Disclaimer: I don't own Kyou or the rest of the Furuba gang. I do, however, take sadistic joy in putting them through the gauntlet time and time again.
I was half-asleep when the idea hit me this morning. Waking to angst is a beautiful, beautiful thing, isn't it?
The Days I Lost
Yuki hated funerals.
The weeping, the muted sorrow, the grief coated with manners and hidden behind handkerchiefs. The shameless, open tears of those brave enough to stand strong despite the pain that shattered their lives. The suffocating floral scent of countless bouquets running the length of the funeral parlor, the massive displays flanking the dark gray urn at the front of the room. Everything that was left. The last remains.
It was too dark a color, he thought, for someone who had been so bright in life.
Beside him, dressed in stiff and formal black, Tooru sat with her fingers knotted in her lap as if to suppress the tremors that ran through her slender frame, sniffling quietly as tears trickled down her cheeks. He wished he had the courage to reach out to cover her hands with his, but instead he bowed his head and listened to the heavy non-silence of the crowded room.
Who'd have thought that the he would have been so popular in death?
It was just another story written on the second page
Underneath the Tiger's football score
It said he was only eighteen, a boy about my age
They found him face down on the bedroom floor
It could have been, Yuki thought, lifting his empty gaze to the front of the room where somebody or other was making a speech that was meaningless to those who knew him, who had truly known him. He could have been nothing more than a statistic, an obituary in the paper I don't read. He could have been nothing to me…
To his left, Kagura sat, stony-faced and terrible in her silent grief. It was a little disturbing, how determined she seemed not to show any sort of pain. She was, perhaps, the one most impacted by his death, and yet she, of all of them, was the only one who let nothing show. Her beautiful brown eyes were glassy, with shock, and dead as the body that lay before in the small ceramic jar, where he would sleep forever, protected from the world that hadn't loved him.
Beyond Kagura, Yuki could see from the corner of his eye the forms of the other Juunishi—Momiji, his wails stifled by the large handkerchief he'd stuffed into his mouth; Kisa, wrapped in Hiro's arms as she sobbed into his shirt; Haru, face slack and pale in disbelieving anguish; Rin, who couldn't hide the tears that slipped from her eyes; Ayame, Hatori, Ritsu, silent and still as they sat, immobile, paralyzed by the latest horror that had ravaged the Souma family.
It could have been just a story, Yuki kept thinking, his heart aching for the friend he hadn't known he'd had. And instead…it's unbearably real. This is my life.
There'll be services on Friday at the Lawrence Funeral Home
Then out on Mooresville highway, they'll lay him 'neath a stone...
What would their classmates think? Yuki's throat tightened suddenly, choking, and he dragged in a ragged breath as tears swamped his eyes. Uotani and Hanajima sat beyond Tooru, Hanajima rather conservative in a simple black sheath, Uotani wearing her Red Butterfly trench coat over a long black skirt and matching tunic. How would their teacher explain to the class, to those who'd grown to love him as a friend, as one of them?
What would he say at the school-wide meeting the principal wanted to call to address the issue? What could he tell them? Yuki tilted his face back in the efforts that gravity would drain away his tears before they revealed themselves to the world.
Yuki, the impassive; Yuki, the cold-hearted; Yuki, whom he would never beat; Yuki, the hated mouse Yuki, was crying for Kyou.
How do you get that lonely, how do you hurt that bad?
To make you make the call, that havin' no life at all
Is better than the life that you had
Yuki looked to the pew on the other side of the center aisle, where the other half of the family closest to the deceased sat. Shihan had the first spot, dressed in a black kimono. His hands were folded in his lap with his usual unflappable composure, but Yuki could see the lines strain had etched around the corners of his eyes, the tightness around his mouth. Kunimitsu sat behind him, weeping unashamedly into his hands, as Yuki knew many of the other students who attended Shihan's karate dojo were, sprinkled throughout the large hall.
Akito sat in that first pew, and Yuki felt a sharp, hot stab of resentment. What had that man ever done for any of them? For Kyou? What right did he have to sit there and claim he cared? Beside Akito, sad and impassive as ever, Kureno wore one of his ubiquitous dark suits; beside him was Shigure, looking mournful—though whether it was genuine remorse or simply another façade, Yuki didn't know, and didn't trust the look in Shigure's eyes.
Mayu-chan-sensei, their teacher, was somewhere in the room. Yuki had been mildly surprised to see her there, but she'd merely shrugged and managed a weak little smile. "He's…He was one of mine, too," she'd said by way of explanation, but he could see the pain clearly in her eyes.
Will I have this sort of effect, Yuki thought with a surreptitious glance around the room. Will this many people mourn me when I die?
How do you feel so empty, you want to let it all go
How do you get that lonely... and nobody know
Who'd have known Kyou had been planning this for so long? Yuki could still remember the horror of the moment, the guilt that swept through him fresh at the memory. He'd been so annoyed, so irritated at having to wake up the lazy cat that morning; it hadn't even crossed his mind that something might have been wrong. Since when did Yuki ever get up before Kyou? But he'd been so aggravated he'd just banged the door wide open, flipping on the light and sneering out a sarcastic—and, he thought with a pained little sob of breath, oh-so-typical—morning greeting.
And the blood.
It had splashed the walls, pooled and gelled and dried over the floor, stained the bedspreads, splattered the window. The entire room was like a personal little hell, and Yuki swallowed as the memory threatened to sweep him away. The soft touch of fingers on his wrist jerked him back to the present, and he turned his head to find Tooru looking at him worriedly.
He managed a small, reassuring smile, which she returned with effort, before turning back to whatever inner world she was lost in. They were all so lost, weren't they?
Did his girlfriend break up with him, did he buy or steal that gun?
Did he lose a fight with drugs or alcohol?
Did his Mom and Daddy forget to say I love you son?
Did no one see the writing on the wall?
They'd found the letters, buried in the bottom of his desk drawer. Long, raging pages of incoherent nonsense that burned to read. Yuki could remember sitting in the living room late into the night with Haru and Momiji—the only two he'd trusted with the contents of Kyou's most personal thoughts—and time and time again having to take a walk outside to cleanse the scorching pain that the words Kyou had written evoked in his heart.
Desperation. Loneliness. Emptiness. Hopelessness. Isolation. Fear. Terror. Anguish. And, in the end, the only salvation he could find.
Kami-sama only knew where Kyou had gotten the gun. Yuki felt another wave of misery roll through him as he squeezed his eyes shut. Nobody had heard the shot that night, so he must have already been…gone…when he and Tooru returned from their double-date with Haru and Rin. Shigure had said he'd be spending the night at the main house, and they hadn't gotten in until after midnight.
Yuki hadn't mentioned that minor detail to Tooru. She'd been too tired to even bid Kyou good-night, and Yuki knew she'd find some way to blame herself for what had happened.
So he'd assume the guilt instead.
I'm not blamin' anybody, we all do the best we can
I know hindsight's 20/20, but I still don't understand...
They'd fought—they'd actually fought—over who would carry the urn and lower his ashes into the ground. It had been a short and vicious battle, filled with hateful words and, on Kagura's part, a few broken pieces of furniture, but Rin had, surprisingly, been the one to settle it.
She hadn't, of course, been involved in the fighting. For reasons Yuki didn't quite understand—other than both of their individual personalities—Rin and Kyou had never really gotten along.
"Kazuma should do it," she'd said simply, and that was that. They'd subsided, recognizing the logic of her statement, and ashamed at their foolishness for fighting over something that was his right from the beginning. He was Kyou's father in every way that counted. He was the one who'd shown Kyou how to live.
He would be the one to lay Kyou to rest.
How do you get that lonely, how do you hurt that bad
To make you make the call, that havin' no life at all
Is better than the life that you had
Tears flowed freely as they huddled around the small grave in the cemetery far from the main Souma complex. It was fitting, Yuki decided as he wiped the back of his hand under his nose and hunched his shoulders against the icy wind that sliced through the thickness of his wool jacket as if it weren't even there. To be laid to rest beside Shihan's grandfather, in this pretty little temple beneath a cherry tree. The city sounds were far off and muted, and the sky overhead was a light slate gray the same color as his tombstone.
It was a nice place, he thought, to spend the rest of eternity. Peaceful and quiet and lovely, everything his life was not.
They were a small party now, just Kyou's closest friends—what one could have considered his 'friends', anyway—gathered around the small hole in the ground. Akito hadn't joined them, nor had they particularly invited him; after some resentful good-byes, the younger Juunishi had followed Kazuma in the rented limo across the city to the small cemetery where Kyou would be buried.
There was another, smaller, ceremony, and then Kazuma knelt in the dirt and carefully lowered the urn into the hole in the ground. "Good-bye, Kyou," he whispered, head bent. His tears dripped onto the ground, soaked into the dark earth. "I love you…son."
He stood, sniffling, and fought to regain the self-control that was as much a part of him as his karate dojo and his habitual kimono. Tooru silently offered him a clean tissue, which he accepted gratefully, turning his face to wipe at the tears that tracked silently down his cheeks.
There was a moment's awkward hesitation while they looked at each other. Finally Momiji gave Yuki a small push forward. "You go first," he said, tears bright in his eyes. "It seems right that way."
And as Yuki knelt to toss the first handful of dirt over the urn in the symbolic first step to eternal peace, he thought that Momiji was right.
How do you feel so empty, you want to let it all go
How do you get that lonely... and nobody know?
2.6.05
First fic update in months. I so, so, so sorry for the long delay! I hope you like this. The lyrics belong to Blaine Larsen, and I thank him for the song How Do You Get That Lonely?, whose words and sentiments I stole without remorse. I've heard it before, but couldn't put it to the proper plot until this morning. I miss Kyou-kun, but he's still the main character here, in a roundabout way…Please let me know what you thought!
Glossary:
Juunishi—12 zodiac animals
Kami-sama—God
Shihan—Souma Kazuma. Kyou's karate instructor (he calls him Shishou). Yuki, Kagura, Haru call him 'Shihan'. Rin calls him Kazuma