A/N: When I wrote Prologue, I meant to write this, as a companion fic, but it's taken a while. Finally, here it is. Enjoy, please! (I tried to get the dates right; please let me know if I made a mistake!)
Dedication: To all my LJ friends and communities!
Epilogue
soumanyon
2045 Mallepa. Forty-four years since Luka died. Thirty-one years since I first met Sho. Twenty years since since Toshi died. Eleven years since Shinji died. Eleven years since Son died. Eleven years since Yi-Che died. Eleven years since Sho died. Eleven years since I last saw him. Eleven years on my own, raising his daughter, the promise I made him, the curse he left me: the curse of living.
There are so many regrets, so many might-have-beens and it was those that were passing through my head as Hana found me in the part that night, the night before her trip, her venture into the real world by herself. I wouldn't be with her this time.
Why do I love torturing myself with conditionals? If I could do it all over again, I would tell Toshi. Then he would have known not to bother jumping in front of me that rainy day in the park. But it didn't work out that way. Toshi didn't know I was a vampire, that I was immortal, and that bullets wouldn't kill me.
So the idiot died for me. His death was completely useless. He wasted his life on a vampire. How would his mother feel knowing that? I saw her that day in the park, sitting on a bench in front of the brand new mural by herself, waiting hopelessly for the son that would never show up. The son whose blood was being washed from the grass, only a few meters from that hopeful, radiant mural.
If Toshi didn't die that day, maybe my friendship with Sho could've lasted, just a while longer. Or maybe not. His attraction to Yi-Che had overwhelmed our friendship since he first saw her, back when I was still in despairing denial that I had lost him, and so quickly.
If I could do it all over again, I wouldn't have gone to the warehouse that day. Then we would've avoided that entire encounter with Son and Yi-Che.
But even so, Sho would still be burdened with me, the dead weight at his side, forever holding him back from the dreams he's capable of realizing.
Luka would still be dead. My fault, again. If I could do it all over again, I wouldn't have doomed Luka, my best friend, to share my eternal hell.
Or if I could do it all over again, I would have avoided him and never give him the chance to damn me. Or was it me who corrupted him?
How far back would I go, if I had the chance? Would I wish that I had never been born? If I could trade my entire life in, the good and the bad, for a chance to deny my own existence, would I do it? Do the bad times really outweigh the good by so much?
Unanswerable questions, but they're the only things that occupy my mind now.
She knew what would happen, it was written in her expression as she met my gaze but she banished it with a smile and I was proud of her. She's a strong-spirited girl, like her father, and for that I was glad. But I had to look away. I was guilty for abandoning her, even if she understood.
Her smile didn't waver as she skipped over to me, still very much the cheerful little girl she's always been, only grown up now.
"Thank you for all you've done, Kei." She bowed low, polite as ever. That was her mother. Sho had never bothered with formalities.
I smirked, remembering our first meeting which had been initiated by his attempt to liberate me of my watch.
"Skip the speech," I snorted and she nodded with an embarrassed laugh. It was awkward for both of us. So many things unsaid, but known. Maybe we felt obligated to keep up pretenses, just in case the other still miraculously believed the illusions. Hana knew that despite my promises to write, she wouldn't get any letters once she arrived at her new home.
So I went with what convention dictates should be said in such circumstances by a fatherly figure. I instructed her to study hard, paint well, and wished her luck with a condescending pat on the head that she endured only because it would be the last one.
It was good that she left then. She was excited to go, I could tell, but I didn't want her to leave yet. The feeling struck me all of a sudden as she thanked me, so obviously an adult now. I missed the little girl she once was, clinging to me while calling painfully for her father.
Even though she and I had never had the closest friendship, we were fond of each other. We only had each other in the world and she had learned to love me like a father while I eventually managed to look at her without always seeing Sho in her, except once in a while.
She was the only thing keeping me alive—the curse Sho had left for me. He knew I wouldn't leave a child to fend for herself on the streets of Mallepa. But even so, she'd soon be an orphan, officially, without even an older sibling to take care of her.
I wanted her to stay. I wanted to keep the pretenses that had lasted us through these eleven years with only each other.
But it was hopeless, of course. Humans age, she had to move on someday, past the dead weight that I've become—holding her back. Humans have the bittersweet pleasure of aging.
But as she walked off, bouquet in hand, the moment passed and I realized my own idiocy. Everything had already been prepared for weeks. The apartment in Mallepa had been signed over to her name and all of the funds from my bank account transferred to hers. It would be enough to keep her a lifetime, even if she never picked up a brush again.
It isn't all mine. I gave up risks after a scared little girl was signed over to me, like some unwanted package. The money was Toshi's and Shinji's, Son's and Yi-Che's and Sho's. Hana is Yi-Che and Sho's daughter, but we all raised her. Isn't it interesting that such a scarred, hapless group could produce so wonderful a child?
Finally, she was gone and I went to the mural to check if he was there, the person I hadn't dared believe was still alive, after all these years.
It was him, of course—Sho. He looked just like he did eleven years ago, as beautiful as ever. But even without a single grey hair or wrinkle, I could tell he had aged. His eyes stared with a dark smoulder unseeingly into space and I shuddered.
This was what he had become, my Sho, my precious Sho. I wanted to drop to my knees, beg his forgiveness; anything, anything that would get rid of the guilt. But instead, I stopped next to him, calmly, casually, as if I was as indifferent to his presence as he was to mine.
"Great, isn't it?" he murmured, as if talking to himself. I think he was.
"She's her mother's girl." He continued, and I almost sighed out loud. If Sho had been around, he would have seen just how much his daughter Hana was. She was an artist like Yi-Che, but her spirit, her optimism, and her strength, everything that mattered were all Sho's.
But I didn't say that, not any of it. No reason to make him more guilty that he already was. I don't know what could have kept him away for so long. After the first few years, I was sure he was dead. There was no way that he could stubborn enough, hate me enough to abandon his own daughter, was there? But I started to reconsider.
The first few weeks, the first few months, I made up so many scenarios, what I'd say to him when he came back. I thought he needed time to cool off, understandably. But winter rolled around, and then spring again. A couple years had gone by waiting for him until I finally decided to try and find out where he had gone.
But I had no connections. That had been Toshi's job and there wasn't a friendly face in Mallepa beyond Hana's. It was impossible to track Sho, but I wonder if most of that wasn't his own doing.
So of course his return took me completely off guard. I hadn't thought he was alive, much less that he would come back the day before I had decided to die. He must have been watching us for a while now and knew me well enough still to know that I didn't have much time left. That I wouldn't allow myself much more time. I'd like to believe that he finally showed himself to wish me a last goodbye, but it was probably to see Hana one last time, before she left Mallepa to make her own fortune.
I didn't know what to say, after Sho went silent, so I burst out with the only thing I could think of, the question that had been haunting my soul for eleven, no, eighteen years. I stared at him, trying to gauge his expression while his gaze was firmly set on the mural. But the mask I had first seen eleven years ago had solidified to an impenetrable stone wall now and my heart ached for my open, carefree Sho.
"Are you still mad at me?"
His response was a disappointing evasion and as much as I wanted to believe it, I couldn't. Not when he still refused to even look at me.
"You cared for Hana all these years." His voice was soft, thoughtful, so much more mature than he'd been. I wondered how he'd earned that maturity. "I'm not mad."
"It's just…" and there was the smallest, hopeful crack in his mask, in his soft, low voice. "I couldn't do it." I think he finally dared to look at me for the shortest second, before walking away again, leaving to follow him, to catch up if I could.
"I couldn't take what I'd become. Didn't want her to see me like that." He turned towards me, maybe to gauge my reaction to his comment, which sounded so familiar. The same sentiments I had repeated to him so many times when we were young. It was disconcerting to hear them echoed back by the same man who'd firmly denied my self-loathing before. I didn't like the feeling. I didn't like the tension between us.
"That's why you didn't come back? You've always been so selfish." I tried for a light tone, again his mentor, the one he looked up to. But he didn't fall for it.
"Look who's talking." He turned and walked away from me again. And I knew that even if he claimed he wasn't mad, he didn't forgive me, and most likely never would. "What about you?"
I snorted softly even as I felt a clenching on my heart at the accusatory words, so softly spoken in so familiar a voice but laced with so new and strange a poison. It hit hard and the pain reverberated. It was true. His suffering was all my fault and there was no excuse or explanation except for my own selfishness.
I sat down, deciding to change the subject before giving him any more openings. He hardly needed my help, but I knew I deserved all the hate he could heap on, and more. Still, I was weak and had always been. It was my weakness after all that had doomed first Luka and then Sho.
"Can I ask you something?" I took his silence as assent. I had to ask him.
"That day, if we'd made it, would we have done the same to Yi-Che?"
It wasn't a gloating question at all. Any trace of good humor I had had was firmly deflated by the fact that Sho didn't forgive me, and mostly likely never would. Or, at least, I wouldn't have the chance to see the day. It was getting late. I'd have to leave soon, if I wanted to make it to the beach before sunrise.
"I don't know." I almost sighed. Another evasion. Why did he keep evading me? I longed for the trust we used to have. I figured that if I tossed him a cigarette now, he wouldn't be able to catch it between his fingers. "But I'm glad we didn't. Now."
I sighed before taking a deep, painful breath. The clenching around my chest wouldn't let go. It was hard to breathe and my eyes might have been tearing from my inability to take a breath. Or maybe the tears were for so thoroughly killing a thing of beauty. Sho's spirit, where was it?
He would rather watched Yi-Che die than give her the half-life that I had given him. He conceded to my foolishness, my mistake, and that he might have done the same. But he was glad he hadn't had the chance to, unlike me. I had cursed him. And he finally admitted to seeing it my way. He would have rather let her die than become a vampire.
I realized then that the last thing I could give to him was my death, and his.
"Want to go to the beach?"
Maybe I could even grant him the gift of seeing me, the one who had cursed him, die before his eyes before he himself faded away. I hoped that it would happen that way. I didn't want to see Sho die again.
He led the way to his car, a pretty little white convertible and we began our sedate drive to the beach. It was interesting how calm and level-headed Sho had become. It was as if he reverted back to his childhood personality again, quiet, shy, introverted. I guess it was my influence that brought out his other side. But now he was closed up again.
I closed my eyes from the painful sight. I hated how the sight of Sho brought pain to my heart now. We were supposed to be the best and closest of friends.
"I'm so tired. Let me sleep a little."
But for whatever reason was swirling in his impenetrable mind, he started to sing, murmur, really, an old, familiar song. Just a single line, the first line. I can't believe he still remembers. There must be something about that song.
Finally we arrived at the beach, some time before sunrise with nothing to do but wait for our deaths.
I suddenly remembered something I had planned weeks beforehand. I had planned to die seeing Sho's smiling face, back when the memories of his rejection of me had faded after more than a decade.
I fished around in my jacket for it before pulling it out: the photo.
I didn't know if Sho even remembered it, but I guess he did, because his expression completely changed after seeing it, seeing our smiling faces.
When I rediscovered it in his old belongings after taking custody of Hana, I had had a mixture of pain, betrayal, and regrets before I could gaze upon it as fondly as he did now. But Sho was always a gentle soul. My heart soared impossibly high when I saw that there was some of that left in him. A vampire with a soul is a rare thing.
I clipped it on the dashboard so that that brilliant moment would be last thing that either of us saw. I didn't want to see Sho die and now I wondered if he wanted to see my death either. Death brings peace, I suppose. No one wants to die with hatred in their hearts. Fond nostalgia of love and what it felt like to be loved are much friendlier.
I felt myself smile and as I looked over at him, I saw that he was almost smiling with me. It was beautiful. I couldn't have asked for a more beautiful setting.
And then, slowly, but not slowly or quickly enough, the first tendrils of light crept over the dark line of the horizon. They were weak at first and we strained to see them but after a while, there was no mistaking them.
Our eyes adjusted with them but even so, it was blinding at first. Sho had been living in darkness for eleven years and I had been in the dark for much longer than that.
And then as we first started feeling the burning itch of the sunlight on our skin, his hand slipped into mine and I looked down at our intertwined fingers, startled.
"Kei," he said suddenly, his voice unwavering even though his hand was cold and trembling. I tightened my fingers around his own, marveling at how his hand, which had once been so small and delicate as it reached for my watch, now enveloped mine. It was so good to have the contact again, after so long.
"Here comes the sun."
I nodded, squeezing his hand comfortingly, reassuringly. Just like before.
Yuugure ni kimi to mita orenji no taiyou
Nakisou na kao wo shite eien no sayonara.
fin