DiScLaImEr – Anyone wanna buy it for me?? I wouldn't mind, really!
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A day, a week, a month, a year…who's to tell how much time has passed since…since you left…?
And yet here I sit, a pathetic fool would can answer that question to the minute.
Five day, six hours and forty-five minutes.
It has been five day, six hours and forty-five minutes since Shigure told us we'll never see you again, Honda-san…did you know?
I wish I could tell you…because I know you don't.
Looking outside the window of his classroom, Sohma Yuki sighed not for the first time that day, rubbing his suddenly stinging eyes tiredly.
Whoever said that time can heal any wound and wash away any pain lied. Otherwise…otherwise…
Otherwise this dull, aching feeling in my heart would go away. Otherwise I wouldn't find myself turning every so often to look at your empty seat, as if I believe that if I look hard enough and long enough…you would return to us.
That you would return to me.
Nearly an entire week with little to no sleep was taking its toll on the mouse, evident from the dark circles under his eyes to his apparent weight loss. The Prince Yuki fan club girls were the first to notice their charming Prince's depressing wariness, and both feminine and masculine whispers seemed to haunt the school grounds day and night, gossiping of how different their Prince was behaving lately. It was as if he had somehow withdrawn completely into himself, never smiling or speaking unless spoken to first, save towards a select few people. Even then his words and tone of voice were distant and short. It was as if…as if…
"Yo, Ouji. O-u-j-i. Damnit, Ouji-sama! It's like your brain's off swimming in Jamaica while you sit in class, staring out the window!"
Blinking, Yuki almost jumped when he realized someone had been talking to him. No…correction…someone was currently yelling at him. A mass of golden hair and a slightly angry face met his line of vision, and, as if a man waking from a dream, he looked back at her inquiringly.
"Hai, Uotani-san? Sorry, I didn't hear what you were saying."
"I feel strange electric waves from him, Arisa." Came a monotoned voice from beside the beraged Uotani Arisa. "Unusually strange waves they are indeed. Could it be that he is trying to hide something from us that we might want to know of?"
Watching from across the room with an uninterested expression, Sohma Kyou felt a twig of sympathy for his cousin and long-time rival. Getting up to go to the roof, he suddenly froze as Hanajima Saki suddenly turned smack in his direction and pointed at him with her hair—pardon me…with her "wave detectors".
"His relative's signals have been uncommonly odd during the last few days as well. Now then. What is it that you would like to tell us, Prince?"
Suddenly the mouse's eyes were two tiny dots on his pale face as he looked at the two girls currently trapping him in his own desk, a big fat sweatdrop running down the side of his cheek.
What to…tell you…?
Meanwhile, three girls hung as close as they dared in the background, glaring—at a safe distance—in quite a helpless fury at the two girls who dared to so casually converse with their sacred Prince. Mumbling amongst themselves, the classroom suddenly fell deathly silent when Saki turned her unblinking eyes towards their general direction. As they—and the rest of the class—shrunk back in fear and made for the door, Yuki was becoming dimly aware that only four people remained in the now-silent room. At a complete loss of words, he turned numbly to the only other male occupant in the room, his dotted eyes blank.
Oi, turning to me isn't gunna get us out of this mess! The orange cat thought wildly to himself as the two girls also turned towards him, one staring with her piercing yet emotionless expression, the other plain annoyed.
"So what is it, Orange Head? For the first time since we've met you, you two are acting exactly alike. Something's up, and we wanna know what. So spit it the hell out already."
Little cat ears appeared on both sides of the Kyon-kichi's head, his orange hair sticking out on points as his annoyance hit a new peak of the day. Secretly, the boy was dimly aware that he was welcoming the commotion, thankful that it distracted his gloomy thoughts, however short the distraction might last.
"Shuddup Yankee. Nothing's up." Kyou said, irritated, while trying to hide his half-heartedness to avoid more questions. It was amazing the way Saki can see through people sometimes, and the cat, vulnerable as he was, wanted no part of an interrogation that can result in nothing.
Nothing will bring you back to us. Nothing.
Nothing is worthwhile anymore.
"Kyou is right. Nothing's up. I've just been tired lately, that's all. And that Baka Neko's just being as unsociable as always. That's all." The mouse said finally, faking a smile that can only be described as forced and chilling—entirely different to the natural little smiles and genuine happiness everyone around him had gotten used to seeing in the past few years—the years after a certain honey-haired girl entered into their lives. At the thought of her, Yuki felt his heart give a tight, agonizing squeeze. Standing up hastily, he made for the door, not looking back. The frown and pain on his face would've given him away in the façade they had all been made a part of—a façade the Sohma family head had cheerfully and cruelly announced to his clan with a satisfied smirk on his face.
:: Flashback ::
"I've made arrangements for your sacrificial maiden to begin an entirely perfect little new life, where she can live happily ever after in whichever way she pleases." Sohma Akito said, not bothering to hide his satisfaction with the whole business. A cruel smirk formed on his lips as he looked at the grim and depressed faces of all the involved members of his clan—eleven of the twelve people in this world that were supposed to be closest to himself. "I've thought of everything, so that life can go on as smoothly as it had for all of us before that little twig had intruded in on our lives. Of course, I've thoughtfully also considered all the people concerned in her meddling affairs."
He paused for effect here, knowing full well that every single person in that room wanted to run out, shut his voice out, or beat the light out of him to avoid hearing him talk of their precious Honda Tohru in the fashion he was speaking of her with. However, all of them, right down to the young Sohma Kisa, were too physically exhausted and emotionally shocked and drained to be able to rebel against anyone, let alone be of harm or threat to him.
"They've all forgotten about her, just as she has forgotten about you. Every single one of you. Perhaps it's just as well, you know…because I've always heard that only those who wish to forget completely forgets. The very fact that she doesn't remember us today is proof that she'd secretly always wanted out of having anything to do with this family—our family, which she did not and will never belong in. Wouldn't you agree, my dearest relatives?"
:: End Flashback ::
"Try not to look too much into it, Uotani-san, Hanajima-san. There's nothing to look for."
The door closed behind him, slowly, deliberately. Making a sound between a grunt and a resigning sign, Kyou also made for the door to the far left of the one the Prince had exited out of, meaning to go in a different direction than he. Without a glance or another sound, the door slid into place behind him in the same fashion, leaving two girls startled and worried.
"I wonder…what's wrong with them." Uo-chan said, propping up to sit on a vacant desk. "Whatever it is…it must've been big. The two of them seem as if…as if…"
"As if they lost a piece of themselves—a very important piece of themselves—and don't know where to go on from here." A somber Hana-chan finished, too deep in thought to try to look for any other distinctive electric signals.
Strangely, as class began and the girls sat down again, they couldn't help but feel that they too, somehow understood partly what the two cousins were feeling—the feeling of loss that had left an empty hole in their hearts, covered up by a mist that they could not see through, no matter how hard they might try.
"Ahh…bills bills bills…and oh lookie lookie! More bills! Lovely way to spend an afternoon, pouring over these wonderful white pieces of paper that intend to drain my bank account dry eh, Ha-san?" an overly cheerful Sohma Shigure was saying to his childhood friend and cousin as they sat in his study, the former waving a wade of bills and looking quite bite-sized, the latter sipping a cup of tea, having just come in for a visit. The two men had not seen each other for almost a week, since they had been on a drive to downtown Tokyo to drop…to drop…
To drop the sunshine out of our lives. Shigure thought sadly, that overly que sera sera attitude hanging on for dear life on his face.
Presently, his guest was gazing at the scenery outside, lost in thought. The weather had grown much colder of late, and the trees were all bare—bare of leaves to the naked eye, but to Sohma Hatori, they seemed also bare of life…of laughter…of warmth…
Something that only she seemed to be able to bring into their lives.
And he had took her away from them.
Still staring listlessly out the slide doors, he heard himself remark in a tone sounding quite lifeless.
"You don't have to be like that you know, Shigure. We're all feeling it." Turning back to look at his cousin—who had frozen still in supa deformed mode (n.n") on the spot at his words, letters still in the air—straight in the eye, Hatori watched as the dog seemed to transform before him at his next sentence. "You don't have to pretend everything is all right."
He had intended to stop speaking there, having said quite enough. However, a whisper reached his ears, spoken with his own voice…almost as if he was trying to tell himself that as well as convince Shigure into casting his cheerful masquerade aside.
"You don't have to pretend anymore."
A dry, cracked laugh met his ears as the arm frozen in the air dropped, the letters scattered on the floor, unnoticed. Shigure buried his tired face in his face to hide it in place of his cheerful mask. The muffled and heart-wrenching laughter continued as a tear-streaked face peeked out from underneath shaking hands at the doctor, its owner looking as small and as helpless as a six-year-old.
"Not pretend anymore?" the dog asked, his voice cracking. The laughing had subsided, giving way to his weary voice. "Not pretend…and then what? Go on living like everything's all right? That nothing is missing from our lives? Oh God, Hatori…I feel like a murderer—a murderer living in a house where he murdered. You should see the two of them. The empty looks on their faces, the silence they treat everything with, the way they lock themselves away, they way they look at you and not see you at all…it's inhuman to live like this and you well know it!" The tears which had ceased began to flow again, unnoticed by the speaker. "And you know what else? I can't do anything about it. I didn't do anything back then, and there's nothing—absolutely nothing—I can do now for them. The way they are now, two walking corpses—God, it just…it just…"
"Makes you wish you can die and not look at them." The dragon finished quietly for his emotional cousin, his face as pained as his cousin-reflection's.
Silence hung in the air. Neither men cared to break it, but neither looked away. They sat there staring at one another in the darkening room, sitting in silent understanding. At last, Shigure spoke up, shaking his head.
"We can't keep it from them forever. They're bound to run into her one of these days…especially the two who had taken to become wanderers lately."
"I'd rather wish they would." Was all the reply he got.
"Me too. But do you think…"
"I think…" Hatori began, looking slightly better than he had in days as he watched the last rays of the sun disappear over the horizon. "I think she didn't want to forget about us."
"You're just stating the obvious now, Ha-san." His cousin replied, smiling slightly—a genuine smile that took years off the young novelist's face.
So simple a conversation it was, not coming to any conclusion whatsoever. However, as Hatori got up to order take-outs with Shigure, both men felt the serene peace and comfort brought on by their shared new hope in the other's heart.
It was their turn to reach out to her.
The way she had reached to them.
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::claps:: Hahaha…I know it's been awhile…but the rate I've been writing lately…I dunt think u guys will wait for updates wiv a very long time in between. ::grins::
But… ::ahem:: all right guys…lots of explaining and begging to do here…I've got at least five, six inches of non-writing dust to brush off…and so, somewhat rusty chapter, I know Gomen ne…hontoo ni gomen nasai!! I got so used to playing catch-up with my other ficcie that I just somehow…forgot how to write this one! Honest!! Aiyou…demo ne, it'll get better…at least I'm updating now, ne?? Ne?? n.n
All in all, I hope it wasn't too confusing…or too depressing. I never meant for this ficcy to be TOO too dark, although some is an order since the storyline I planned for it is kinda angsty, u know?? Anyhoo…there's always gunna be room for improvement, ne? So flamers…easy easy XD
Also, before I get murdered…I know Hatori can't really do the whole "mass production memory block thingy"…but I had no way to go around it…so, pweetie pleaseeeeee, for the sake of this ficcie (and to prevent white hairs from shooting out from my still dark-brownish/black hair XP)…just pretend for me that he can do that, so everything can smoothly go according to plan. Waddaya say, eh?? =D
Ahh yes…I meant to explain the "chapter title" too… Yes yes…it's coming from the one that Tohru is paired off wiv for this ficcie…can u guess who it sounds more like? Kekeke…I've gotten a pretty good idea of who to pair with who by now, methinks :D I think I'll cut off the polls when chapter 7 comes out….in other words, the last chance to have a say in pairings is this chapter's reviews! Pls remember to tell me what u think and who u'd like to see wiv who, alritez? =P
As usual, all criticisms, comments or suggestions and chocolate chips (mmm) are all very very much welcomed !! Please tell me what you think!
Aqua Sunshine n.n