Author: Celeste
Rating: PG
Feedback: keviesprincess@netscape.net (flames welcome because they're funny)
Pairing: None (Can you believe it?!)
Summary: Kyou POV- Kyou faces the truth.
Dedication: Prism and Skye for loving Kyou and not kicking my ass for my portrayal of him here. Sorry!!
A/N: *sob* I don't know where this came from. I do sometimes see Kyou as contemplative, when he's alone on the roof, so I blame it on that. It's OOC like mad, but I'm too lazy to go in depth because I suck at that anyway. I just felt like some kitty angst. Indulge me? Heh, this is basically self-indulgence anyway. *sweatdrop* Apologies! And Thanks to Mel for trying to placate me into thinking it doesn't suck that much despite the out of character nature. Keh keh, she's kind to me. *snuggle*
Distribution: Ask for it.
~~~~~~~~~~
It's really bright outside today. You'd think with all this sun, everything was nice.
You'd think it was a really nice day.
But it's really just weird. It's a damn weird day. Everything's been weird lately, really.
I'm lying out in the sunshine alone, staring up at the clouds as they drift lazily by. Usually, usually this calms me, gives me a sense of peace. Like for a little while, the world isn't against me. It's why I like these high places where no one else wants to come.
Just so I can be alone sometimes. So I can dream a little to myself and not have anyone around to tell me how stupid I'm being, how stupid and useless I am, and my dreams are.
That's why I used to love coming up here, to be by myself and not be stupid to anyone for a bit, not be useless for a bit.
Sometimes I know, I guess I know that all these dreams in my head are really stupid and useless. But they're my dreams. I don't want anyone to take them from me, like everything else had been. Even if they are stupid and useless, they're mine as long as I can have them. They're things that belonged to me and no one else.
That's why…
…when I have them…
…I hold on to them as long as I can. I fight for them as much as I can.
Whenever I have them. Whenever there's something that I can dream.
Usually, usually I don't get to hold them long, not as long as I'd like. But I always try really hard. I always try really hard.
But usually, I don't get to keep them long.
Usually, I'm not strong enough somehow, and they're taken away from me.
It's just how things have been. I hate it. I hate it, and it makes me furious, makes me want to punch a hole in something, but that's how it is. It would be stupid to whine about it, I guess.
It's just how it is.
And I've learned over time, I guess. I've learned that when you lose something important to you, even after you fought and fought and bled to keep it, that it was just what was meant to be. It was your fault. It was because you weren't strong enough.
You were weak.
There's nothing you can do about it, then. You can't sit around and cry about it. That doesn't get anything done. There's nothing you can do. You can't go back in time and fix it or anything. It's just done then… you lost. Crying, moping… it's weak. Really, there's only one thing you've got left.
The only thing you can do…
…well, you just…
…you have to be stronger.
And maybe, maybe next time…
…next time, maybe you'll win.
But then again, maybe you won't. Maybe it still won't be enough. That's always a possibility too. It's damn depressing, to think about…but it's a possibility too. It might still not be enough.
It's kind of sad.
I used to wonder why I fought at all, sometimes. Because of that. Because no matter what, it seemed like I always lost. No matter how hard I tried. I used to wonder why I even tried in the first place, then. You might lose again, no matter how hard you work. You might just keep losing. It's definitely a possibility.
So sometimes, after I'd lost, I'd be sitting up on a roof like this, and I'd be kind of sad. I'd wonder why I kept trying.
But then I would remember, I would remember that if you really loved something, if something was truly precious…
… you had to keep believing in it, even if some part of you knew, just knew that no matter what you did, you might never be strong enough to keep it.
But you had to keep believing, no matter what.
Otherwise…
…otherwise, you really would have nothing. Not even your own pride.
And then you'd really, really be tainted.
You wouldn't be human any more.
You'd be…
…well…
…you'd just be an animal. A monster.
So I keep fighting, I keep believing that the things I do will make a difference, some way, maybe some small way. I keep believing that maybe, I can make things better for me, and for the things that are precious to me. That I can fight for them and win.
I believe that one day, I'll be really strong.
I'll be really strong.
And everything important to me will be safe and happy.
It's stupid, probably. People see me as stupid because I've believed that all this time. But it's worth it, because there's a chance, isn't there? There's always a chance that I'll win one day. That I'll be really strong. So I keep fighting.
Even though I've always lost.
But that isn't really the most important thing, is it?
The important thing is to try. You have to try, no matter what.
That's what I believe. That's what I think I believe.
Even though you might lose everything. You have to keep trying…find something…
…even though…
…you might be forced to lose your dream and look at the reality of what is left.
Like I had to.
I've had to do it again. Recently, I mean. I had to. I'm still trying to figure out what's next. What to believe in next. Because this time, this time it was weirder. It was bigger than all the other times when I wasn't strong enough. This time, it feels like…
…I really do have nothing left.
Weird, huh?
This time… what happened was…
…I had to stop hating him.
I really had to stop…
…hating him.
It was weird, to suddenly stop. To suddenly stop telling myself I hated him and to question whether I'd really ever hated him at all.
But then again, it was just weird...
…to see him cry. I think out of all the weirdness… that was the weirdest part.
To see someone who was always strong, who was always graceful and calm, cry like that.
It made everything crumble, and I didn't know what to do.
I was mad, mad that he'd done that in front of me. That he hadn't cared what seeing him cry would do to me. I wanted to hit him for it. Why did he do that? Why did he have to do that so I could see?
What gave him the right to take away the last thing I had?
What gave him the right to strip my anger away from me?
It was…
…it was all I had.
I had my anger, my determination. I had a goal to beat him. That was my dream, wasn't it? It was a precious dream. It gave me hope…
…it kept me fighting.
It made me feel like there was something for me. Like there was a prize at the end of my fighting and my determination. That I would be strong enough one day…
…strong enough to keep everything important to me.
It helped me believe.
He was the enemy, the ghost that loomed over my dreams and haunted every part of my life. He stood for everything I hated, everything that made my life go wrong from the beginning. He was perfect, he was loved, he was respected and trusted. Just because he was born to be who he was. He was the clever mouse. And just because I am who I am, I was distrusted, hated, forgotten. I was just the stupid cat.
Just because he was him and I am me.
That's why I dreamed of beating him I guess, dreamed of beating everything that had beaten me down before, when I had been unable to fight back. He was the guy that stood for all of those things.
Those things that beat me. That kept beating me down.
To defeat him, to overcome all of that, was the greatest desire I ever had.
It was my hope.
It was my hope to change things.
It made me hope that if I kept fighting for what I believed in and the things that were precious to me, that maybe…
…maybe one day…
…I would be strong enough…
… strong enough to be loved too.
Now…
…everything's backwards.
Weird.
I saw him cry, and suddenly…
…everything he stood for to me fell apart.
His perfection broke, and there were tears and tears and I didn't know what to do with them. They were imperfect tears. So unlike him to do anything imperfectly. They were sudden and strange and they made me angry, like everything else he did. Except this time…
…this time…
…I wasn't angry at him. Not him at all.
I didn't know why I was angry, really.
He was crying.
It was weird. Just really weird.
I didn't know what to do. It wasn't what he did! He was perfect and calm and always, always on top of things. The best at everything! The clever mouse! The clever mouse that tricked the damned stupid cat and made him a demon, a monster, and no one loved him because of that…because he was so stupid.
But then… he was sitting there. And I saw him crying.
He looked…
…less than perfect. He looked horribly, horribly sad. Broken. Nothing like the ideal that I'd been trying to defeat, the fantasy creature the family had made him out to be. The one that I was going to expose as the big fat liar.
He wasn't supposed to cry! It was… it was so damn weird!
It was weird…
…to feel bad for him.
It was weird to feel bad for him when I'd told myself that I hated him for the longest time.
It must have been weird for him too, I guess.
For him to forget himself for just a little while. In front of me of all people.
It must have been the worst moment of his life…
…to cry in front of me.
I know it was the worst moment of mine. One of the worst.
I almost…
…well, I almost wanted to ask him what was wrong.
Che. I almost did.
But I guess everything was too weird.
I couldn't really talk. I didn't really say anything.
I just looked at him. I stuck my hands in my pockets and turned to the side and couldn't help but look at him from the corners of my eyes every few seconds.
I couldn't even think of anything mean to say. Always, I would have had something to say, some comment to make on how he wasn't as great as he tried to play it off, or that he wasn't perfect after all. But…I couldn't even think about saying any of the sorts of things I usually say to him. Not when he was looking at me with his face full of tears.
Because for the first time…for the first time, I actually thought if I said them…
…if I said those things about him…
…they would be absolutely true.
They would be true, for the first time ever.
That, I think that would have been too much. For both of us.
The crying was weird enough.
I almost wanted to turn up at the sky to see if it was all a trick somehow, another clever mouse trick on the stupid cat, and I thought that if I looked up into the sky, I would see that it had suddenly started raining and I just hadn't noticed. That those weren't really tears on his cheeks.
That's how weird it all was. To see him cry.
I could almost laugh to myself now. I must have looked idiotic, standing there with my hands in my pockets trying to see if there was a cloud in the sky or thunder in the air.
I must have looked really stupid, standing there with my hands in my pockets…
…wanting to ask him what was wrong.
And I just stood there for a while, trying to make it make sense somehow.
I tried to figure out why I was feeling bad for him. Because, I hated him, didn't I? I'd always told myself I hated him. He was the reason, wasn't he? The reason for everything that was wrong with my life.
With me.
I hated him for it!
Didn't I?
It's a funny thing.
It's a funny thing because seeing him there, seeing how weird it was to be there with him with his face like that…
…I guess that's what it took.
That's what it took for me to figure out…
…I never really hated him at all.
Stupid, huh?
Stupid…funny…weird. A lot of those kinds of things.
I mean, it was never really him doing those things to me, I guess.
Those were the things I hated.
I hated the idea of him. I hated what everyone made him represent. I hated that.
I guess I didn't know…
…I didn't know that he hated it too.
Maybe he hated it even more. I don't know. I can't pretend I understand him or anything.
But…
…it's kind of funny, isn't it?
It makes me want to laugh a little bit as I sit here, with the clouds drifting by.
It makes me want to laugh.
But I can't make any noise come out of my mouth at all.
Because…
…what was the point, then? What's left?
There's nothing there anymore. Nothing solid that I can hit with my fists, nothing I can look at and see standing in my way.
Now it's all just…
…an idea.
How do you fight that?
How do you train to defeat that?
You can't…touch it. You can't see it. It might not even be there at all!!
Then what? There's nothing?
There's nothing to fight for anymore? There really was nothing I could have done in the first place?
What do I have left, then?
What do I have left…
…to believe in? To hope for?
A choked sound does come out of my throat, but it's not the laugh I wanted to force out earlier. It's like him…an idea of something. An idea of a laugh.
It's all I have.
Stupid, huh? It's all…
…it's all incredibly stupid.
Just like me. The baka neko.
I'm still…
…and he's still…
That's something we both have left.
I guess I forgot. There was so much splitting, so much tearing apart of words and talk.
I forgot that even though he was the clever mouse and I was the stupid cat…
…we're both still…
…cursed.
Both of us.
Stupid of me, huh?
Incredibly…
…stupid.
We both have that left, I guess. If you think about it, we do, don't we?
Maybe that's something to fight. I don't know. You still can't really touch it, I guess. But it's something.
I have to hope, don't I? I have to find something, now that I can't hate him any more. Now that I know…
…it wasn't really about him at all anyway.
It's something, isn't it? It's something. I've had my dreams broken before…things taken away. I always found something else. Didn't I? Maybe it was something stupid, or something weird or funny even…
…but I always managed to find a dream. Something to hope for. To believe in.
Maybe…
…I can be strong still.
Maybe I never really had to fight him to be strong at all.
Isn't that funny?
And kind of stupid too.
But it's something.
We're both...
…still cursed.
Heck, maybe I'll even ask him. Tomorrow, I might ask him.
Maybe he needs something to hope for too.
END