-- Rapture --

Chapter 6 - Grasping

Thursday November 06, 2003

Scribbler's ramblings: Angsty-ness coming up (I adore angst).

Disclaimers: Fruits Basket not mine.

-=+=-

Kyou. The word pounded through her head and memories swelled from her mind, pushing painfully against the boundaries of her sanity.

Her world had died with him. Every hope and dream, wilted and washed away. Her happiness had faded. Her future had escaped her. Everything inside her felt useless, alone, dead. Dead. Kyou was dead.

She climbed the rungs of the rotting ladder and walked precariously along the slippery shingles. The rain fell from the heavens, pouring out its soul and beating down on her. Her hair limply dripped colourless beads of emotion. "Kyou would have hated a day like this," she murmured, salty tears fighting with the cold, cold rain.

Twice she nearly fell from the slick roof. No, not yet, she pondered. I have to see him before… before I…

She couldn't bring herself to say the word. It reminded her too much of him. Too much of the painful, hollow hope that it had all been a dream, but still flung back to this hurtful reality.

The view was still breath-taking. She was upon the same roof where they had shared their first kiss, their first promise. Now all those happy memories only haunted her. They teased her with flashes of his smile, his hair, his eyes. Those red, ember-filled eyes that had been doused.

In her arms, he had died. She was clutching him, wishing that he would never leave, praying and crying to him to stay, please stay. The one promise she wished he would keep forever. To stay with her, never leave her presence.

But he had died. Died before she could say she loved him too much for him to leave. Too much for anything bad to happen to him. Too much, that she had asked to be taken with him.

But she hadn't.

So, she was on the roof, waiting to be taken. Taken from this world without him. Without Kyou.

"Tohru, wait!" cried a voice from behind her.

So familiar, so loving and gentle. "Kyou?" she asked, spinning around to look at the young man behind her.

But it wasn't Kyou, it was Yuki. Only Yuki, who would never comfort her like Kyou did. She turned around again, and looked down at the gray, gray ground, sunken with puddles.

Everything had seemed like Kyou to her. Everything. Everywhere she looked, everywhere she turned, Kyou blasted in her face. But every hope had also been quashed, for upon closer scrutiny, she found it wasn't Kyou. It had never been Kyou. Only in her dreams had she really heard his laugh, seen his smile, touched his face.

Only in her dreams no more. For soon, she would join him.

"Tohru, please, come down," Yuki pleaded, inching towards her on the roof.

"You don't understand do you?" she asked, not bothering to turn around. She continued to stare, down down down to the very depths of everything bleak and forlorn.

"Understand what?" Yuki questioned. He hoped to buy more time to get to Tohru and save her.

"Understand how much he meant to me," she cried, breaking down and sobbing with aching emotion. She collapsed upon her knees, which caused Yuki to freeze, but she still stayed on the roof. He had left her, left her alone.

"Come on, Tohru. Do you think that Kyou would have saved you just so that you could die? No. He saved you so you could see another bright day, live…" Yuki tried to persuade.

But logic had no effect on her empty heart, soul and mind. "Another bright day? Live? You use these words as if they were the simplest things to do. My days have been nothing but dark, nothing but lost and torn. As far as I know, I've been dead. Walking around on this Earth only because my body keeps me here… You don't understand Yuki, don't understand the pain of the loss of your freedom and love and commitment," she whispered, so quietly that Yuki strained to hear her over the thundering rain.

Yuki didn't understand now, but if she jumped then he certainly would later.

The life that I lived was devoted to you, Kyou. Every laugh and smile dedicated to you. But Fate has abandoned us. Turned a blind eye towards your way and allowed for you to come into the grips of Death.

I can't let you go. I will never let you go. As long as I can still feel your warmth, I can't get you out of my mind. You were my life Kyou. Where are you now?

"Where are you, Kyou? Where are you while the world crashes around me and winter sweeps away the summer? Where are you when the nights are forbidding and the days too blistering? My sky, my stars, my moon… ripped from this world I've lived. Kyou! Where are you? Please, come back, come home!" Tohru begged.

Her body became limp, and she toppled off the cracked roof.

"Tohru, NO!" Yuki called, lunging towards her without fear.

He fell upon his knees near the edge of the roof, and for a moment their fingers clasped together.

But the weight was too great. The burden and strain on her heart. She fell from his short-lived hold.

Yuki clutched at thin air.

Tohru only grasped her love of Kyou.

The rain crashed down around them, and with a dull thud, Yuki's world crashed too.

-=+=-

Thursday November 06, 2003