Disclaimer: I don't own Hana Yori Dango.
"Tsukushi? Where are you?" Tsukushi giggled and tried to shrink herself into a smaller ball behind the grove of palm trees hiding her from view. The sun shone down brightly, heating the sand beneath her toes and she could hear the waves crashing against the shore close by. She covered her mouth with her hand, forcing her laughter inside.
"Tsukushi…Tsukushi," the voice called, tapering off to silence. Concerned, she looked up a bit over the palm leaf. "Gotcha!" shouted a deep voice. With a squeak of surprise, she jumped from her position only to run straight into strong arms that held her tightly.
Breathless with laughter, she looked up into warm, black, black eyes. "You got me," she admitted. "No," he murmured, "you found me…" as his head descended downwards.
Tsukushi woke up with a start, her throat clogged with tears. Lifting shaking fingers, she grazed her cheek; they came off wet.
With a whimper she buried her face into the pillow, her cries muffled against the yielding softness.
"So Tsukushi-chan, I have to tell you what he did last night!"
Tsukushi turned dull eyes towards Megumi. It was now a week after she had started working in Kin-san's restaurant. A week since she had broken down with the realization that her actions had led to the fight with Tsukasa. A week since she had seen him.
"Tell me," Tsukushi said, mentally cringing.
"Well," Megumi started, placing her mug down on her desk and preparing for some intense gossiping. "Apparently, he left early again yesterday and went straight to a bar. I heard he emptied out bottles, they were sitting all around him and he just kept going. Sometime after the third one, the fighting started." Tsukushi tuned out her chatter, unable to stomach any more.
In the week that had followed her last glance of him, Doumyouji Tsukasa had gone berserk. D. Corp. was abuzz with whispers of the heir's brutal fighting; long time employees merely shrugged their shoulders and said this was a repeat of his behavior as a kid. So far as yet, no charges had been pressed against him and the lesson was driven home yet again: with money, anything could be hushed up, even homicidal brawling.
People were feeding off this, the tabloid articles brought in and devoured in the very building that held his name. Speculation ran rampant regarding every aspect of his life and they watched with obscene eagerness for the fall of the mighty Doumyouji Tsukasa. She heard the whispers constantly, could feel them crawling over her flesh like insects, disgusting her to the point of illness.
With a choked gasp, she turned away from Megumi's artless recitation. She buried her face in her shaking hands.
"Tsukushi-chan?" She was unable to respond, her only thoughts focused on breathing, that breathing would overcome the misery spreading throughout her chest.
A warm hand touched her shoulder. "Are you worried about your brother?" Megumi asked anxiously. Tsukushi nodded and removed her hands, her fingers surreptitiously wiping her wet eyes.
"Mmm," Tsukushi nodded her head. She smiled tiredly, "I guess working two jobs has me a bit tired."
Fluttering with concern, Megumi insisted she drink a cup of green tea and hurried to brew it. Tsukushi gave a deep sigh. Breath in, breath out, breath in, breath out…
It was bitterly cold as Tsukushi made her way to the dorms from the train stop later that night. Her part-time job at the restaurant went quickly and smoothly. Hiro's friend Amakusa Seinosuke was a genuinely nice, stable guy; in fact, he reminded her so much of a TV character with the same characteristics that she had taken to calling him by the character's name, Kin-san. But even with all of Kin-san's kindness and support, Tsukushi just barely made it through the nights, her mind a seething, chaotic mess of dark thoughts and sadness.
"Tsukushi."
Tsukushi whirled around, breath caught in her chest, eyes widely dilated. A tall figure emerged from the shadows near the entrance to the train station. When she recognized the form, Tsukushi stifled an oath. "Akira," she said, turning away from him.
"I want to talk to you," he bit out, quickly catching up to her.
"About what?" she asked dejectedly, not bothering to glance at him.
Akira exploded "About what? About Tsukasa!" He ran a critical eye of her. "You look as awful as he does! What is wrong with the two of you?" He waved his arms wide, "You two had a fight-so does everyone else in the world. Get the fuck over it!"
"It's not that easy," she muttered.
"What's not easy? To admit that you were wrong? Both of you are too damn stubborn!" he shouted. He thrust his hand through his hair in agitation; Tsukushi had never seen him like this, desperate with worry and quite unlike his cool self.
She gave a troubled sigh, "Akira, I can't do it. We don't belong together; it's better to have it end now. I don't fit it in with your world and I never will."
"Then just stay with him till it ends!" He turned pleading eyes on her. "He's killing himself or he will someone else! Stay with him, pretend." Akira spread out a hand, as if coaxing her to his plan. "It won't be hard. He put you on a pedestal, did you know? He thought of you in a way I've never seen him do before."
She paused in her steps and turned to look at him fully. "What if that's not what I want?"
Akira gazed down at her, silent for so long that Tsukushi thought he wouldn't answer; she was mistaken. With a sigh, he said, "Then stay away from him, Tsukushi." He turned around, leaving her standing alone. "Stay far away from him."
Once again the rhythm picked up: wake up, hover on a train chock full of humanity agonizingly ignoring each other, try to work as unobtrusively as possible, try to avoid situations involving interaction, try to avoid feeling, and especially the pain that accompanied the breath of his name.
Tsukushi gave a shuddering sigh, letting her mask fall. It was now the end of the third week since that night and Tsukushi acknowledged to herself that she was coming apart at the seams. Steadily, day-by-day she was unraveling and trying hard, so hard, to cover it up, which in fact only worsened things. Bending her head, she slowly packed up her things and got up to leave for Kin-san's restaurant.
As she rode down the elevator, sights unseen, she thought of days past and how something once done could not be undone. "But you can fix it," her mind whispered. Go to him. Possibilities sprang to her mind, surprising even herself with their abundance, half formed thoughts of plans and futures.
She shook her head. "For what purpose; at the end, we can only be separated, by his status, by my class, by fate." But her practicality did little to lessen the despair within her and as she left the warmth of the building to face the gray, chilly outside, Tsukushi could almost hardly bear it. Bitter coldness, the stark nudity of the trees, the sheer monotony of the world engulfed her, finding the matching desolation within her. Choking, she flailed against the rising tide of tears surging, the sheer barrenness of her days overwhelming her carefully constructed defenses. Dropping her bag, she buried her face in her scarf and stood still amongst the wave of employees around her leaving for home.
"Tsukushi?" She heard a tentative voice ask. Lifting her tear-streaked face, she saw Hiro hovering over her, an anxious look over his face. At seeing her face, he gave a deep sigh. "Oh, Tsukushi," he whispered, his large hand clasping her frozen cheek in a warm grasp.
Tsukushi took in a wavering breath. "Hiro, its nothing…I'm fine-"
"Shh," he interrupted. Leaning over her, he pressed his lips to her other cheek. "You can do this Makino Tsukushi." Tsukushi closed her eyes for one moment, praying he spoke the truth.
The light spattering of drizzle began early in the evening; people began leaving the restaurants and bars early, shivering in the unexpected, freezing rain as they called it an early night. A lone figure unaware of the exodus around him, remained in the dark shadows at the far end of the wooden bar. He sat, staring blankly into the space before him. The scene repeated before his eyes, again and again: her standing still, her friend caressing her cheek and then bending towards her to kiss her. The pain that had clenched his body, pain such that he had never felt in his violent, bruised life, dug its jagged claws through him.
Tsukasa lifted a hand to his forehead. "What was this misery that nothing could cure? Why the pain-why did it hurt so Goddamn much? Where was the anger?"
Anger. It was an emotion he knew, intimately. It was an old friend who had found him as a child and had never left. At first it had been a means of attracting attention, of forcing others, the servants, other children, his parents, to realize that he was there, in their world. As the years passed and he became deadened from the outside in, the only spark of emotion he felt was anger. As long as the anger filled him and rage fueled his fists, as long people lay before him bleeding and in agony, he knew he was alive and part of this world.
Until her.
And now all that he felt was pain; pain, that could be diminished by alcohol and anger and by his bloodied hands, only to return again tenfold as excruciating as before.
Until today.
He lifted his head up, his eyes slowly focusing on his surroundings. Before him stood a tall glass filled with amber liquid. With a sneer, he took the glass and hurled it to the ground. Ignoring the bartender's cries, he stormed out, the glass tinkling beneath the soles of his shoes.
Tsukushi changed from her wet clothes into a dry pair of shorts and a shirt. It was pitch black outside with sheets of rain pouring down from the sky, drumming heavily across her windows.
Her cell phone rang and she fumbled through her bag trying to locate it. Grasping its vibrating case, Tsukushi opened it. "Hello," she said with a quiet sigh, too tired to work up any enthusiasm for her caller.
Harsh breathing filled her ears, along with the magnified sound of the rain.
"Hello?" she whispered, her heart beating faster. No response.
She carefully took the phone from her ear to look at its crystal screen.
Doumyouji Tsukasa.
With a muted cry she jammed the phone back to her ear. "Where are you?" she whispered, her words choking. Still no response came.
Blood pounded heavily through her ears and she sprang up, her phone still pressed tightly against her. Her own breathing now erratic, she raced down the stairs, down the dimly lit halls, towards the darkened entrance. She thrust open the door with a bang and came to a halt underneath the awning over the door.
He stood before her, in his business suit, sodden with rain, his phone against his ear.
Tsukushi dropped her hand, devouring him with widened eyes. "Tsuk-"
"Do you know," he began almost conversationally, "what it is to live everyday not for yourself, but for the name you were born with?" He closed his phone and thrust it into his pants pocket, towering above her in the rain, immediately outside the shelter of the awning. "Since I've been born I have been taught to be a Doumyouji. That the world was built for me, that I could command legions of men to do what I want, when I want."
"So I didn't have a life." He gave a negligent shrug and Tsukushi's heart almost broke from the concealed emotion of the movement. Sadness, regret, resignation. "I got over it."
"And lost so much of yourself in the process," Tsukushi thought in despair, but unable to speak.
"And then I met you.At first you were this stupid girl but who had the balls to kick me when I could have snapped you in half, just like that," he emphasized with a flick of his fingers. A splash of rain hit her in the face and Tsukushi flinched.
"You defied me and I needed to take you down. You were nothing, middle-class trash like all the rest. But for once, I couldn't be stopped," Tsukasa stopped, swallowing thickly. "You were as strong as I was and I couldn't" he paused then said disjointedly. "Then it changed, you filled my mind. Every inch of it. Every hour of everyday I would think of you and think…and hope. You made me hope-made me feel alive," he said, his eyes burning with an inner fire.
Tsukushi breathed, "I-"
He slashed his hand violently through the air, scaring her silent with the barely restrained ferocity of his movement.
"I was filled with almost indescribable happiness. Goddamnit I can't even explain but it was there in my mind when I thought of you. This feeling I never had before. It was there when I woke up and realized you were here in this world; during my day when I thought, I can see her tonight, that in a few hours I can hear her voice. Then, there you were and I felt, I felt all those things together-" he stopped. "Do you know?" he pleaded roughly. "Do you know what it was?"
"Joy," she whispered brokenly. The rain poured down onto him, wet rivers coursing down his face and body unbroken to the concrete below.
"Joy," he repeated dumbly. Suddenly his face twisted, "Joy," he sneered, "Yes, joy. I knew joy, fucking my heart was drowning it! And then without any warning, you ripped it out of me-you took it all away." He started pacing angrily, breathing heavily as would a beast driven mad with grief and pain.
He stopped to stare straight into her eyes, "You ripped my heart of out my chest and fucking fed it to me. You whom I trusted, as I trusted no other woman-lied to me, betrayed me," he all but howled in anguish.
"But still I was going to take you back, pay anyone any price to get you back. And then I saw you with Hiro today." Here he faltered, "You, you let him kiss you..." he swallowed, then said hoarsely, "You let him kiss you in front of me." Tsukushi shook her head in horrified denial but he didn't notice. "And I…I…" He couldn't continue then gave a bitter laugh, one that wrapped Tsukushi's heart in ice. "You warped me. Me, the great Doumyouji Tsukasa!" He thrust his hand against his face and his laughter ended in an agonized gasp. Lifting his head, he looked at her with a twisted smile to his lips, one that had her throbbing with hurt.
"Congratulations," he mocked. "You, middle-class trash have succeeded where many others have failed: you have brought down Doumyouji Tsukasa." He reached out long fingers in a movement Tsukushi knew well. She stood still, heart clenched, as his fingers came forward as if to flick her nose. With huge eyes she saw his fingers tremble as they came near her face, saw his fingers spread out as if to touch her cheek. A mere whisper away from her face, they stopped and Tsukushi stifled a sob deep in her throat.
Then he brought his hand back down and bent his head in defeat. With no more words, not even a look, he turned and walked away from her. Walked away as she stood there, silent tears running down her face.
I was worried about you…be with me…I like you…joy…Tsukushi watched him walk away in the rain, his back, his broad back, become smaller…it will disappear… he will disappear from your life…joy…you filled me with joy…And you will never see him again…never again.
No.
"Tsukasa," she screamed, running into the blackened rain. "Tsukasa!"
He stopped, not turning around, while she ran until she reached him, a hairs breadth separating them. "Tsukasa…don't," she sobbed, "don't go." She closed the gap between them and clung onto him tightly, for himself, for herself, her tears melting into his rain-soaked back.
"It was a mistake…and then my pride and my fear…" she hesitated as he turned around. Bending her head, she gentlytook his hands within her own and almost reverently brought them up to her face. As she watched, her face cupped within his large, warm hands, the pain in his eyes slowly eased and her heart lurched unbearably. I can't lose him!
She whispered up to him, forcing him to bend closer to hear her words, "Don't go. Stay here…with me. Tonight."
spoiler warning
In the manga, the scene where Tsukushi leaves Tsukasa in the rain was to me, the most heart breaking moment in the series and one of the moments that truly defined Tsukushi's character.
I thought it a tribute for them to find each other in the rain this time.