"A Cold Day In Hell"
A Cold Day In Hell
by Laura Kamida
Rated PG-13 for Themes, Language, and Yaoi

I always thought you were stronger than me.

The leaves are scattered on the snow-barren ground. They lay curled in delicate crumples on the ground, having been discarded when the hard times came... Sometimes that's how I feel. They are dead... but I still find them beautiful, with intricate patterns of frost dancing across the surface.

Sometimes I can keep my mind off of the past if I concentrate on a little detail. Fixate on it. Make it my obsession for only a moment... But my memories always resurface.

The skin on the bottom of my legs ripple into goose bumps as the snow that lays in sheets on the ground chills me to the bone. Lovely, of course, but the beautiful exterior hides a destructive power, frigid, barren of warmth... It makes a pretense as gentle, delicate, even inspirational. All those people, the ones that called themselves friends... they were like snow. Two-faced. Dangerous. Each one of them, their own little ruinous snowflake, masking the truth, love and hope... buried you, the true gentleness, delicacy... inspiration.

Buried you.

I can't cry, not now, no matter how much my heart is breaking... No matter how much I want to just melt into the ground, just fall and curl up on the ground like one of those leaves after the only thing it ever lived for is gone, gone forever.. I won't cry. No weakness... I'm stronger than them... I always thought you were stronger than me. Did you cry? Were you brave like always in the face of adversity –? I - I suppose not... if you had been... you would still be here... With my arms around you, keeping myself warm in the cold by holding on to the only glowing light still in the world...

I know why it happened... it finally became too much. The days when we would walk down the hall together, to feel their eyes, burning into us, like they were willing us to die with only their minds... We couldn't show affection like a normal couple... We were torn apart, violently... I can still taste the blood on my lips from where I was hit in the mouth, while they screamed those words at us...

FAG! QUEER! WE DON'T HAVE ANY ROOM FOR A BUNCH OF FAIRIES LIKE YOU HERE, ISHIDA! YOU MAKE ME WANT TO THROW UP, YOU LOUSY HOMOS! I tried to hold my head high, even as I could feel my body bleeding, bruising, cracking in their brutal hands. I tried valiantly to hold back the tears as I could see them mauling your immaculate form as well... Your athleticism was no match for their indirectly murderous hands as they held you down and stole your freedom. Made you give them your life.

Of course there was the support of our families... Your parents... It was heartbreaking to see them, almost as guilty as the rest... They did not aggrieve us for our love... but I could feel the distance that came between them and us... They never wanted this, though... you have to believe it. Your sister, didn't want it either... anything but that... she wanted nothing but for your happiness... you don't know how much she cried over you... maybe she and Takeru were the only one's who didn't fight against us... They all loved you... Sometimes I think they loved you as much as I.

But that would be impossible.

.... I can still feel your blood on my hands.

All over my hands... my face... my body... My tears falling and intermixing with the vital red fluid that poured out of you, turning into one, turning into a brew of sorrow and hatred that flowed across your limp form as I held you, my body shaking violently with sobs, lungs contracting, stomach churning, mind racing, too many emotions at one time – why did you do it, why did you let go of me, why did you l et them drive you to this, why did you die,

Why did you take your young life away?

It was them, I screamed, it was all them, they made you do this, they treated you like you weren't worth the dirt that they walked on, they told you that you made them sick, they told you that God was sending you to Hell, they told you that you were going against everything nature stood for... they took the gun, they put it in your hands, they pulled the trigger... They knocked you to the floor... they slammed your head on the side of the bathtub on the way down, they made the blood pour, matting down your soft, bed-headed hair, marring your beautiful features, taking my heart, smashing it into a thousand glittering shards of glass that constantly cut me...

Sometimes I can keep my mind off of the past if I concentrate on a little detail. Fixate on it. Make it my obsession for only a moment... But my memories always resurface.

Sometimes I can never get it out of my head at all.

That picture.

Permanently engraved in my mind.

Tell me I was dreaming.

God... please save him.

Please... don't leave me... I love you...

To never see his lively eyes darting back and forth again.

We told each other we could beat those homophobic bastards.

I guess we were wrong.

They tried to force us to conform to what they thought was the truth. But you would rather have died. And so you did... Not like they would let it go in peace.

I can still imagine, almost taste the loathing on their tongues as they muttered their ill-wishes to me. Told me they hoped you rotted with the Devil. Laughed and told me that you and Satan were running around behind my back... Cackled as they drove figurative knives of pain into a million places, the pain intensifying with every twist of a former friend's word, like a blade, in my flesh.

Not even the day after I went to your funeral. Not even twenty-four grueling hours after they put my love, my angel, my eternal life partner, in the cold, barren ground... They wouldn't let me forget how much they detested me.

It's too quiet here...

I remember when we came here... It was spring, when love was young and beautiful flowers sprouted here in Odaiba... When you would touch my skin, the feel of your fingertips ever so gentle on my face, and I could run my fingers through your hair... It was so beautiful, crazy, soft, brown, I always wanted to feel it under my hands... I loved you boundlessly... Just having you beside me... feeling your warmth radiating from a smile, or your engaging brown eyes... tasting your lips, feeling them against mine.

You whispered your secrets to me, I felt for you completely.

You told me that sometimes you were afraid of them...

I told you that you didn't have to worry about what they thought... that we could beat anything...

I guess I was wrong.

I always thought you were stronger than me...

I guess I was wrong.

I told you that it would be a cold day in Hell when you were away from me.

I guess I was right...