on end."
"It wasn't that bad," Nadeshiko muttered, dropping her eyes to the floor. She couldn't look at Rima now, not when Tadase was saying such things.
"Nadeshiko... it's been twenty days since the wedding."
No, that wasn't right. It had only been a few days, a week at most. Nadeshiko shook her head, refusing to believe such nonsense. "No way."
"It's true... it's the twenty-fifth of April today," Rima muttered quietly, almost as though she didn't want to admit it to herself.
"But... it hasn't been that long." But they wouldn't lie to her about that.
"Now you see why I was worried about you? Everyday I left for class I was terrified I'd come back to find your dead body."
"But I wouldn't ever-"
"Did it honestly never cross your mind?"
Nadeshiko didn't want to answer that, because she didn't want to admit that it had.
Of course, while she was sitting alone in the dark, hating herself for betraying Rima, betraying Nagihiko, loving Rima, loosing her brother, and leaving Rima all broken, it had crossed her mind. She thought she would much rather just die than live like this. Of course it crossed her mind that she could just make a few cuts and she wouldn't have to hurt anymore. She could go and be with Nagihiko once again.
But she wasn't that far gone yet, and she wasn't stupid enough to even consider doing such a thing, because then Rima would probably end up hurt, as well as Tadase and her mother, Amu and all her other friends.
Even if she wanted it all to end, she couldn't say goodbye to Rima like that, with such a fowl scene.
"I..." Nadeshiko couldn't speak, but the other two could easily sense what she refused to say.
Rima opened her mouth, but stopped. What could she say to this?
It was her fault, wasn't it? She had caused Nadeshiko to feel this way, hadn't she? Nadeshiko wasn't some cruel monster trying to manipulate her feelings, she was just as upset with how things had ended up.
And she had left her without another word, leaving her no indication if she was alive of dead. How scared Nadeshiko must have been.
"I'm so sorry."
Nadeshiko looked up to see tears falling down Rima's cheeks.
"What... what are you sorry for?" Nadeshiko asked, a bit confused.
"For leaving you, for making you so sad... You must have been so worried about me, given my past and all," Rima spoke quickly, trying to get it all out quickly as her eyes blurred and her chest shook, "I was so worried about myself I forgot all about how you must be feeling. You were the closest person to me besides Na-nagihiko. And I hurt you so much."
Rima let out a sob, wiping her eyes on her sleeve as she sniffed. These tears were loud and messy, unlike any of those "crocodile tears" she had used in the past, and that only made Nadeshiko's heart hurt more. "I can't even begin to understand how you've been feeling this whole time."
"Pretty... pretty much shit," Nadeshiko replied, trying to laugh but finding that the sound got stuck in her throat.
And Nadeshiko wasn't quite sure how it happened but the next thing she knew Rima was hugging her.
The two held each other for along time, crying their eyes out. Rima was probably getting snot all over Nadeshiko's shirt but she didn't care at all because Rima was back home in her arms. And, even more than that, she didn't hate her.
The two stayed like this for a long time, before there were no more tears left for them to cry.
After pulling away Rima stood above her, rather awkwardly for a few minutes, as neither one was quite sure of what to do.
After a long moment Tadase smiled and said, "Well, why don't we start figuring this situation out?"
~oOo~
A/N: Okay, I know I said only two more chapters, but this one was getting really long and I wanted to get it up ASAP so there will be one more PLUS an epilogue!
And sorry about the super late update, but I've been extremely busy lately, and then I gained a new found obsession with Dangan Ronpa (which is so awesome, and I'm considering doing a Shugo Chara story based off the game after I finish this).
Oh, and anyway, I've posted a soundtrack for this story on my profile if anyone's interested.
Please review! I appreciate it so much, and they really are what keeps me writing when I lose all motivation. :) Thank you.
