DiScLaImEr – Anyone wanna buy it for me?? I wouldn't mind, really~!
Lalalaladadadada~! *singing continued…* ^^;; Ahem…characters' thinking done in BOLD, as usual~! Enjoy =^^=
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~*~ Lest I Forget ~*~
Chapter 3 – A New Beginning?````````````````````````````````````````````````
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He drove through the still-silent streets of Tokyo with a heavy heart, although his face remained as expressionless as ever. Overhead, the gray, rainy skies reflected his bottled-up feelings of gloominess and sadness. Stopping at a red light, Sohma Hatori looked in the rear mirror to check on the sleeping girl, who was currently being secured by a ragged and tired looking Shigure.
"She will wake up soon?" Shigure asked, his usually light and carefree voice strangely tight, his eyes guarded.
"Yes, she will." was his short, quiet response, his voice just as strained.
"But she'll remember nothing."
"No."
Green light. Putting his attention back on the roads, Hatori put the car back in motion, heading toward the apartment where they will promptly leave their little sunflower to wake to strange surroundings and with no memory of having ever met them…or just how much she had done to make their lives so much brighter.
Shigure looked out the window for the first time since they had entered the car, wanting to distract himself from all the…unpleasant emotions…he was feeling. Sighing deeply, Shigure found himself wishing he was back in his prison in the main house again, preferring the emotional abuse from the family head over the ordeal at hand. It's not fair. He found himself thinking, his eyes darting back to the sleeping form next to him, as if wanting to memorize every last detail of the girl who had given them so much. She never…this never should have happened! Akito…you really went too far this time.
*Flashback*
"Oh, Shigure," Sohma Akito called to him lightly—a manner so unlike his personality. "I have a task for you to do: a last task before regaining your former freedom again. But of course," smirking at the older man, who was looking worst for wear, Akito continued, enjoying his moment, "your freedom is only as far as I will permit. You should be grateful to me…of everyone currently…staying…here, I'm letting you out first. After all, you are important to me, you know."
Malice was evident in the young man's voice, and his eyes glinted with cruel intensions as he looked down at the dog from where he stood in the doorway.
Struggling to get up, Shigure moved slowly toward the family head, untrusting in what he was up to. While Akito did not physically harm him—could not physically harm him, really—he did a fine job of setting emotional damage to the novelist. Akito had made him watch, helpless, as the somewhat frail young man inflicted pain upon those who could not fight him, watching him tie them up in chains and whipping them for his personal enjoyment…Shigure closed his eyes briefly, willing the images to go away. Presently, he opened his eyes again and found that he was already quite close to the doorway, subconsciously wanting to get out of the hell-hole of a house as quickly as possible.
But little did he know it was not to be.
Walking slowly with the weakened dog, the family head brought them up to Hatori's more private medical office. Uncertainty of the situation building with each step, what greeted Shigure there was something even he had never dreamed of seeing in all his lifetime.
An uncharacteristically emotional Hatori stood over the single bed in the examining room…a bed which held an unconscious girl. Looking at his life-long friend, Shigure felt the dread of something horrible rising within him. It was not everyday that one would see the doctor looking so distorted…so upset. Looking into his friend's uncovered eye, the dog felt himself shudder involuntarily, frightened by the anger, hatred and grief held within them that seemed to threaten to consume him. Distressed as he was by the dragon's reaction, Shigure found himself hesitating in discovering the cause which had done so much in aggravating the stoic Hatori. Looking down at the girl currently sleeping before him, Shigure heard his own strangled choke, as if someone had knocked the wind out of him. In an instant, he understood why his usually expressionless friend was so enraged.
Honda Tohru slept on the clinical bed, looking as though she was sleeping peacefully to the uninformed world. But what the uninformed world would not have notice was that her face was completely devoid of emotion…empty…vacant. Nothing remained with the girl that provoked an expression in her slumber—not a smile, not a tear. It was then that Shigure realized why the dragon was so infuriated, why the family head was so pleased, and why he would suddenly and seemingly graciously decide to release his flesh-and-blood human toys.
Their release did not come freely; their release did not come due to a sudden knocking of their family head's conscience. No…Shigure closed his eyes and shook his head, as if trying to rid himself of this scurrility, their freedom had come at a high price.
Their freedom came with a price-tag of a certain girl's memories begin erased.
And the certain girl willingly sacrificed herself to pay for their freedom.
Opening his eyes, Shigure looked from the zombie-like sleeping girl to the sneering family head…and had the sudden urge to strangle the boy right there and then, regardless of the consequences. However, one look back at the slumbering girl before them stopped him.
Because even if he was to kill Akito then and there, it still will not bring back her memories…nothing will.
Nothing ever will.
*End Flashback*
Why were you so willing? He asked the girl silently, knowing that she can neither hear nor answer him, even if she had wanted to. Why didn't you think…even think!…about yourself, just this once?
Closing his eyes as if to shut out his pain, Shigure found that no matter how much he tried to look away from what had happened, he could not. No…he could not simply look away from what she had done for them and live happily ever after. He could not close his mind off from what had happened…because he could not forget—he did not want to forget.
But what good does remembering do now? What good will come out of him remembering all the torture they had been put through, and the pain that will surely come? No matter how much they will all certainly agonize, no matter how much they will wish things were different—it wouldn't change anything.
No matter how much they remembered, she will not remember them.
Sighing, Shigure turned from the windows to see a pair of unreadable eyes glancing at him from the rear mirror. The novelist smirked ironically. There was a time when it was widely known that Sohma Shigure was never overset—nothing could bother the carefree man for long, despite the face that he was cursed with the zodiac and lived under a tyrant of a family head. Nothing ever hindered him long enough to make upset—he was untouchable. But now…now there he was, sitting in the car, holding the sleeping girl's head on his lap loosely so that she doesn't get injured, and looking as if the sky had fallen to land on his shoulders and his shoulders alone.
The joys of learning how to care for others.
About to look out the window again, Shigure was startled when the car stopped, and a monotoned voice spoke.
"We're here."
Squinting at the tall apartment from inside the passenger window, almost at the heart of Tokyo city, Shigure felt his hands tighten their grip around the girl he was securing. Silently he unbuckled both their seat belts and lifted the girl out of the car, feeling forlorn while trying to keep it from his tired face.
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The apartment Akito had given her was actually quite respectable in size and furnishing: a single bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, laundry room and a relatively large space to serve as the "common room"—all the necessary spacing she would need to live comfortably. They proceeded to the bedroom, where the girl would soon wake from her hypnotic sleep. Surprisingly, the two men found that the bed in the room, as well as some of the simple furnishings there and most of the clothing, were the same ones as those she owned and used at Shigure's house. As he set her gently down on the very bed which he had bought for her, Shigure couldn't help but let the sadness he felt deep inside show on his face.
When I return…home…tonight…there will be an empty bedroom.
Shaking his head and realizing that such thoughts could do him no good, he decided to break their silence.
"At least it looks like he was human enough to furnish her apartment." he said to his longtime friend beside him, noticing that his voice sounded oddly scratchy, despite his best efforts to keep it as even and normal as he could.
"I think he's spent a long time, waiting for this." was the quiet reply. Angry and depressed as he already was, Shigure couldn't help but feel surprised as he saw that the dragon's hands were clenched in tight fists as they held the bedroom frame. Walking out of the bedroom to look at the apartment, Shigure had to agree.
"Setting up this apartment…even buying all these things…must have seemed like a way for him to confirm that this would happen. A form of materializing what he was planning for her…to satisfy himself. What a sick mind!" he suddenly cried, unable to contain himself. Slamming the nearby kitchen counter.
Hatori stared wordlessly at his cousin, understanding how the other man was feeling. With a sigh, the young doctor looked back in the bedroom and at the sleeping figure. Seeing how one slender arm had fallen off the bed, he quietly went in to tuck it back in gently, not willing to disturb the girl. Smiling a brotherly smile, he sat down in the room's single chair and felt his smile subside slowly, as if being melted away.
"How are we going to tell the others?" he said softly, as if asking the air itself for an answer. Shigure walked back into the bedroom to crouch down beside him, frowning deeply.
"I don't know." was the equally soft reply. In his mind's eye, the novelist could not even begin to imagine what his house would be like without her there—there would be not Tohru to sit there and talk with them over afternoon tea; no Tohru to clean dishes with; no Tohru to suddenly pop up with that bright, caring smile on her face and make everything all right. Somehow, the thought of going back to his house tonight, along with the other two young male occupants of the house…the idea seemed surreal to him. Returning to the house…his house, really…was just that—returning to a house owned by Sohma Shigure—not returning home.
Hearing the young doctor sitting beside him sigh, Shigure knew that his cousin was thinking the same thing. Even if they had regained their freedom once again—the freedom to be released from the main house and make choices, although still minor ones, for their own lives—meant so little to him—to any of them, he was sure, had they been there—at the moment.
Movement on the bed before the two men startled them both out of their gloomy thoughts. The girl on the bed stirred, oblivious to the sorrow that hung heavily for the two men in her room. Getting up and gently replacing the chair so it wouldn't be in the girl's way when she awoke, Hatori kept his gaze on the girl as he spoke softly.
"We should go now, Shigure."
"I know."
Neither of them made the initiative of getting out of the apartment before the girl awoke. Blinking, and realizing that they were both still standing in the same spot they had been a few minutes ago, Hatori clapped the unusually depressed Shigure on the shoulder and steered him out of the lilac colored bedroom, closing the door quietly behind him as they both stole a last glance at her, both knowing that this could be the last time they ever saw the girl again.
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Sohma Yuki and Kyou stood outside the former guest bedroom, watching as the last of the sun's rays disappeared from the unlit room. Servants of the main house had come for them one at a time in their prisons, to drive and "secure" them each back in their own houses. As soon as they had gotten home, they had rushed upstairs, too anxious to check on the sole female addition to their "family" to exchange sharp words with one another. Standing side by side now, the always quarreling cat and mouse were silent, both staring intently into the empty bedroom as if somehow, if they looked hard enough, they would see what they wanted to see—to find the room furnished again with the simple furnishing that matched its occupant's personality—simple and sweet.
Yet, as much time went by and the moon rose, illuminating the dark and empty bedroom with its gentle rays, there was still no sign of anything—lifeless or otherwise—in the room. To all appearances, neither of the young men seemed to have moved from their earlier position, and did not look as though they intend to anytime soon.
A thick silence hung in the usually lively house—the whole house was still and dark, the only sound which dared disturb the silence was the occasional mechanical fussing of the fridge in the kitchen. Finally, one of them broke the silence, speaking more to himself than to the other.
"Wha…what's going on?" Sohma Yuki whispered, as if afraid if he said it any louder, he would lose those words as well.
Only silence answered the shocked and somewhat frightened looking young man and his equally stunned and frightened companion as they stood, as if their minds were caught and trapped by what they saw before them, in the dead of the night.
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*sigh* They all wanted to sigh so many times in this chappie~! *brightens up* Waaa~!!! n.n Yet another rather dark chappie, ne? Gomen ne…BUT! ^^ Must go wiv da flow of da story, eh~! I think I should warn ya'll ta expect another "rather dark chappie" before things get happier/brighter. After all…we wanna see how all of them will react to this, ne? XP
Anyhow…I just wanted to add that…this chappie was juss a tad longer than usual… I'm just saying that here cuz I kinda wrote a bit more to it for a reason… *looks sheepish* While I can promise you that I will definitely finish this ficcy…I'm gunna have to ask you guys to wait a month for my next update…n.n Gomen ne~! Demo…with exams and all, I dunt think I can finish what I started of the next chappie in time before I leave (yes, I'm going away for the first part of summer ^^)…and since I wunt be here, there'll be no time for me to write, let alone write a good enough chappie to post…O_o So a month it is…you wunt abandon me, would you?? XD And for those of you that left emails…I'll definitely email you guys as soon as I have an update…in a month ^^;; So if you want me to give you da heads up on updates…feel free to leave behind an email…or just check back in a month's time please~!
IMPORTANT~!! Hmmm…yeah…it's important… =^^= I was just thinking…I never really thought about how the pairings should work, in spite of the fact that I did say canon pairing TOA…which I mean to keep still, but seeing how there are Bachelors #1 and 2…^^* So I was thinking…why not take a vote?? I mean, I could still not tell you guys the pairing (actually…the other characters need "a friend" too~!!)…but at least you'll have a say in it (sort of…), rite?? Waddaya think?? If you have a particular preference or idea of what pairings you'd like to see in this ficcy…e-mail/review me which pairings you'd like to see…and I'll do da tallying ^^*
Anyways…just a suggestion :D Well, the usual critics, comments and…stuff…are all welcomed XP But by now ya'll know the routine, ne?? Again…I apologize for making ya'll wait so long…but it can't really be helped~! Even if you dunt wanna sign up for the updates "mailing list"…please be sure to check back with me in a month~!! XP
~Aqua Sunshine ^^*