Author: Celeste
Rating: PG-13 for yaoi themes
Feedback: keviesprincess@netscape.net (flames welcome because they're funny)
Pairing: Haru/Yuki (sort of?) mentions Hiro/Kisa and Kyou/ Tohru (blink and you'll miss them!)
Disclaimer: Not my characters, I'm not that creative. *sulk*
Summary: Sequel to "God"- Yuki's musings on what it feels like on the other side.
Dedication: Mel, for telling me to go back to Yuki-POV when I realized I suck intensely at Haru-POV. She always has the best solutions! *bows to Mel* thank you for all your help, all the time! Plus I get Mel-fic in exchange for this monstrosity, so all the better for me…*snicker*
A/N: Yes, yes, another first person. No, I don't have the ability to write Fruits Basket in any other manner. I know, I know, I'll write a Kyou piece one day. One day. Maybe. *cough* Anyway, apologies in advance for rampant stupidity in any of my writing. Also apologies if I completely bastardize the fandom and the characters because the only stuff I've seen is from the anime (the short, short anime). Everything in the following is just a product of my warped imagination, and probably strays far, far away from the creator's true purpose. *sheepish* The flower symbolism is a byproduct of my obsessive nature regarding Weiss Kreuz (Ken and Aya belong together, dammit!). And just another quick note, this probably won't make much sense if you don't read "God" first, so I'd recommend doing that. Regardless of how bad "God" was. *bows* I'm sorry!
Distribution: Ask and you'll probably get it.
~~~~~~~~~~
A family had mourned, though looking back, no one knew exactly why.
He was gone.
He'd died more alone than any man before him, at the feet of a bewildered, cow-eyed underling, a child beaten and half unconscious by his own hand. He'd died ingloriously, furiously, painfully alone.
So the family mourned, though they did not know exactly why.
It should have been a relief. They had all thought it would mean freedom.
But nothing changed, not really. Nothing more than the fact that a little boy was left to cry alone.
His existence perhaps, had been a bane on the boy's psyche, a painful reminder of everything that he would come to symbolize with time.
And then he was gone.
Blight he may have been, but still, his being alive had been proof that there was someone to stand in that spot, to take the position of figurehead and leave the boy far from it, in his own simple existence with its own sort of cracked inner peace. His life had meant that despite everything, the boy would not have to stand in his stead and behave as he did.
But then he was gone.
His place was the one the boy now occupied.
His place is now my place.
I never wanted it. Not really.
But I was always groomed for it, this place, this room, this isolation.
One god had fallen, but not before his heir was named.
Not before he broke me to fit into this place.
I sit in his chairs and live in his room, stare out his window and think…
…think that his is mine, now.
I never wanted it.
Not now, not then, not ever.
Especially not as a young boy who was just beginning to relearn how to live, relearn all those little nuances that make life vibrant again. That make it beautiful, wonderful.
But then he was gone.
One second was all it took for him to leave, to die like a wilted blossom and leave this place.
This place where I am now.
Alone.
A dusting of sunshine breaks through the crack in-between the shutters, landing in an isolated spotlight in the middle of the beautiful mats that line the floor. I go to sit in it, that little spot on the ground beside windows too small to bathe the room, to let some warmth wash over me, to remember that I can still feel it.
I sigh when it hits my skin. It is like life itself touching me again, after too long a parting it has reclaimed me momentarily, a soft, fleeting kiss upon my face. I close my eyes and try to hold on to it, try to imagine that it is a lover's touch, a lover's kiss, upon me.
I had a true lover's kiss, once…long, long ago. It had been much like this sunshine on my face, something warm and sweet and intangible given to me by some miracle of the gods and taken away just as indiscriminately. I had love once, long, long ago.
But he left me when I came to this place.
This place where I am now, all alone.
He said that he did not want his lover to be his god…
…had looked at me with such large, distraught eyes as he said it. His voice shook in the most imperceptible manner that my heart nearly shattered when I looked at him, wounded and desperate in front of me.
He prayed to his lover not to be his god.
I sigh and reach up towards the windowsill, let my fingers brush along the weak rays of light stubbornly trying to push through before I pull the shutter completely closed, cutting them off.
The room is dark again and I shut my eyes, imagine the sunlight's gentle tendrils slowly withdrawing from my skin and disappearing after one last, lingering touch.
And then it is gone.
He wanted me to ignore this place, my lover, said that by simply not desiring it, I could be free from it.
I laugh humorlessly to myself at the memory of his gentle naiveté, the ardent fervor with which he believed his own words. He always saw things in their most simple light. Perhaps that was why he was always so much more pure than I ever was.
But he never knew that it wasn't that easy, that it never could be. Just because I didn't want something, he didn't want something…
…just because we both didn't want something together, did not make it any less real.
Wishing hard enough would not wash the weight of this responsibility away from me.
Akito died, and in his will, he named me heir to all Sohma clan. In his last conveyed message, he immortalized, my duties to my family. What was expected of me, what I should expect. He told me that the honor of our name would rest solely upon me until the time of my death, and that everyone would know, would know who I was and what I was to them.
And so his will was read, there for everyone who wished to hear it.
They heard. They all did.
And thus, every Sohma expected me to lead them.
There was no one else.
My lover thought that just because we both did not want it, desperately did not want it, it would be easy to abandon. That we could selfishly turn our backs upon those expectant faces and walk away together, without a worry, without a care. Just leave them in their own helplessness.
He did not understand that there was no one else.
There. Was. No. One. Else.
I was responsible for my family now. I became their leader, their important figurehead. It is something they have always, always needed.
Akito said in his will, that there was not a time in our glorious family's ancient existence without a great leader to guide them. Someone who upheld honor and dignity of the name Sohma, to care for those who were too weak-willed to do it themselves. A lord and savior.
And there has always been someone. Always.
Now, there was only me.
I tried to speak to my lover, to tell him that. I even tried to convince him that nothing would change for us, that I could still lead and allow myself to be loved by him, to love him in return.
I tried to tell him that I could make things better for everyone, and that was important.
I told him that we couldn't let ourselves be selfish.
His eyes had darkened at that. I remember distinctly, more distinctly than anything else about that conversation really, how the watery russet of his eyes had clouded over, turning the shade of thick mud before he averted them from me, to study the floor and his feet.
"Yes. We cannot let ourselves be selfish, ever, can we?" he had asked, so softly that I had to strain forward to hear, so that I could only see how the ends of his mouth curved downward in a painful grimace full of deep thought. "What makes wanting to live so selfish?"
I had scowled at him then, as if the answer had been obvious and I expected him to know better than to ask that kind of question.
"It's not as if I will stop living, Haru. And I have a responsibility to them."
"What about to yourself?" He looked up abruptly, a shadowy sort of spark in his eye, some sort of fluttering hope.
"My responsibility to them is one and the same. They need me."
"But…do you need them?"
I had paused at that, not sure at all as to what he meant. The family was leaderless, and I had been named to the position. Perhaps I did not need them in the essential meaning of the word at that time, but I knew I needed to be needed, and there had been people who wanted that from me. I couldn't just abandon them.
So I told him I was honored to take the responsibility. I told him that perhaps it was my chance to make things better for them all, better for the Jyunnishi, who had cowered under Akito's wrathful temperament. I told him I would change things. That I would become better than him, the man before me, better than he was at his job. And who better than I for the job of making things better, really? After all of Akito's cruel treatment to the cursed family members, I would know what it felt. Perhaps I knew more than the others, as I had always been my predecessor's favorite target. And now… now I would change that. I would be more understanding because I understood.
I told my lover that I could make an important difference. That I had to.
"What about me? What if I don't want this?" he had asked, and I could tell by the strained note in his usually complacent tone that he was reaching, desperate to find something and hold on to it with all that he had. "Does that matter at all to you?"
I should have known then, that it was the last attempts of a desperate man, the only thing left he had to use in a spent arsenal. I should have known then. I should have understood that he was quickly losing the ground around him. Without a place to stand, without solid footing, he would say whatever he could to find stability again. I should have sympathized, understood.
After all, I had just professed to be more understanding than Akito ever had.
But instead, his words had angered me. I remember being disgusted that he would attempt to use the love we had professed for each other as a weapon against me instead of a comfort. I was hurt that he could so callously toss it about regardless of how I felt.
My eyes had narrowed and I remember glaring at him glacially, outraged at what he had done. "Perhaps you don't mean to me what I thought you did, if you can so easily use that against me," I had snapped back, thoughtlessly, a mixture of hurt and anger at what was happening between us.
He had flinched, physically, as if I had jarred his recent injuries yet again…and I remember feeling surprised at that, seeing my serene lover physically recoil from my presence. It stung.
But just like that, it was gone, replaced by that familiar calmness everyone who knew him remembered him most for. His body relaxed, the tenseness draining from him after a second, and he looked into my eyes with his own.
He looked so hopelessly dead.
"It's started…" he'd murmured in flat, unemotional tones. "It's started."
He continued to look at me, eerily devoid of feeling, and I remember shivering at that look, feeling so unbelievably cold all of a sudden and not quite sure, not exactly sure just why.
But I wouldn't back down to him. Not after what he had dared say to me. So I had just looked back at him, a hard tenacity in my gaze that told him I would not change my mind. I could not.
He was the one to first look away. "So that's how it is. May I be excused?" he had asked, dully, playing idly, nervously, with the edge of his bandaged shoulder.
And he waited there silently for my response, patiently looking at the ground at our feet.
I had been confused then. "Why would you need to ask me…"
"May I be excused?" he persisted, still unable to look me in the eye.
Looking back, perhaps, perhaps I should have understood that he was hurt. That my words had stung him unexpectedly, as his had done to me, and he did not quite know how to react. But I was equally frustrated, confused, angry…
"…Fine. You're excused."
I never fathomed, never could have believed, as he inclined his head in a bastardized mimicry of a bow before turning around and walking away from me, that those would be my last words to him.
That I wouldn't ever see him again, after that.
I never could have believed, after everything we had meant to each other…
…that he could leave like that.
But he did.
And all I have left is this room…
…sitting in this room alone in the dark.
Well, that and the family.
The teeming mass of mostly nameless, faceless people who share my name and profess to need me, admire me, love me. Without seeing me, touching me, knowing me.
Regardless, they say they need me, admire me, love me.
That should be enough.
I lost one love for the love of hundreds.
I try to console myself with that…
…try to find an excuse that will keep me from feeling so lonely.
It should be enough.
My brooding, somewhat melancholy thoughts are shattered when I hear a tentative rapping on my door. It is not a forceful one, but neither is it quiet, and it screams throughout the stillness of my chambers, drowning it in hollow sound. I turn my gaze from the shuttered window to the portal, already knowing who stands behind it.
"Come in."
The door slides open and reveals Shigure in a halo of midday light, squinting into my dim chamber and smiling his ambiguous dog smile.
He has in one hand, a fresh bouquet of flowers for me.
He brings them whenever he comes to visit me, as was his habit with Akito when he had been alive. Shigure does not always bring the prettiest arrangements or the common ones that all florists so love to make, really. He does not bring roses or daffodils, no carnations or gladioli or combinations of all, garnished tastefully with baby's breath. Those are the pretty kinds of flowers that people often get, that are thoughtlessly picked up by loved ones as last minute gifts on the way home from work during one of the many commercialized holidays. One would think the dog would also obtain such common things for me if his only purpose is to brighten my living space up, as he always claims. But when one looks at the strange combinations Shigure often arrives with, one must believe that something else prompts him to bring them.
He used to bring anemone and marigolds for Akito once a week, also as a gift to give some sort of life to these stale chambers our former leader chose to ensconce himself within. His motives? All was purely out of the kindness of his heart. That is what he told Akito anyway.
However, I am sure the secret meaning of that strange arrangement was not lost on my predecessor. He was insane perhaps, but he was clever.
Anemone mean forsaken…
…and expectations.
The marigolds perhaps, were more ambiguous. They stood for many things… for cruelty, jealousy, despair, but also for grief, for sacred affection.
Whichever one of those meanings Shigure had specifically been implying is anyone's guess… or knowing him, he might have meant every one of them.
He is a dog that likes to play with words, words thrown about callously, all as ambiguous as his secret dog smile. It is infuriating and yet soothingly familiar, a reminder to me that though many things have changed these past years, some things have not.
I need that, sometimes.
Today he has brought me a colorful mixture of blossoms. I watch and nod my hello as he greets me lightheartedly before heading straight for the vase on the table beside the door, picking up last week's wilted arrangement and replacing it with the new. From here I can see yellow and magenta zinnias, a sprinkling of wallflower and petunias.
Thoughtful, I attempt to discern their meaning, what special message he wishes for me on this day before New Year's Eve.
This day before the coming of the year of the rat.
Zinnias, wallflower, petunias… a message of hope perhaps?
And then I see the tiger lily at its center.
Confused, I give up and turn away, sighing as I avert my eyes from the explosion of random form and color and words he has brought today.
Perhaps I will never be able to uncover the true meaning of his gifts.
He is a dog that loves to play with words after all. He throws them about callously, because words are so ambiguous and have so many secret meanings, as many different meanings as his secret dog smile.
"There we go," Shigure exclaims brightly, once he has arranged the blossoms into the vase to his liking. He pauses and tilts his head to the side, studying his handiwork with a small, crooked smile. "To brighten the place up a bit," he reminds me, and both his grin and the slant of his eyes turn ever so slightly wry.
I look up at him from the floor and almost smile back.
"To brighten the place up," I agree, my voice lacking the enthusiasm in his.
Without losing any of his cheerful poise, he quickly discards the dead bouquet into a nearby trashcan and hides his hands inside the sleeves of his robe. "Are you excited about the celebration?" he inquires conversationally, though that wry slant in his brow has yet to change.
"Should I be?" I ask in a flat, uninterested tone. I do not want to encourage him unnecessarily because it has always been his greatest joy to know something that someone else does not.
"Of course!" he responds jovially, though he maintains a certain respectful distance from the place I am sitting.
I can't help but recall the days long past when he would have thrown his arm gracelessly over my shoulder by now, and laughed close to my ear as he told me in his ambiguous words with secret meanings, everything he had to say.
I watch his shadow dance across the floor in front of me. It does not touch me either.
He sighs, realizing that his conversation has very easily slipped my immediate concerns. "You dance tomorrow, Yuki. It's your year, the first year," he prods. "Your anniversary of sorts. A birthday, even."
I eye him curiously. "And I should be excited about that?"
He smirks. "Well, it's not like it happens every day, you know," he points out in a manner teetering expertly between delicacy and disdain.
"It isn't anything special," I tell him. "Not every day maybe, but every year there is a dance. It's just another marker for the passage of time."
"It's almost like your birthday, with presents as well," he repeats, sounding sage. "It's …" he pauses, perhaps for dramatic flourish, "…well, everyone is excited to see you dance," he finishes slyly, eyes sparkling with humor as he throws his words, callously, carefully.
I frown slightly and decide to make him make his point. One would think that at his age, he would have stopped playing his clever little games by now. I know that at even my age, they are sometimes trying. "Shigure, what are you getting at?"
He laughs a little at the question, softly to himself. "Yuki, I mean what I say," he replies succinctly, eyes locked on to mine, and I see for a moment that they do not hold the laughter his voice did a second before. "Everyone wants to see you dance," he tells me sincerely.
I almost scowl because his answer is not really an answer so much as a repetition of things already said. I almost want to demand he tells me exactly what he is getting at as is my right. I am the head of the family after all.
But I swallow my resentment at him because it is not really all resentment. There is some gratitude too, perhaps. Some gratitude that his treatment towards me has changed the least out of any of the others since I was spirited away and placed in this palace in the sky. I am glad that he can still find it in him to tease me occasionally, to come and see me for no other reason than a desire to.
True, he does not sling his arm around my shoulder and laugh when he talks into my ear, not anymore, but his light tones of conversation are still something to cherish because they are familiar. They are a shadow of my old life, of the time when this life was mine.
I never wanted to be here.
I never wanted this.
But it was my responsibility.
I was needed.
"Well then, I'd better head off," Shigure tells me after he watches me for a while, lost in my own thoughts. "Is there anything else you need?" he asks, pausing mid-turn as he heads back towards the outside world.
"No, nothing else."
"I'll see you tomorrow then," he offers in parting. "For the dance."
"Aa." I nod.
He nods back, but lets the incline of his head linger a little longer than necessary so that it takes the form of an impromptu bow, the proper procedures to quitting my presence in the most minimalist manner. "Everyone is looking forward to seeing it," he throws over his shoulder as he walks away.
In my periphery, I see him smile his funny dog smile from the side of his face as he is sliding the door carefully shut behind him.
I stare at the doorway the dog has vacated a moment longer, my mind still wondering.
**He's wrong,** I think to myself. He's wrong because not everyone looks forward to seeing it. Some will not at all.
But it's better not to think about that. I told myself a long time ago that I shouldn't, and I try not to. It is inevitable sometimes of course, like the times I am looking out of my window and see Hiro and Kisa walking hand in hand through the pathways or hear Kyou berating Tohru at the top of his lungs though his voice never holds malice rather than warmth. I can't help but think that not everyone is here, at those times.
I can't help but think that I am here, alone.
Mere months after my induction, Momiji had once braved to ask me, tentatively, if I ever missed Haru.
I think when he saw the look that flashed across my face, he instantly regretted it, physically withdrew himself and looked down at the floor, head bowed and quivering slightly as a frightened rabbit would.
"I'm sorry," he'd murmured, highly intimidated. "It's none of my…"
I don't remember if I had been more pained by the memories his question had brought flooding to the surface or by the submissive stance his body had taken, as if waiting for me to lash out and physically beat him for his insolence.
Mirthlessly, I remembered his words…
"It's started… it's started."
At that time, I was still hurt and angry by his accusatory tone, the way he had abandoned me without hesitation. I was angry at Momiji for bringing it up…
…furious at the little rabbit for making my lover right. He wasn't right, I was supposed to prove his suspicions wrong.
I was supposed to be different from Akito.
And looking at Momiji, head bent as he sat on his knees, one hand covering the fist of his other and quivering slightly…
…it all seemed to prove me wrong.
It made me angry.
Angry that Momiji…everyone… suddenly feared me even though I to my truest essence had not changed. Angry that when months earlier Momiji would have bounced up to me and smiled a guileless, joyful smile at me for no reason, but couldn't do it right now though nothing had truly changed. Angry that he sat at my feet, trembling, waiting for me to lash out with either words or fist when he should have known I would never…
I was angry that Haru was right.
"Stop it," I had snapped at Momiji halfway through his awkward apology, tired of his contrition, of his repressed tone. It was all so wrong.
Surprised, he had looked up at me, and the wariness I had seen in his eyes before had transformed, manifested itself into fully acknowledged fear.
Horrified at myself, at the implications… I tried to fix things, quickly told him, "You don't have to apologize for asking…" to explain what I had truly meant.
He had looked slightly relieved, but no less wary than he had been when he had first knocked on Akito's…my…door.
It hurt.
It hurt because I had tried so hard to convince them that things would be better. I tried to show them that we had a chance now, now that I was in charge. At heart, I was still one of them, wasn't I? I had undergone the same as they, if not more, of the uncertainty, the cruelty, the seeming insanity of Akito's capricious whims. And as one of their comrades, one of their fellow survivors, shouldn't they trust me to sympathize with them, to try and improve things for them given the opportunity?
I was trying so hard.
And every time I looked into their eyes and saw that wariness, that mental and physical distance they had already put between us, it hurt me.
It made me angry.
I was trying so hard!
Couldn't they understand that?
I was doing this for them. To make things better for them.
I was still one of them. Just because I was here, and they were there… mere yards from them, a few feet above them, I was still the mouse, still Jyunnishi just like them.
And most of all, most of all…
…I was still here! I was still Yuki, I was still the same Yuki! Just in a different place, a different title. But I was still the same.
I was trying to make things better.
It hurt, when they could not see that.
And every time they instinctively recoil from me…
…every time their eyes fill with certain trepidation when they enter these chambers…
…every time Kyou refuses to look at my face when once he would have met my gaze straight in the eye with his blazing fury, unafraid to challenge me…
… every time Momiji quivers like a snared rabbit when once he would have confided a hundred thousand joys to me…
…every time Hatori hesitantly examines me, silent, when once he would have berated me gently for the poor care I was taking of myself…
… every time Ayame smiles but does nothing else when once he would have grabbed at me, told me ridiculous stories with no point, tried to talk to me in speedy, half incomprehensible tones…
…every time Shigure respectfully keeps a distance when once he would not have hesitated to invade both my physical and mental space with his carefree words and their many meanings…
…every time I close my eyes and hear him say, "It's started… it's started," in my head…
…it hurts.
It hurts so much.
It makes me angry.
And it never stops.
All these years, I've been trying to curb my anger and frustration at their reactions, try to show them, to prove to them my motives, to prove to them that I am still Yuki, that I am still the same.
But it has been a long time, it has been many years trying, trying so hard. To keep believing, hoping, after all that has changed and all that has not is too difficult.
Now…
…the hurt, the anger… I tell myself to let it go.
I tell myself that it started many, many years ago. Now, now it just is. I tried, and that was all I had in me. Now, it just is.
"It's started…it's started."
No. It hasn't. It isn't just beginning anymore. Not anymore. This…this is what it has all become…
… a culmination.
Now…
...it is.
It just is.
And so I sit in this room with no sunshine or sound, alone.
Perhaps, perhaps this is why Akito's heart collapsed upon itself, I muse. No one had known why he had died so suddenly, so randomly. But perhaps this is why, perhaps I know why, now. This place… this place is so chillingly devoid of life, some hallowed temple where mortals fear to tread because only gods belong here. Perhaps this empty feeling in my chest will lead to the same fate it mercilessly led my predecessor upon and one day, my heart will crumble like week old anemone because this anger, this weariness, this hurt and isolation, will make it stop beating.
I never wanted this.
But this is my responsibility.
I am needed.
And now, I must stay here. I must.
If only to prevent the family from mourning, to keep another little boy from being left to cry alone… a little boy who does not want this, is not ready because he has too much life left to live, is just beginning to learn what joy it is to be alive.
I think about that boy often. Think about the life he has begun to live and hope that it is a beautiful one, full of wonder and joy and all the things that my being here entails for him.
Perhaps he is the prince of his school and universally adored by all.
Perhaps he is not, but it doesn't matter. Perhaps he is the class clown, the hot-head that all his classmates love to tease and touch and laugh with.
Perhaps he is both prince and clown and the fact that he is both and neither is the greatest joy he can ever feel because it means he is nothing and everything all at once.
And perhaps he has a lover. Perhaps he has someone whose heart belongs to him and who his heart belongs to and their love is pure and innocent like the orange blossoms that will spring to life in the orchards come warmer days, sprinkling their delicate petals in sweet-scented flurries around the heads of that boy and his lover as they sit together and cry together and love each other and hope, hope, hope that they will never have to be separated from one another ever.
And so I must stay here. I must.
Because the day that they are torn apart because of this will destroy that little boy.
It will rip him apart inside because there is so much pain here, so much anger and nothing to live for.
He will try, I know he will try, try hard to make things good, to make things work and to give himself a purpose in that resolve so that the emptiness does not overtake him.
But time will pass, and the emptiness will grow and things will change and things will stay the same and he will not have his own reason to live for.
He will try to live here, alone, and tell himself that he has responsibilities. That he is needed. That he must make things better. For them. He will try and live on that.
And it will wither with time, when he sees that things do not change like he had hoped. That maybe things will not be made better because they have been this way for generation after generation after generation.
And he will look around, sitting in this dark room that used to be mine, that used to be Akito's, and will see nothing but a pathetic bouquet of haphazardly arranged flowers that speak in secret languages. He will see his life, and how he tried so hard, and see nothing.
And the flowers will wilt, and the room will stay dark, and he will miss his lover's touch and the secret embraces they shared beneath the orange trees in the springtime.
But maybe I have grown too pessimistic.
Maybe he will take this place from me one day and his lover will not leave.
Maybe his lover will hold him up during those times, when the room is dark and cold and the others' eyes are similar, and that embrace will give him solace enough to continue, will support him enough to keep the life he had been exploring before he came to this place vibrant and shining in his eyes.
Maybe.
But no one wants their lover to be their god.
Haru didn't want it.
I suspect, no one else does either.
And so maybe is unlikely.
More likely…
…the boy's lover will leave, and he will be shattered because of it, no matter how hard he tries to tell himself that he is okay, will be okay. That he will make things better and his lover was wrong about it all.
I remember that shattered feeling too well, the morning after my 'ascension' as Shigure sometimes likes to call it in secret.
I woke up in a strange bed, in a strange, dark room, alone. It had been disconcerting at first, not quite knowing where I was until I remembered the ceremony that had taken place the previous night. The feast in Akito's memory and in my honor. The candles and offerings to the dead, the smell of burning incense and the sounds of mournful, fearful reverence. I remembered also the speech Shigure made with the ambiguous words he loves so much and his ambiguous dog smile. I remembered the speech I made, the smile I gave that was as mysterious as Shigure's was ambiguous.
But most poignantly, I remembered the way I had purposely avoided looking at Haru the entire evening.
I lay there, in that foreign bed, for a while, and processed everything that had happened.
I wondered if my lover was still angry with me. I told myself that I would find him as my first assignment when I rose, and I would fix things between us since both of us had had some time to overcome last night's anger with each other.
Surely our love was stronger than words uttered in hasty distress and mutual hurt. Surely we could forgive each other for our harshness and things would remain as they had always been. Nothing had truly changed, after all.
I still loved him dearly.
I wanted to start making things better for the Jyunnishi by fixing things between us first.
To begin my time in this position auspiciously.
But more…
…to not have to wake up in a strange bed alone ever again.
So I went to his room. It was still early…I had hoped to surprise him in his sleep, embrace him and kiss him and murmur softly against his skin to prod him into gentle wakefulness.
I hoped to crawl in beside him and let him pull me against his body, hoped to whisper quiet sounds of apology into his ear and for him to respond by tightening his arms around me and saying in his placid voice that everything would be all right.
Then we could sleep a while longer, together in his luxuriously warm bed.
I remember that as I made my way through the silent hallways of this ancestral home of the Jyunnishi, those images of our reconciliation caused a fluid, familiar warmth to turn comfortably in my stomach.
I stopped at his door, smiled to myself, imagining also, what it would look like inside, how I would find him.
His room was light, always with warm tendrils of sunlight caressing the nearly translucent white drapes that hung at his window, flooding the area with a sort of ethereal warmth that I remember I loved being in because it reminded me of his embrace.
I remember also, quietly sliding his door open so as not to alert him to my presence…
…remember that it was the same as always, sunlight streaking through the window along with the sounds of morning birdsong, cheerful and bright and…
…empty.
Stark, and pale, and warm still, yes, but so empty.
He was gone. But more than gone because the little things that had made the room uniquely his were gone as well. The trinkets we had exchanged along with our sweet kisses were gone from his nightstand, the one or two books he owned had disappeared. The pictures on the desk and on the walls had been taken; skeletons of frames ravaged and lying face down on the floor like broken victims.
The bed was made, pristine and startlingly white against the sunlight, sheets and blankets pulled tight and flat against the mattress that he and I had spent many secret nights, crumpling and wrinkling those same sheets in our hands as we loved and whispered to one another in the dark.
I didn't know what to think.
It was so empty.
A soft sound behind me had made me whirl, tore me out of the emptiness of my lover's room.
I thought perhaps it was him; perhaps it was him standing there behind me with a suitcase in hand, smiling, ready to tell me that he would come with me, and I would never have to wake up in that cold dark bed in that cold dark room alone, ever again.
But it wasn't him.
It was Momiji, a sleepy-faced little rabbit with infinitely sad eyes.
"Yuki?"
"It's…it's early. Go back to bed." I tried to dismiss him quickly, turned back around to peer into the small room that was so shockingly empty.
Pained, he rubbed at his eyes with a small fist and tried to speak to me, his voice thick with sleep or something else. "Yuki, Haru…"
"What about Haru?"
"He…he's gone, Yuki. Last night…last night he left and I asked him why, why, and told him not to go and begged him not to go, but he went to his room and took his suitcase and he didn't say a word…"
So that was it.
"Aa." I couldn't think of anything else to say about it.
"I didn't know! I thought he was just angry…I thought he didn't mean it, I let him close the door and pack his bags because I thought he was just angry, that he would only go for a little while and then he would come back, and so I went to bed and I really thought he would come back…"
"He'll come back," I remember saying coolly, with much more confidence than I felt, still staring at the bed and how untouched it looked, how perfectly made…like no one had ever slept in it ever at all.
And then huge rabbit tears had formed in Momiji's sad eyes and from his sleeve he pulled a slip of paper and a flower, and his lip trembled as he tried to talk, managed to stammer out, "He's NOT. He's…not... isn't coming back, Yuki…Yuki look…"
He handed me the note, the note he had found alongside a single cyclamen lying beside his pillow that morning. He was trembling then too, but at least it was for a different reason.
I'm not sure why I felt so calm, staring at that empty bed, flat and bathed in sunlight and untouched by any lovers' hands. But I took the stem and paper from him and my hands weren't shaking at all. My breath didn't hitch in my throat, my body did not tense…I just took it.
I knew what the paper said already, knew because the purple cyclamen clutched in my fingers was enough. But I read the note anyway, looked at the paper, looked at Haru's haphazard scrawl in thin black ink. Just one word. Just like the flower. He had never felt the need to say too much.
"Goodbye."
And that was all.
So he had left. He did not want his lover to be his god.
He did not want it so much that he left without a thought, with merely a word scrawled on a half sheet of paper torn crookedly from a notebook and a fading amethyst blossom that said just as much.
Goodbye indeed.
I remember that there had grown a small, dull ache in my chest as I stood there with the paper crumpled in one hand, the plant laying delicately in the other, staring at that empty bed for a long, long time.
I remember that it hurt.
That I was angry.
"Yuki…we…we could find him. We need to make him come back, since he's hurt, right? He's hurt and shouldn't be out there by himself! You… you could…"
Momiji's voice stirred me, reminded me that he was still there, ridiculous rabbit tears streaming down his scared face, waiting for me to do something, waiting to see what would happen, if I could fix it after magically manifesting all of Akito's power the previous night.
"No."
"But he's injured, he shouldn't be alone…"
If he had been willing to leave with just one word, angry and hurt, I was willing to let him go with just one as well. "No."
"But…he's…he's… Jyunnishi…he's Sohma. He has to be here, doesn't he? He has to be…you have to… you have to make him come back…punish him, do something, anything to bring him back and not let him leave anymore…"
"No."
Of course Momiji had not wanted me to punish Haru. Like my lover last night, his words were reaching, the last, desperate attempts of a drowning man to find something to clutch to, to hold on to when there was nothing. True, it was my duty to punish Haru for disobeying, for leaving when no Jyunnishi could, for abandoning his family.
But to me, that seemed far too desperate.
When my lover had left with just one word, so easily, without reluctance, without a glance in my direction…
…it had been so painless for him. It seemed like finding him, making him come back, punishing him…
…it just seemed like too much when I, when the family, was worth only one word.
"Y-yuki? Why not? Don't you want him back? Don't you…"
"The worst punishment we can give him is nothing," I had told Momiji, an excuse for an explanation as I turned my back to that perfect, white bed bathed in sunlight. I slid shut Haru's door behind me with my foot and focused cool eyes on my tiny cousin. "The worst punishment for Haru is to forget him."
I distinctly remember the look of hopeless terror in Momiji's eyes when I had told him that, those big rabbit tears stopping suddenly, stopping out of surprise, surprise for the dullness of my voice, the blank expression in my eyes. The coldness there, like Haru had never mattered at all.
I suppose Momiji remembers that look as well, to this day. I suppose it was my first sign to him that it had started. And when I let the flower fall to the ground, let the note flutter down to my feet beside it before walking away, he knew. He knew. It had started.
Because after that, he never looked at me quite the same again.
It had started.
I never wanted it.
It hurt. It made me angry.
My lover was gone because he did not want me to be his god. He had begged for me not to be his god.
And then he left, with just one word.
It had started.
Momiji looked at me like he had lost something important. That day was the day when the trepidation started for him, started for everyone despite my best efforts to make things better for them. It was the day when my little cousin would begin kneeling at me feet and tremble with fear.
Ah, that day.
The day my lover left. The day he shattered me and left me to sit in this room in the dark, alone. The day my family began to look at me as if they had lost something important even though I was still here, even though I was still me.
Even though I did everything…lost everything…to make things better for them.
It started that day, and to this day, it remains.
It is.
And so it shall be. And so I must remain here. I must.
For the little boy, the little boy who is very, very real. Who is living now, living, not knowing that perhaps one day my heart will wear out from the strain and he will have his own life stripped of him simultaneously.
The boy is real, so real and not just a boy in my imagination like I sometimes wish, not just a shadow of me.
Because a very important requirement was given to me when I ascended the throne…
…the most singularly necessary task required of me as leader, as king of this Sohma family…
…was to name an heir.
And so a little boy who is very, very real gets to continue to live in freedom so long as I stay here, alone in the dark.
So I must remain here. I must.
Because he is vibrant and full of youthful joy- I know because his eyes tell me, tell me that he is a boy who loves living and life and laughter and the people that life bring to him.
He has a brilliant shock of orange hair and eyes so deeply cerulean they shine black in the right light.
And he so loves to come and play in the gardens and climb the trees and feed the songbirds with his brothers and his too-loud father and his sweet, sweet mother.
He always bows respectfully when he sees me and calls me his most esteemed uncle and obediently answers the questions I ask him because his mother has taught him well and his father has told him to listen to his mother.
I smile a little when I see him, though my smiles are hard to distinguish nowadays- no one can quite tell when they are real, if they are real, anymore.
But the boy smiles back because it is the polite thing to do and answers sweetly, whatever questions I ask him because his mother has taught him well and his father has told him to listen to his mother and oh, how he adores his parents. He adores his mother who is simple and beautiful and hugs him every day before school and before bed and cooks him his favorite foods and makes him soup with leeks--which he does not like-- when he feels ill. He adores his father who loves his mother, who defeated a youkai for her and who comes home everyday and hefts him and his brothers upon his shoulders and laughs with them in his too-loud voice and takes them to the mountains or to look at the stars on the rooftops some nights. How he adores his parents.
And they adore him as well. They adore him as their child and nothing more, not as a symbol of their love united or as a sign of freedom from what had threatened to part them many years ago. He is not a symbol, not an abstract to them.They love him because he is their little boy, their firstborn son, who has inherited his father's wild hair and lean build and his mother's pretty eyes and cheerful smiles.
He is the one my imagination holds captive, the one who I know has a family who adores him, and a life full of love and laughter and happiness. He is the one who I pretend has a lover or who I imagine will have a lover one day, and who I wonder if he is both the universally adored prince and headstrong clown of his school. He is the one I think about, with his youthful laughter and eyes bright with love, when I tell myself that I must remain here. I must.
Because if I am gone, he will be here, left alone to cry. And I know he does not want it. But I know he will do it, because there will be no one else. And he will try so hard to make things better.
No matter how much he does not want it.
So I must remain here.
I must.
I do not want for him, what I have found in this place. Because it is full of hurt and full of anger.
And one day, perhaps he might have a lover… a lover who does not want a lover for a god. And if he must come here, they will part, and he will shatter, and the love and laughter and brightness in his eyes will fade because this place is full of hurt and full of anger.
And then he will be just like me…
…sitting in this cold, dark room…
…alone.
And no matter how many nights for how many years he might pray…
…his lover will not return.
He will sit in this cold, dark room all alone and think that he must remain here. He must, because there will be another little boy then. Another, and another, and another forever and ever.
It is a tradition, an ancient, continuous practice of this family. One that marks the passage of time. Like the Jyunnishi dance, it keeps going, one every year, one every twelve years… it goes one after another, and another, and another, forever and ever. It might not be every day but it always comes, eventually, inevitably. It is like a birthday. An anniversary even.
Tomorrow, in the ongoing traditions of this house, I will dance. Because someone dances alone, every year.
And some of the family will watch that dance from their safe distance and be amazed, impressed from afar.
Some of the family will be deeply moved because they profess to need me, admire me, love me…
…even though they have not truly seen me, touched me, known me.
Some of them have been waiting, waiting for years, many birthdays and anniversaries, excited, to see it.
But not everyone has. Nor will everyone see it.
Because not everyone will be there.
Some people walked away from it when it started, when it started…
…they walked away…
…with just one word.
They did not want it.
They begged, prayed for it not to be.
They did not want it like I did not want it.
But there was no one else. The family needs this, and there was no one else for them.
For them.
And it hurts.
It makes me angry.
But…
… it just is.
And I will dance because it is a special day, an anniversary even, a birthday of sorts. It is a day, a thing, that does not come every day, but a day, a thing, which comes no matter what. No matter how much one might not want it…
…it comes. It is.
Forever and ever.
So I will dance.
And the bouquet- zinnias, wallflower, petunias and tiger lily all- will begin to wilt just a little bit in my cold dark room as they try, try so hard to brighten it up a bit. Just like the marigolds and anemone before it, it will slowly fade in my cold room, a shadow of its past glory in full bloom, when it was full of brightness and joy and life.
And I will just dance.
When the dance is done, I'll come back to my dark room and sit. I will watch the rays of sunlight begin to bleed through the cracks in my shutter—a weak imitation of the light that falls into my lover's abandoned room with its pristine bed-- as the dawn of the New Year is born. It marks the passage of time, and the arrival of something new, something new that will change some things and make some things stay the same, no matter how hard I try.
And I try so hard. For them.
But I will tell myself to forget that, to think of something, someone else. I will remind myself as that long as I am here, not matter how much I wish I weren't, a family will not have to mourn again and a little boy will not be left to cry in this cold, dark place alone, away from the parents he adores and the lover that will leave him if he becomes their god.
Because no one wants their lover to be their god.
I never wanted this.
It hurts, and makes me angry.
I try so hard.
But it just is.
And I must stay here. I must.
Tomorrow, I will dance. It marks the passage of time. It is a special day. A birthday. An anniversary of sorts.
Not everyone will see it.
Not everyone will be there.
But I will dance anyway.
For a little boy…
I never wanted this.
END