Fandom: Tokyo Babylon / X
Title: On a subway going home
Pairing: Hokuto & Subaru, Seishirou/Subaru, Subaru/Kamui
Rating: G
Description: Subaru is going home on a subway, but someone sings a song that makes him think about his concept of Heaven.

Disclaimer: Yui doesn't own TB or X, but she loves all its characters. 'Just like a dream' is by The Cure.

On a subway going home
By Miyamoto Yui

I hate how Fate did that. When you finally think things will give you a breather, you'll be hit by something that was more than a deathblow so silent as the wind.
A child, I think a teen of thirteen-years-old, was playing an English song. How did I know? She sang it as she stood by me while we stood in the subway.
She didn't care about who was around her. Nodding her head, she closed her eyes while tapping her fingers on the pole next to her and holding onto the pole with her other hand.

So careless.
Just like Her.

I listened, gripping onto the pole beside me as tightly as I could. It was the only way I could find myself standing up straight. I had lost feeling in my body. Whenever I was upset, I would hold the edge of the table.

She knew that.
That's why she scolded me in giggles.

/"Show me how you do that trick
The one that makes me scream," she said.
"The one that makes me laugh," she said.
And threw her arms around my neck/

"I don't want to do this anymore," I mumbled softly to myself as I held onto the ofuda in between my gloved fingers.

I had lost all hope whenever I saw my gloves again. It had only been a few days, but it never seemed to let me stop crying. I could still see my grandmother's horrified face, remarking what had happened to me.

I had to understand. I forced myself to my fate.
There was no breathing.

Hokuto-chan came to the yard with her hands folded behind her. Then, she wrapped her arms around my neck and we toppled to the ground.
I couldn't support her weight at that age!

"Show me how you do that, Subaru!" she shouted in delight.
"This is a warding exercise," I answered with non-interest. "It's not a game."
"Show me how to do that." With a pout, she sat down on the grass with her hands in fists and a big lip out to me. "I can't do stuff like that, Subaru."
I looked at her and blinked.

She always made me think of things. Things like that, I mean...
The things she could and could not do, she didn't want to find the line or the limit.

/"Show me how you do it
And I promise you I promise that
I'll run away with you
I'll run away with you" /

"Aren't you glad we live here and not in Kyoto?" Hokuto-chan commented as she held the ends of the yellow curtains out and stared outside the window of our apartment.
I just nodded.

Tokyo was just being Tokyo.
Cities seemed the same to me after a while. Besides, by then, everything seemed like such an obligation. And I was too obliged and polite to comment otherwise.

While turning to go into the bathroom, she grabbed my sleeve and I yelped. "H-hey!"
"Look!" She plastered her hands on my shoulders and pushed me towards the window.
"L'arc en ciel," she said in a French accent.
"A rainbow..." I trailed off all amazed at the sight.

A clear Tokyo was such a rarity such as Hokuto finding the perfect attire for the day on the first try. It really was a beautiful site.

I leaned back onto her and she hugged me around the shoulders while kissing my hair from the back.
"Where'd you learn that word?"

I didn't even want to repeat it. It would ruin the moment.

"A J-rock group."
I just nodded my head in understanding because she was always random like that.
At that moment, she hugged me tightly, "Promise me we'll always be together, Subaru."
"I made that promise to you since the day we were born and you kicked me out of the way because you wanted to be first," I scolded with a laugh.
"I'm glad..." she laughed with a tear running down her eye as she quickly wiped it away thinking I had not seen.

/Spinning on that dizzy edge
I kissed her face and kissed her head
And dreamed of all the different ways I had
To make her glow /

She got me drunk one time. I guess it was the only way to coax me into walking with her in the middle of the night.

We were walking for miles until we came in front of a shop. She had said, "I want that someday."
"Hm?" I blinked at her, seeing as I was not all there and feeling so hot that my cheeks were burning unnaturally.

Like a little kid wanting something, she pointed at the store. I turned my head to look at the window to find a simple black fabric. "I'm surprised. It isn't as flashy as your other outfits."
"I want to make a pair of clothes for us using that material." She tilted her head and then she started to walk again.

But I didn't forget her face.
I hadn't seen her smile so much in so long. Though she tried very hard to hide how much weight she was carrying on her shoulders, I could sometimes see through her mask. Trying to make me happy to the point that sometimes I was the one going insane.

And so, I bought that fabric.

She not only made a black dress for herself, she made me a cute sailor suit to match it. And then, she even made something for Seishirou saying I had bought too much material.
But I knew, she was happy. When Hokuto opened her eyes widely while holding the fabric when I gave it to her, she didn't jump up to kiss me or hug me. She hugged the material and I saw the love and dedication she made with the clothes...

/"Why are you so far away?" she said.
"Why won't you ever know that I'm in love with you?
That I'm in love with you."/

"Where have you gone, Subaru?!" she shouted with much hurt tacked onto my name for emphasis.

Hokuto-chan and I were walking down a dark street when we had found ourselves in our first argument.

"What are you talking about?" I asked in embarrassment as I blinked at her, confused as the subject of Seishirou came about. "You were the one pushing me towards him and both of you kept on making fun of me."
"I feel like I've lost you, Subaru." She knocked her forehead onto mine and touched my cheek.

Drip.
She stepped backward with her hands folded behind her as always did whenever she was nervous or perplexed about something. Her eyes gazed up to the sky, reaching out her hand towards it. "I think it's going to rain. Look, it's sprinkling."
Then, holding out her hand towards me, it appeared as if she'd caught a tear in her palm and I looked at her trying her best not to cry. Trying to tell me she was jealous that Seishirou had reached me in a way that she never could.
I didn't mean to.

"Don't you know how much I love you?" she whispered to herself not realizing that she had said it aloud.
We stood there hearing the rain fall between us as we were slowly getting wet.

/You
Soft and only
You
Lost and lonely
You
Strange as angels
Dancing in the deepest oceans
Twisting in the water
You're just like a dream./

"Subaru..." you had called with your last breath and I reached out to an apparition of one who was my sister held by the illusion of the man that I thought I loved. Maybe all I loved was the image after all.

Seishirou...

It was only in that moment did I understand you, Hokuto-chan. It was only then that I understood the silence you had kept deep inside of you.
Trying to make our lives as normal as possible...
The tears in my heart as twisted as a sinking ship in the ocean.

Why did I understand this too late?

/Daylight licked me into shape.
I must have been asleep for days.
And moving lips to breathe her name
I opened up my eyes.
And found myself alone alone
Alone above a raging sea
That stole the only girl I loved
And drowned her deep inside of me/

I never wanted to get up from the bed I lied upon. I didn't want to do anything.

Because, in an instant, I had lost both of the people I loved most in the world. But sometimes I didn't show that I loved you so much, didn't I, Hokuto-chan?

I tried to say your name, but it came out only a whisper. If any noise came from my mouth at all. I thought that I had lost all my strength when I shouted your name knowing I had been too late.

Finding myself alone now...
Drowning in sakura, you disappear...
And someday, I won't be able to remember you.
Even if you are all over my being...

/You
Soft and only
You
Lost and lonely
You
Just like heaven/

Heaven is just a state of mind. When things are as content as they can possibly be.
It doesn't matter if it's in chaos, because good can always come from something so wrong. I am just an optimist that way though I always try to deny it.

To me, my heaven was practical: Hokuto and Seishirou.

Wherever they were, I was home.

The girl and the boy I loved were gone forever...
Where was home now?

The girl with headphones was already singing another song by the end of the trip, but the song repeated in my head just as if it were only yesterday that Hokuto sang this to me.

Funny how you remember the times of your life.
On a subway going home, I stepped off the platform with my head up dizzy with all the memories I locked away.

I sang softly, "That stole the only boy I loved
And drowned him deep inside of me..."

That night, I saw Kamui in his room and wondered what he really thought Heaven was. I sat on the bed trying to reach out to him, but he was sleeping.

Mine was practical, imperfect in every way, but loved with all that I had left with a single hope wasted.

In the end, I looked at him and I didn't ask him, letting him sleep soundly.

I think I feared that I would be part of his answer...
...unable to make that happen.

Just like I had wished for Him and Her years ago...

Owari.
-
Author's note: I don't know why I did this, but I love this song.

(Sorry it's been slow to update stuff. I'm back at school and it's a struggle to do everything.)

October 15th, 2002