Author's Note: I am sooo sorry. I did not mean for this chapter to take so
long. I am having a lot of trouble with this fic. May ideas are getting
weirder and melding together in very strange ways. ^_^;;;;;; I think it
will speed up more during the school year. I seem to think better when I am
busy.
Chapter 3: Take my hand
I'm holding out my hand. Can you reach me? Before no one can reach you at all. Before you are lost forever. Don't let me loss you. Don't fade away. You think there is no more hope, You think you're all ready dead, But you're wrong. You can live again. Let me help you. Let me teach you how to love. Let me mend your broken soul. Just take my hand.
~~~Yohji POV~~~
I slowly stepped out into the hallway. I could barely make out the silhouette of Aya's form creeping down the stairs. What the hell could he be doing at this time of night? Well morning if you want to be exact. I mean what could Aya possibly be doing at three in the morning?
Suddenly it struck me. I froze. What if he was trying to leave? No! He can't leave. I won't let him leave. We need him here. I need him here. I had to stop him.
Why the hell is he trying to leave us? What the hell is wrong with him? We had all noticed a change in Aya's behavior. He started acting weird a week ago. It's almost like he was afraid of something. I had come to the conclusion earlier that the mission the week before was what started this strange behavior. I had talked Omi into doing a little secret research on the target and anyone else involved in the mission that night. He had not found anything yet that I'm aware of.
We need just a little more time. Just a little more time and we can figure out what is wrong with Aya. Just a little more time and we can help him. But now he's running away. I won't let him leave. I don't care what kind of a secret he's hiding he's not leaving. I won't let him and I know Ken and Omi will feel the same way.
~~~Aya's POV~~~
I made up my mind. I had to leave tonight. It may not be easier this way but it will be less complicated if I didn't have to tell them why I'm leaving and I know they wouldn't let me go until I told them.
But I can't stay here. My nightmares are getting worse and my reality is getting closer. I can't let it touch them. I can't have my nightmares hurt them as well. I have to run away. Like a coward, I am running away. I guess He won that argument to.
~~~Begin Flashback~~~
"You're useless!" The fury in his voice seemed to emanate throughout the entire house. And all of it was directed towards me. I stood there like a soldier before his commanding officer waiting for what was to come with an emotionless expression upon my face, for I feared what would become of me if I were to put forth any kind of emotion.
Perhaps I could try and talk my way out of it. A respectfully approach would be best. "But sir I."
"Don't you dare interrupt me!" he shouted. I realized then that trying to defend myself would go unheard. I had failed. And it was time to face the consequences.
"I gave you one simple task for you complete." his voice reaching to pitches that were unheard of. "That was to take Chang Li, a child," he emphasized the word with a tone that almost sounded like disgust, "out of the Game. Is that so hard of a task that you must back down at the most critical moment in the Game?" His fists slammed down on the old wooded desk. I was only thankful that right now those fists weren't directed towards me.
"No sir!" It was best to be obedient. There was nothing more I could do. It was true I had backed down. I was afraid. Something earlier that day had stopped me. Something told me to back down. I don't know what it was but it frightened me.
"So if the task was so simple than why did you back down?" His eyes bore into me as if they could see straight to my very soul. His eyes always did frighten me. They could see things that others couldn't. They could see every weakness that I possessed.
He approached me closely still keeping eye contact. He was now only inches away from my face looking down on me. He only stood about a couple inches taller than me but it felt more like a couple of feet. "Or are you just a coward?" Again he used a disgusted tone on that word. "Do you know what happens to cowards boy?"
"Cowards get beaten down sir!" I told him what he wanted to hear even though I didn't believe it.
"Beaten down by what?" he screamed in my face.
"Stronger opponents sir!" Stronger opponents? Was there even such a thing? Who decided that this opponent was stronger than the other? I dare not voice these questions/ I cannot even image what he would do if he heard them from my lips.
"And do you want to be a coward boy?"
"No Sir!" Sir? A name I always called him. A name he didn't deserve. To him it denoted respect. To him it denoted superiority. That is why I hate superiors. They are given respect simply because of their titles, but most of them don't deserve half the respect that they are given.
"Then I suggest that you correct this mistake that you have made immediately." He stared down at me like I was a dog, which he could order about and beat down as he pleased. It has always been so. I have always been his dog and what for? The Game.
I see now that it was all for the Game. He hated it, and he loved it at the same time. He needed it to survive. He needed it more than any other thing on this earth. It had consumed his mind like it had so many others. The only thing that mattered to him was the Game. The Game was what kept life going and if you were not in the Game then you didn't matter to him. All that mattered was getting in control of the Game. Countless souls have been lost in the pursuit of the Game. And I was one of them. Of course I hadn't realized it at the time, but I was already one of these lost souls who had gotten consumed in the Game.
I had never even dreamed of thinking these thoughts until now. That thing that told me to back down earlier that day.that's what told me. It was like a force driving me away. It opened my eyes and showed me the truth. I didn't believe it at first. I did not want to believe it. I would rather believe that I had failed rather than believe my whole life was a lie. It frightened me. Never in my life had I known such fear. Never in my life have I felt such pain, such sorrow. Never in my life had I been shown the truth.
~~~End Flashback~~~
I opened the trunk of my car and swung my suitcase in. I had only packed one. I didn't own very much in the first place, but I figured that I would be on the run for a while and wouldn't be able to take much of my things.
I heard something come from inside. Yohji suddenly stumbles into the garage panting, mumbling something about how he really needed to quit smoking. His eyes met mine. They were filled with anger and something else that looked.that looked like fear. Why would Yohji be afraid?
"What the hell do you think you're doing Fujimiya?" Each heaving breath he took was filled with bitter rage.
This is great. Now I had to face him, and Yohji of all the people to catch me escaping. Of course he would be the hardest to face. Nothing with Yohji is simple. Yohji can be just as stubborn as I am when he wants something.
I simply stared at him. What could I say? I was running away because I was scared. I was running away because I was a coward.
~~~Yohji's POV~~~
He just stood there staring at me with a blank face. He was fucking leaving us and he had nothing to say. Well I sure as hell did. "You damn well better come up with a good explanation Fujimiya!" I folded my arms in front of my chest and waited to here what he had to say.
"Explain what Yohji?" He can't be! At a time like this he is actually trying to play stupid. He must be either desperate or running out of ideas.
I walked over to where he was standing at the trunk of his car. I lifted up the suitcase out from the trunk and slammed in on the ground. "Explain this!" I stared at him hard. "What the fuck do you think you're doing Aya? Why the hell are you trying to leave us? You've been acting weird lately. What's wrong with you Aya, and why can't you tell us about it?" I blurted out all of the questions that I had been dieing to ask, all of the things that had been bugging me over the past few days.
Now he was angry. The glare he was sending me was a sure warning sign to back off but I had started this and I sure as hell was gonna finish it even if I had to come out of it with a few broken bones or two, just as long as I got him to stay. Who knows, maybe beating the shit out of me would give him the hint that I am serious when I say that I want him to stay.
"It's none of your business!" His voice was shear ice. He wasn't emotionless anymore. Now he was filled with rage. An amazing sight really. Aya truly is beautiful when he's angry. His cheeks flushed, his eyes piercing dark shades of violet, his features sharp and tense. It drove my mind wild to see him like this. It made me think of what he would look like in the heat of passion. My head began filling with images of Aya withering at my mercy when his stern voice interrupted my fantasy.
"Kudou!"
Uh oh. I really gotta try harder to focus on the task at hand. Right you have a job to do here Kudou. If you don't get him to stay then all you'll have is fantasies. "I'm still waiting for your answer!"
"Hn" God I hate it when he does that. Is it that hard to say real words?
I picked up the suitcase from the ground and turned around ready to head back inside. "You're not going anywhere!"
He grabbed the suitcase and tugged it back towards him leading us into a tug-a-war contest that eventually resulted in a glaring contest. "I'm doing this for your own damn good Kudou so just back off!" He spat.
I stopped struggling for the suitcase and stared at him in disbelief. I was shocked. "You call leaving us without a word good for us!" He reassumed the same emotionless face that he always bore. We stood there for what seemed like hours staring at each other in a heavy silence. How could he say such a thing? What could possibly be so bad for him to think that leavings us was the answer? We had all been through hell together. Whatever Aya was going through was killing him and we could all see that. He didn't have to get through it alone. He had us, all of us. We have all had hard times that we had to overcome. When Omi found out that he was the nephew of the man he had been trying to kill all these years and his father had been his employer all along, Ken found out that his best friend had betrayed him and tried to kill him, and me. I had found out that the Neu the woman I killed had been the woman whom I loved that had died in my arms only a few years before. Yes, we had all had rough times and no matter how much the past still haunted us we were able to live on. We found hope in each other. We found comfort there. And now there was something else that we needed to get past, the past that Aya has been hiding for so long.
He broke eye contact and looked down at his feet. He felt guilty. "You don't understand." His voice was soft and quiet, almost unheard.
"No I don't" He looked up at me in confusion. "But I want to. Please Aya, let us help you." I stepped closer to him. "Let me help you." He crinkled his eyebrows in confusion. He looked at me as if I had sprouted antlers. "Please Aya, You can't just leave and expect us not to care. We're friends." Never had I spoken so honestly and open with him. ".we're family. I don't know what's going on here Aya but I know something is wrong. Whatever it is we can get through this together. All of us can get through this together."
"And if we don't get through this?" He comment caught me off guard. I looked down at him. He looked unsure, perhaps frightened of my answer. Did he actually think that I would turn him away in a time of need because the situation was dangerous? Something is seriously wrong. This man standing before me is not the emotionless Aya that I know who wouldn't show any signs of concern for the choices that I made. No, this wasn't Aya or Abyssinian, but who was it? Was it Ran?
"And if we don't, then we go down together." I hold out my hand to him. He looks down at it timidly as though it were going to lash out at him. The huge knot in my stomach tightens. I felt like I had just laid my heart out in front of him. It scared me to think what would happen if he were to leave. How would we go on? We had survived without him before. But now, but now I don't think we would last a week without Aya. And it hurt like hell tot hink that he could last without us so easily.
Then he looks back up at me his blank face present once again.
"Hn" He picks up the suitcase, walked right past me and goes back inside.
And I am left standing in the garage in shock and a little hurt I would like to point out. But.he stayed.
~~~TCB~~~
Sorry for the flashbacks. I think there is going to be a few of them since this is dealing Aya's past and all.
And I apologize for some of the poems in this fic. They're getting kinda weird. But they all are supposed to connect. Hopefully. ::groans:: Sorry about the length too. It seems no matter what I do I just can't write a long chapter. There I go apologizing for everything again. I think I'm tiered. 2:00AM Yep defiantly tired.
It's pretty unclear right now I hope. Although some of you may have already figured out some of what's going on. I'm trying my best to make it as obscure as possible.
Well what ya think????? Keep in mind that the more reviews I get the more and the faster I will be inclined to write. Hint Hint
Chapter 3: Take my hand
I'm holding out my hand. Can you reach me? Before no one can reach you at all. Before you are lost forever. Don't let me loss you. Don't fade away. You think there is no more hope, You think you're all ready dead, But you're wrong. You can live again. Let me help you. Let me teach you how to love. Let me mend your broken soul. Just take my hand.
~~~Yohji POV~~~
I slowly stepped out into the hallway. I could barely make out the silhouette of Aya's form creeping down the stairs. What the hell could he be doing at this time of night? Well morning if you want to be exact. I mean what could Aya possibly be doing at three in the morning?
Suddenly it struck me. I froze. What if he was trying to leave? No! He can't leave. I won't let him leave. We need him here. I need him here. I had to stop him.
Why the hell is he trying to leave us? What the hell is wrong with him? We had all noticed a change in Aya's behavior. He started acting weird a week ago. It's almost like he was afraid of something. I had come to the conclusion earlier that the mission the week before was what started this strange behavior. I had talked Omi into doing a little secret research on the target and anyone else involved in the mission that night. He had not found anything yet that I'm aware of.
We need just a little more time. Just a little more time and we can figure out what is wrong with Aya. Just a little more time and we can help him. But now he's running away. I won't let him leave. I don't care what kind of a secret he's hiding he's not leaving. I won't let him and I know Ken and Omi will feel the same way.
~~~Aya's POV~~~
I made up my mind. I had to leave tonight. It may not be easier this way but it will be less complicated if I didn't have to tell them why I'm leaving and I know they wouldn't let me go until I told them.
But I can't stay here. My nightmares are getting worse and my reality is getting closer. I can't let it touch them. I can't have my nightmares hurt them as well. I have to run away. Like a coward, I am running away. I guess He won that argument to.
~~~Begin Flashback~~~
"You're useless!" The fury in his voice seemed to emanate throughout the entire house. And all of it was directed towards me. I stood there like a soldier before his commanding officer waiting for what was to come with an emotionless expression upon my face, for I feared what would become of me if I were to put forth any kind of emotion.
Perhaps I could try and talk my way out of it. A respectfully approach would be best. "But sir I."
"Don't you dare interrupt me!" he shouted. I realized then that trying to defend myself would go unheard. I had failed. And it was time to face the consequences.
"I gave you one simple task for you complete." his voice reaching to pitches that were unheard of. "That was to take Chang Li, a child," he emphasized the word with a tone that almost sounded like disgust, "out of the Game. Is that so hard of a task that you must back down at the most critical moment in the Game?" His fists slammed down on the old wooded desk. I was only thankful that right now those fists weren't directed towards me.
"No sir!" It was best to be obedient. There was nothing more I could do. It was true I had backed down. I was afraid. Something earlier that day had stopped me. Something told me to back down. I don't know what it was but it frightened me.
"So if the task was so simple than why did you back down?" His eyes bore into me as if they could see straight to my very soul. His eyes always did frighten me. They could see things that others couldn't. They could see every weakness that I possessed.
He approached me closely still keeping eye contact. He was now only inches away from my face looking down on me. He only stood about a couple inches taller than me but it felt more like a couple of feet. "Or are you just a coward?" Again he used a disgusted tone on that word. "Do you know what happens to cowards boy?"
"Cowards get beaten down sir!" I told him what he wanted to hear even though I didn't believe it.
"Beaten down by what?" he screamed in my face.
"Stronger opponents sir!" Stronger opponents? Was there even such a thing? Who decided that this opponent was stronger than the other? I dare not voice these questions/ I cannot even image what he would do if he heard them from my lips.
"And do you want to be a coward boy?"
"No Sir!" Sir? A name I always called him. A name he didn't deserve. To him it denoted respect. To him it denoted superiority. That is why I hate superiors. They are given respect simply because of their titles, but most of them don't deserve half the respect that they are given.
"Then I suggest that you correct this mistake that you have made immediately." He stared down at me like I was a dog, which he could order about and beat down as he pleased. It has always been so. I have always been his dog and what for? The Game.
I see now that it was all for the Game. He hated it, and he loved it at the same time. He needed it to survive. He needed it more than any other thing on this earth. It had consumed his mind like it had so many others. The only thing that mattered to him was the Game. The Game was what kept life going and if you were not in the Game then you didn't matter to him. All that mattered was getting in control of the Game. Countless souls have been lost in the pursuit of the Game. And I was one of them. Of course I hadn't realized it at the time, but I was already one of these lost souls who had gotten consumed in the Game.
I had never even dreamed of thinking these thoughts until now. That thing that told me to back down earlier that day.that's what told me. It was like a force driving me away. It opened my eyes and showed me the truth. I didn't believe it at first. I did not want to believe it. I would rather believe that I had failed rather than believe my whole life was a lie. It frightened me. Never in my life had I known such fear. Never in my life have I felt such pain, such sorrow. Never in my life had I been shown the truth.
~~~End Flashback~~~
I opened the trunk of my car and swung my suitcase in. I had only packed one. I didn't own very much in the first place, but I figured that I would be on the run for a while and wouldn't be able to take much of my things.
I heard something come from inside. Yohji suddenly stumbles into the garage panting, mumbling something about how he really needed to quit smoking. His eyes met mine. They were filled with anger and something else that looked.that looked like fear. Why would Yohji be afraid?
"What the hell do you think you're doing Fujimiya?" Each heaving breath he took was filled with bitter rage.
This is great. Now I had to face him, and Yohji of all the people to catch me escaping. Of course he would be the hardest to face. Nothing with Yohji is simple. Yohji can be just as stubborn as I am when he wants something.
I simply stared at him. What could I say? I was running away because I was scared. I was running away because I was a coward.
~~~Yohji's POV~~~
He just stood there staring at me with a blank face. He was fucking leaving us and he had nothing to say. Well I sure as hell did. "You damn well better come up with a good explanation Fujimiya!" I folded my arms in front of my chest and waited to here what he had to say.
"Explain what Yohji?" He can't be! At a time like this he is actually trying to play stupid. He must be either desperate or running out of ideas.
I walked over to where he was standing at the trunk of his car. I lifted up the suitcase out from the trunk and slammed in on the ground. "Explain this!" I stared at him hard. "What the fuck do you think you're doing Aya? Why the hell are you trying to leave us? You've been acting weird lately. What's wrong with you Aya, and why can't you tell us about it?" I blurted out all of the questions that I had been dieing to ask, all of the things that had been bugging me over the past few days.
Now he was angry. The glare he was sending me was a sure warning sign to back off but I had started this and I sure as hell was gonna finish it even if I had to come out of it with a few broken bones or two, just as long as I got him to stay. Who knows, maybe beating the shit out of me would give him the hint that I am serious when I say that I want him to stay.
"It's none of your business!" His voice was shear ice. He wasn't emotionless anymore. Now he was filled with rage. An amazing sight really. Aya truly is beautiful when he's angry. His cheeks flushed, his eyes piercing dark shades of violet, his features sharp and tense. It drove my mind wild to see him like this. It made me think of what he would look like in the heat of passion. My head began filling with images of Aya withering at my mercy when his stern voice interrupted my fantasy.
"Kudou!"
Uh oh. I really gotta try harder to focus on the task at hand. Right you have a job to do here Kudou. If you don't get him to stay then all you'll have is fantasies. "I'm still waiting for your answer!"
"Hn" God I hate it when he does that. Is it that hard to say real words?
I picked up the suitcase from the ground and turned around ready to head back inside. "You're not going anywhere!"
He grabbed the suitcase and tugged it back towards him leading us into a tug-a-war contest that eventually resulted in a glaring contest. "I'm doing this for your own damn good Kudou so just back off!" He spat.
I stopped struggling for the suitcase and stared at him in disbelief. I was shocked. "You call leaving us without a word good for us!" He reassumed the same emotionless face that he always bore. We stood there for what seemed like hours staring at each other in a heavy silence. How could he say such a thing? What could possibly be so bad for him to think that leavings us was the answer? We had all been through hell together. Whatever Aya was going through was killing him and we could all see that. He didn't have to get through it alone. He had us, all of us. We have all had hard times that we had to overcome. When Omi found out that he was the nephew of the man he had been trying to kill all these years and his father had been his employer all along, Ken found out that his best friend had betrayed him and tried to kill him, and me. I had found out that the Neu the woman I killed had been the woman whom I loved that had died in my arms only a few years before. Yes, we had all had rough times and no matter how much the past still haunted us we were able to live on. We found hope in each other. We found comfort there. And now there was something else that we needed to get past, the past that Aya has been hiding for so long.
He broke eye contact and looked down at his feet. He felt guilty. "You don't understand." His voice was soft and quiet, almost unheard.
"No I don't" He looked up at me in confusion. "But I want to. Please Aya, let us help you." I stepped closer to him. "Let me help you." He crinkled his eyebrows in confusion. He looked at me as if I had sprouted antlers. "Please Aya, You can't just leave and expect us not to care. We're friends." Never had I spoken so honestly and open with him. ".we're family. I don't know what's going on here Aya but I know something is wrong. Whatever it is we can get through this together. All of us can get through this together."
"And if we don't get through this?" He comment caught me off guard. I looked down at him. He looked unsure, perhaps frightened of my answer. Did he actually think that I would turn him away in a time of need because the situation was dangerous? Something is seriously wrong. This man standing before me is not the emotionless Aya that I know who wouldn't show any signs of concern for the choices that I made. No, this wasn't Aya or Abyssinian, but who was it? Was it Ran?
"And if we don't, then we go down together." I hold out my hand to him. He looks down at it timidly as though it were going to lash out at him. The huge knot in my stomach tightens. I felt like I had just laid my heart out in front of him. It scared me to think what would happen if he were to leave. How would we go on? We had survived without him before. But now, but now I don't think we would last a week without Aya. And it hurt like hell tot hink that he could last without us so easily.
Then he looks back up at me his blank face present once again.
"Hn" He picks up the suitcase, walked right past me and goes back inside.
And I am left standing in the garage in shock and a little hurt I would like to point out. But.he stayed.
~~~TCB~~~
Sorry for the flashbacks. I think there is going to be a few of them since this is dealing Aya's past and all.
And I apologize for some of the poems in this fic. They're getting kinda weird. But they all are supposed to connect. Hopefully. ::groans:: Sorry about the length too. It seems no matter what I do I just can't write a long chapter. There I go apologizing for everything again. I think I'm tiered. 2:00AM Yep defiantly tired.
It's pretty unclear right now I hope. Although some of you may have already figured out some of what's going on. I'm trying my best to make it as obscure as possible.
Well what ya think????? Keep in mind that the more reviews I get the more and the faster I will be inclined to write. Hint Hint