-- Rapture --
Chapter 3 - Without
Friday November 07, 2003
Scribbler's ramblings: Well, here's the 3rd chapter of Rapture. I don't really care that it's not ridiculously popular, but I would appreciate it if you left a constructive review.
Goodness, it seems like I'm begging.
=_=+ I hate being dependent.
Disclaimers: Fruits Basket belongs to Natsuki Takaya. This wonderful plot "belongs" to my friend, BakaBabi.
-=+=-
"A dream?" he asked.
"Yes, a dream," she replied peacefully, innocently.
"What sort of dream?" Yuki inquired, squirming for answers to this riddle. Akito had somehow known about Kyuseishu. Had Akito sent Yuki there to find Kyuseishu the person? Or had the brat really thought that Sei was a miracle cure?
"A colourful one," Sei replied. "I can't really describe it or anything… just, I remember there were a lot of colours. And peoples' voices. Colours and voices all swirled into one… then a prince rode in. He took me to his palace on this gigantic mouse and crowned me with a chain of jasmine flowers. And then the animals from the zodiac paraded in. They were celebrating my arrival. I remember laughing and laughing, and a princess with huge blue eyes appeared at my side. She was really nice and smiled a lot. Then the prince proposed to her and said he would protect her… and that's all I remember."
Yuki was speechless. Ever since he had met Sei, she had always been quiet, shy, innocent. Yet when she spoke about her dream, her eyes filled with this incomprehensible desire. "And when you woke up, the words were just there?" he said, motioning towards her petite hands.
"Just there. I never tried to wash them off, because I knew they had a purpose. But, what purpose was beyond me," Sei explained, tracing her index finger over the black lines of her name. "I've never felt I had a purpose. I have no talents, no real skills. My parents abandoned me. All I do is work at this small store. I have had no meaning in my life whatsoever. Up until now; up until this dream.
"Up until you came."
-=+=-
There's a pretty girl on the Face of the magazine, but all i see are my dirty hands turning the page.
- Jewel
-=+=-
Doubt hand in hand with guilt makes a perfect emotional duo of turmoil. Throw love into the mixture and guess what you have. One very confused mind.
But add in an already dazed girl and her weak graspings of a new relationship and here comes chaos.
-=+=-
Why did he ever like me?
Why did he choose me?
Was it only because I was the first to accept him?
Why me?
These thoughts and more swirled and stuttered through Tohru's head.
You're ignorant AND stupid AND clumsy AND… ugly voices from the back of her mind intensified with every word.
Face it Tohru, you're not good enough.
You'll never be good enough for him.
Never ever.
Not while you're this ugly, this stupid, this helpless…
Tohru.
She gasped at her own unspoken name. Tohru. Somehow, she knew it was utterly worthless.
Tohru (shudder) looked at her reflection in the smudged mirror. Distorted images surfaced, and her large azure eyes looked pointless and blank. Her hair which was a deep chocolate brown transformed into limp strings, devoid of any personality.
I'm not good enough for him.
-=+=-
It lasted for a week. The wonderful universe, in which they existed so peacefully, fell to its graceful destruction in a week. A week of perfectly aware bliss. Kyou couldn't believe his entire love life had been shoved into seven days. Great romance.
He didn't know when it happened. He didn't understand how it happened. It just did. The curtains fell, the sky darkened, whatever other metaphor seemed appropriate; it happened without him realizing it.
All Kyou realized was the pain. A quiet pain that thrummed against his heart, filled every breath with sighs and weighted his smile into a depressed scowl. It had been so perfect.
And only three words. Three words warning before he knew it was going to go under. "I'm sorry Kyou." He had become so familiar with those words spilling from her mouth. But the way she said them, the way they pulled her raw emotions out and clung to her lips, was caution enough that something was going to break.
-=+=-
"I'm sorry Kyou."
He looked up from his book, meeting her anxious blue eyes with an intense gaze. "Sorry? But why Tohru?" he asked, confused.
- This is the hardest thing I'll ever have to do -
- But I'm not good enough -
"I'm not meant to be with you. We shouldn't be together. There's no future…" Tohru rasped, obviously having rehearsed these words before.
"What's she talking about?" Kyou thought to himself. Her spoken words were somehow blurred, muffled; they made no sense to him. They shouldn't be together? They were meant for each other; the way they knew each other, felt each other, somehow were one another.
- It's heartbreaking really -
- I can't stand the fact we're not for each other -
- Because of me -
"… We can't be together. I just - I just …" she stuttered. Tohru's eyes revealed nothing. They slowly filled with blunt tears, and a solitary drop trailed down her smooth cheek. Her mouth was kept in a sickeningly straight line. How could she not feel?
"I don't love you Kyou."
Silence.
- I'll never be good enough for you -
"But…" Kyou reasoned.
- There's nothing from me to you -
"… you …"
- Except for my worthless love -
"…can't…"
- Meaningless -
Tohru ran from the room, her face never breaking, but her footsteps leaving an awfully hollow beat.
"…leave," Kyou whispered.
-=+=-
He couldn't stand it. He loved her too much to let her go like this. And he was angry. So incredibly pissed that she had just left him like that, without an explanation, without any words of comfort. She had just traipsed out the door like some prissy little brat who couldn't care less about anything in the world.
But he cared about her. He certainly cared about her. More than anything else in the entire world.
Kyou realized what an idiot he was being, whispering and brooding to himself in the kitchen while she was upstairs and living a perfectly fine life. He would get her back. He had to get her back, otherwise he would feel worthless for the rest of his life.
He ran up the stairs, three at a time, leaping up to find her and be angry. Be in love so much that he had to be angry. Rant and rave about what a horrible thing she had done to him, only to take her in his arms again and…
He crashed open her door and strode boldly into Tohru's room. Her pink bedspread and happy strawberry plush toy stared back at him. But where was Tohru? Taking three quick looks around her room, he couldn't find her. Odd.
He slammed the door close and ran through the hallway, whipping open multiple doors only to find the rooms empty. Kyou stampeded through the house, every vacant room only feeding his anger. Where was she?!
Running outside, Kyou swept the horizon with his gaze. Where was Tohru? His anger mixed with drops of panic, and his heart beat an unfamiliar twinge. Grabbing a low bough of a tree, he swung up and up and up, finally landing onto the roof.
And there she was.
Tohru sat along the edge, her weak knees hanging over the last shingles of the roof. "What the hell do you think you're doing? Why are you up here?!" Kyou yelled, satisfied that he was able to unleash his anger.
She turned around and stared at him. Once again her face was stoic.
"I just tore apart the house looking for you! And what the hell was that?! We can't be together!? You're lying Tohru! We have to be together! I love you and you're supposed to love me!" Kyou protested, taking a few steps towards her.
Now was the time she was supposed to run and collapse into his arms, inevitably turning him into the cat, but collapse into his arm nonetheless.
But nothing came.
Kyou's voice lowered a notch, "Tohru?"
Her head turned back to the horizon, and she replied simply, "I don't love you Kyou."
Things were not going perfectly for Kyou. "What do you mean?! I love you Tohru! I've said that a bajillion times already! I love you! I love you! I love YOU!" he cried, a different twinge of panic disturbing his heart.
-=+=-
Doesn't he see how much he's hurting me? Why doesn't he see it? Why? I'm not good enough for you, Kyou! I'll never be good enough! Just leave me alone already… leave me here to die in my sadness, Tohru thought, forcing her face to reveal no emotion. She wanted to run to him, she wanted to tell him. But she couldn't. In all the crazily insane rules in her head, she couldn't tell him that she wasn't good enough for him. She didn't know why she wasn't telling him. Tohru just knew she couldn't. And strangely, she felt angry. Angry that Kyou was too blind to see that she wasn't good enough for him. Angry and yet sad that she wasn't good enough for him.
So confused.
-=+=-
Kyou stopped walking towards her, because he knew that if he got any closer, he would probably push her off the roof. The anger Kyou felt towards Tohru was exploding. Bordering hate. How could she not love him? How could she leave him like this? He voice lowered ominously and he worked to keep his fury under control, "Tohru… you're mine, I love you and you're supposed to…"
It was Tohru's turn to scream, "NO! I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO! I don't have to love you Kyou! Get that through your head! I don't have to love you!"
Inside, daggers stabbed through her heart, leaving it in tatters and the rest of her innards jumbled. Just leave me alone Kyou! I can't be with you, I'm not good enough! I'll ruin your life! I will, I will, I will! Leave me alone! Please! she inwardly screamed, willing him to leave her before she cracked. She loved him. She loved him with everything she had. But she had to let him go, for his sake.
"Tohru…" Kyou floundered. What was happening?
You're ugly AND stupid AND clumsy AND… the ugly voices sailed back into Tohru's head. She wasn't good enough for him. She knew that. Why didn't he?
They stared at one another; Kyou was confused and Tohru was torn.
And then silence.
So quiet, you could almost hear their hearts break.
And suddenly, the sound of someone coming up the ladder.
-=+=-
A familiar face popped over the edge and stared at both of them. Yuki. He gingerly climbed up the rickety ladder and stood up on the roof.
Yuki looked uncertain. His eyes concentrated on the roof tiles and he chewed on his bottom lip. He looked liked someone who was about to propose a new idea. How odd to see the princely mouse so agitated. "Yuki?! What the hell are you doing here?! I thought you were in Tokyo and…" Kyou said, bewildered.
"Shut up," Yuki interrupted, still looking wary and anxious.
"What?! You shut up! I'm talking to Tohru right now so go…" Kyou shot back, irked.
"I said shut up."
Yuki's tone was hard and blunt. Kyou clammed up; but not for long, "I'm talking to Tohru right now, and it's private so if you could leave (forever) that would be great."
"Tohru will you marry me?" proposed Yuki. He slammed down onto one knee and whipped out a velvet box.
The roof creaked.
"Wha… what?"
"Will you marry me?" Yuki repeated.
Tohru looked from Yuki to Kyou, Yuki to Kyou, Yuki to Kyou. Anything to escape this madness. Anything to get Kyou to realize that I'm not good enough for him. Anything. She looked back and forth again.
-=+=-
Scribbler's ramblings: This story's getting harder and harder to write… O.o; And I know style is inconsistent in this chapter. Oh well, I only have one more chapter to write and I'll be done the fic.
It's not what you think.
Saturday November 29, 2003