Time heals all wounds
Chapter 2
I wanted to die… right there on the spot. I had just been caught pleasuring my self by the one I loved, my forbidden fruit, my Keitaro… so shocked was I that I couldn't even cover my self. I closed my eyes and wished for the world to end right there to save me the harsh or embarrassing words that would come out of his mouth next. They never came though, puzzled I looked up to find him gone silent as the wind it self as if it was just a mirage.
Frantically I threw on my night cloths and ran into the hall way looking both ways and finding nothing. "Damn it what do I do now?"
"About what Motoko?" says a cheery voice from out of nowhere.
That's twice! Have I completely lost my edge? Has loving Keitaro made me blind to those around me? As if nothing has happened I turn to the voice to find Shinobu. She stands in the hallway with damp hair that now goes down past the middle of her back. She too is clad in nothing but a giant Tee-shirt.
"Nothing Shinobu I was just talking to myself, excuse me I have some business to attend to." With that I jet down the hall, I can feel her aura shift from concerned to curious… this cant be good. Knowing I am faster then her I head to the Ki that I know is Keitaro's predictably it is on the roof.
Bursting through the door to the roof I slam it shut behind me and lock it from the outside so that we are not disturbed. He's sitting there on the edge of the roof looking at the moon. A flicker in his Ki and I know he knows I am there. I make no effort to conceal my presence. I made enough noise slamming the door in my hurry that there would be no point anyway. As I approach him Keitaro stands and turns to me with a look upon his face that I have rarely ever seen… it was a look pure and feral. It was the look Sue gets on her face when she wants to play.
Never have I seen that look directed at me and it serves to confuse me more then his actions and his reasons for being here this late at night… what surprises me most however is the shear speed that bursts forth from him as he closes the gap between the two of us. I swear I didn't even blink before he was no more then a hairs breath away from my face whispering something softly into my ear for only me to hear… two simple words. "Let's Play." No sooner then had Keitaro spoken I look up to find that he is once again on the edge of the roof except this time he is too close and he is falling! My eyes never leave his as I gasp in horror as he tumbles backwards. Our eyes are locked and my reflexes take over pushing my body past its limits to close the gap between us and to save his life.
I am so close, our fingertips are nearly touching and then the time that stood almost still as I closed the gap suddenly sped back up and he is out of my grasp! I scream his name… I close my eyes… I can't bear to see him die… I wait for the crunch, the sickening moment when inertia slams his frail body into the ground causing him to suddenly stop, effectively shattering bones throughout the whole of his frame, while rupturing ever organ on the inside from the trauma.
It never came… Instead I hear Keitaro's laughter. Opening my eyes I see him right as rain smiling bright as the midnight moon that blesses us this fine night.
"You know Motoko from the look on your face I would say that you were scared there for a second." Verbally jabs Keitaro as he backs up from the house some more. "I told you lets play… are you going to sit up on that roof all night with your mouth open or are you going to come down here and show me your skills?" Keitaro does not say a single word after that he only grunts in approval at my smile, as he seemingly produces two kendo sticks from seemingly out of nowhere, that seems to happen a lot around this place.
I don't even think. I just jump after him as he sprints off into the forest of his mountain property with seemingly hopeless abandon laughing all the way as I tried to catch up to him. For better part of two hours we ran and hid from our troubles, clashing swords when we would cross paths or ambush one another. Around three o'clock in the morning found us collapsed upon the clearing of the old annex. Where it used to stand it was now only rubble.
Panting I turn to him looking for answers. He sees the seriousness in my eyes yet he does not flinch or shy away. He does not pretend to not hear me nor does he pretend that our hands are not touching as I fight to let words form in my mouth. So many questions need to be asked and yet so many of them we do not have the time for so I strive to keep it simple, to keep it balanced. You never could push Keitaro too hard for information because he snapped like a dry twig at the slightest bit of pressure.
I could ask why he is here or what's gotten into him but as my thoughts race to come up with something to say Keitaro seemingly reads my mind and begins to talk. "Let's just say I have had a long time to think over my reasons as to why I have come back. I honestly thought I could be happy with her Motoko I truly did. But in the last two years it has fallen apart. Naru has completely pushed me away from her so much that she won't even allow me to touch her. I thought it was for something I had done but always she would insist that it wasn't me it was her. We went to counseling and everything, yet nothing changed. It drove me to the point where I even attempted suicide…"
He pauses here and I gasp in horror. Yet he holds his fingers to my lips to silence me. "I did it right in front of her Motoko. I told her that if she wasn't going to love me and this if life with me was so bad that I would free her of me right then and there. I took out a 50 cal. Desert Eagle which I had purchased on a dig in Saudi Arabia chambered a round and placed the barrel within my mouth. The only thing that stopped me was the double action trigger and words that came out of her mouth… I'm dying Keitaro.
She ran into me tearing the gun away from me crying hysterically beating my chest for scaring her so… Its Cancer she said, Ovarian Cancer non operational as well as a tumor deep within her brain which was non aggressive until one month ago. I asked her why she didn't tell me and her answer was that she did not want to burden me… and that if she pushed me away when her time came it wouldn't be so hard because we wouldn't have been so close."
There are tears rolling down his cheeks now and my mind is in complete and total shock at what he has told me. "We came back here because Naru always loved it here… she wanted to be around her best friends as her time drew near and I'm not supposed to tell any one of her condition." Keitaro is practically sobbing now as he tries to tell me of Naru's condition. I pull him close to me and wrap my arms around him in comfort. Tears of my own stroll down my cheek as I ask him where Naru was now looking into his brown eyes I see the pure anguish within him as he carefully says the four small words that railed me.
"She didn't make it."
