Lolita Chapter 5: Act V, a loveless fanfic

Lolita

By Jia Zhang

Act V

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you a most inviting conclusion to a twisted love story, and the ending of the queer history of a House with many lies and many secrets. Exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied.

I present to you butterflies on green leaves, dewdrops resting on lush grass, the lurid crimson of a sullen rose, and a tangle of thorns.

Agatsuma Soubi has always been known to be a very queer man, not quite ordinary, not quite extraordinary, but simply bizarre. Many were deeply astonished that such an accomplished man as Aoyagi Seimei would choose him to be the caretaker of not only the grand Aoyagi House, but also the guardian of the only Aoyagi remaining—a beautiful butterfly child named Ritsuka. Many questioned Seimei's choice of guardianship for Ritsuka, but no one said a word of objection—after all, it was Master Seimei's decree. He was always held so intelligent a man; aesthetic, talented, brilliant in all his right. Yet, he, so brilliant a man, should make such a terrible judgment so late in his ill-fated life. Perhaps it was his belief that Soubi could protect Ritsuka that doomed his most lovely younger brother, or perhaps it was Seimei's belief that Ritsuka could do the impossible request of continuing something even Seimei despised.

Or perhaps, it was his belief that Ritsuka, a sweet and innocent child, who held a smile that burned more potent than the dazzling Sun, could ever hold a devious bone in his small, fragile body. Nonetheless, it was Seimei's choice and his mistake and his consequence; and thus, in his grave would he weep for the tragedy that unfolded six feet above.

Seimei was barely seven and forty-days when he met the infamous professor, Ritsu. His beloved brother was still a toddling infant of two, with cheeks of a button pink. Even from such a young age, Seimei was not a normal child, and later on in his life he would be described as having the body of Dionysian youth, and the mind of an ancient prophet; his intellect exceeded his age by nearly six decades, and so it would be that from a young age he found Ritsu-sensei to be a troubling man, and more or less the mirrored replica of his sinfully hateful mother. Seimei knew it would be futile that he should scorn Ritsu-sensei, or anyone in fact, but it did not make him any less vigilant about his friends and his enemies, for there was barely a wall erected between the two domains.

The eldest Aoyagi heir had met Ritsu-sensei a month before the family's annual Winter Gala (previously hosted by his wicked mother), when the good professor had come to visit. It had not been the first occasion where Ritsu-sensei should visit the Aoyagi manor, but it would be the prime juncture where Seimei saw the be-spectacled, silver-haired man. He was often adorned in white—white suit, white shirt, white tie—he was the picture of an Angel fallen from Heaven, his eyes the deep blue of the distant sky, his hair the silver of the moon. He was beloved by as many as he was hated, but it was known to all that Mrs. Aoyagi had been his most favourite of all people. At the time.

Ritsu-sensei always had the same task every rotation of the gala—he was a brilliant storyteller, and his travels in America and Europe provided a fascinating setting for his tales. Children adored this pretentious professor, loved him for his extravagancy and his tenderness. But Seimei always avoided Ritsu-sensei and the galas as much as he could (before he himself became its master and host); he would spend time in the manor's lusciously grand libraries, if his mother had not forced him to entertain the guests. Sometimes, if he could, he would sneak away to visit his darling little brother, read him a book, and put him to bed. Ritsuka's presence at the Winter Gala was never welcomed.

Ritsuka was six years of age when he was first allowed to see the gala; his elder brother had insisted with his mother that he should at least visit the gala. Ritsuka did not stay as long as the others that evening, but it would be the first time that he should meet the illustrious professor. Ritsu's first impression of the youngest Aoyagi child was much or less in the same circle as the thoughts of Ritsuka's future guardian, Soubi. He was held a magnificently beautiful child, with rich ebony hair, sparkling like blackened diamonds; his eyes were the shade of a tempting mauve, twin gems that were much more dazzling than whichever set of stones; his skin was softer than silk, and pale and pink as the bud of a cherry rose. Ritsuka was always a thing of beauty, a creature out of fables and myths holding this incomprehensible loveliness. It would be with one charming smile that Ritsuka trapped the idiosyncratic professor, just as he would ensnare Soubi in six years to come.

The be-spectacled teacher held Ritsuka as a prize, the most delicious of all the sinful fruits, and ripe for eating, his juices evermore sweet and his meat most tender. To those who chose to see, Ritsu always held the young boy with the most gentle affection, touching his shoulder or his hand so softly that it would seem an utterly innocent gesture of fondness. But of course, the sampling of any wildly luscious dessert would taint the mind and poison the senses, and so the good professor would come to desire more and more of the Pomegranate.

Perhaps the only person who ever noticed the licentious gaze of the professor was Seimei. He knew that gaze, was all too familiar with it, having his mother shower that look upon him like a ray of glittering coloured sequences. He was too familiar with the entrapment of that gaze, the poison of those desires, and the corruption of the body and the mind. He did not want his most innocently sweet brother to fall under the same disastrous consequences as he. Seimei always held Ritsu in a distant regard, and even after the death of his damned mother, he found that he was somehow unable to severe Ritsu from his brother's life. It was the only task that Seimei regretted in his life of having been done in vain.

And so, when he became ill, Seimei knew that he must find the right person to look after his beloved younger brother, and to be wary of Ritsu. Initially, he had chosen Doctor Katsuko as the guardian of Ritsuka, but knew that despite the doctor's tender love and honest care for his brother, she held no power or will that could spurn Ritsu's already potent influence on Ritsuka (which had been concreted during the legacy of his mother). Then, one day, he was reminded of his old school friend, Agatsuma Soubi, the very queer artist. Soubi was a rather sudden choice, chosen by Seimei only three days before his death, so the oldest Aoyagi had not recognized the jeopardy of the silver-haired artist being Ritsuka's guardian. Seimei did much to consider those who should take care of his younger brother, but never did he consider how Ritsuka would influence them, for Seimei never knew the obscured metamorphosis of his younger brother.

It was this fault that Seimei would grieve of in his most humble home with the worms.

The night of Soubi's first Winter Gala, he met Ritsu-sensei in much the same manner as Seimei, with a handshake and an unsettling tumbling of butterflies in his stomach. The man sent inane shivers across Soubi's skin, a feeling he could not understand, but he knew, as Seimei had, that Ritsu-sensei was a troubling man, and one you could not trust. For the majority of the evening, Soubi did not take his eyes off the professor, and watched him with hawk eyes as he interacted with the guests. What made Soubi quake with loathing was the professor's relation with his beloved Ritsuka. His touches disturbed Soubi, but unlike Seimei, he could not comprehend the gaze in which the professor held Ritsuka in, and that was perhaps because Soubi held Ritsuka with the same set of eyes.

That evening, because of all the busy rustling of champagne glasses and people, the azure-eyed artist lost site of his young lover; from behind his spectacles he searched for the ebony haired boy, but could not find him—Ritsuka had diminished into the flood of people. For a moment Soubi began to worry that something may have happened to Ritsuka, for the last person whom Soubi had seen him with was a certain silver-haired professor. The artist gritted his teeth in anxiety, moving through the pool of bodies, desperately trying to locate twin gems of mauve. Suddenly, he saw past the velvet curtains of the gala to the terrace. He saw a trembling Doctor Katsuko on the floor, her hand held tightly over her mouth. Soubi felt his bleeding heart stop between his lungs at the sight of her—something was wickedly wrong. He rushed to the doctor's side, but she did not seem to notice his presence. Her eyes were glistened dewdrops, her breath was deep and haunting, her hands held firmly over her mouth. Those eyes did not leave the comfort of the floor, and finally, after a million seconds in time, Soubi chose to wake the doctor from her deluded nightmare.

"Katsuko-san?"

Katsuko looked up at him with a frightful shock, her eyes like that of a deer caught in the splendid trap of a violent automobile. She seemed as if she didn't recognize Soubi, her hands trembling over her mouth, her shoulders shuddering as if the Earth quaked beneath her. The sandy-haired doctor peered at Soubi with scrutiny, until suddenly, her eyes flashed with a laborious realization. She quickly stood up, looking around the terrace almost desperately, yet her whole body still shook with fright.

Soubi gazed at her queer behaviour. This was not normal. He had met Katsuko-sensei a few times over the course of his guardianship, for Ritsuka had always insisted that Soubi come along with him to his sessions. During the occasions where Soubi obeyed the child's incessant demands, Soubi had always found Katsuko to be a very unique woman, intelligent, perceptive and outspoken, and she was not one to be terrified so easily, as she appeared now in this state of near lunacy. The putrid stench of something fiendish flowed within the tepid evening air.

"Where's Ritsuka?" spoke the doctor, her voice anxious and alarmed. She suddenly stopped her haphazard rampage on the terrace to gaze at Soubi with a pair of troubled orbs.

"I'm sorry, Katsuko-san, but I was looking for him as well," Soubi replied calmly. "I saw him moments ago with Ritsu-san, but I seemed to have lost him amongst the crowd."

The blood drained from Katsuko's face till she was a pale manikin of white ash; she stood before Soubi, lifeless like a granite statue, but her eyes born a fear that Soubi had never seen in his life.

"W-what?" she said disbelievingly. "He's with Ritsu…?"

But before the azure-eyed man could speak, the good doctor lost her equilibrium and crashed against the stone floor beneath her and the sky rumbled and thunder up above her. Katsuko's whole body shook, her hands trembled and her eyes were filmed over with water. She lifted a tremulous hand to her mouth, and whispered haunting, "Seimei…you fool, you fool…"

"Katsuko-san?" questioned Soubi anxious, going down to his knees. "What's wrong? Is Ritsuka in trouble?"

A weak and pathetic smile danced on Katsuko's lips. "You fool, Seimei," she repeated, her head gave a violent motion of side to side, "you absolute fool. You fool, you fool of a man." She then turned with a poignant sloth towards Soubi, the smile never leaving her lips, but never touching her eyes. "You're having an affair with him aren't you?"

The inquiry shocked Soubi's bones with electricity. "Katsuko-san? What do you mean? I don't understand…"

It was so sudden that she came forth like the flash of a sharp samurai sword, her hands digging into the flesh of Soubi's arms. Her eyes bore such a desperation—an odd mixture of fear and anguish. "Don't lie to me, Soubi-kun, you're sleeping with him. With Ritsuka."

The sudden revelation crashed down from the sky against the Earth, breaking into the mold of mud and soil, cracking the already weak foundation. The glorious storm that brewed in the hazy, obscured part of a gray horizon split into the ground with a violent force no seraph or saint could ever hold against; and up in the folded covers of black, momentary explosions of white light flashed inside the womb of the storm. The rain would come soon, it would come soon and wash away all things both hideous and beautiful, and it would not care for those lovely butterflies on leaves. The thunderstorm would break open the sky, and smash little knives down on the world, and all that would be left in the morn is a sepulcher of butterfly bones amongst a lattice of thorns.

Agatsuma Soubi's body froze into an iceberg at her words, the violent electricity of fear coursing through his throbbing veins. But his tongue and his lips felt too much like concrete for them to move and articulate his apprehension and confusion at her disclosure. He did not wince as her nails dug half-moons of crimson into his flesh, nor he did cry out at the pressure her fingers exposed upon his bones. He stood silent before her, an immobile state of marble perfection. There was a scar in the stone.

"You're sleeping with him…" Katsuko continued without an answer. "I know you are; Ritsuka told me so. But he didn't even have to tell me. You're sleeping with him, and you don't even have the sagacity to keep him away from that sick bastard." She laughed pathetically. "Just like Seimei…you fool, you absolute fool."

"Katsuko-san…"

The pressure pounded on his brain.

"You have no idea, do you?" She laughed in a haunting, taunting, broken jester's voice. "You're were just as easily manipulated. But even Seimei couldn't see, and God, I had to see it for myself!" She looked as if she would weep.

"Katsuko-san, you're not making any sense."

"I know you've been sleeping with that boy, I know." She gritted her teeth. "You vile…how could you? He's just a child! What would Seimei say? What would he say? You were supposed to protect him…" She lapsed into silence. "But you couldn't…Why?"

The azure eyed man looked at her painfully, and spoke to her honestly. "I love him."

She gazed back, with eyes of such evocative anguish. "You are a fool for doing so."

"How can you say that? I'm wrong for loving him, I know, but I am not a fool for loving him. He's all that I have been searching for, all that I have ever wanted to see, and I would die happy knowing I've met him and loved him."

"You fool…you absolute fool. Can't you see? You can't. Just like Seimei. Just like him."

The words crashed against his brain, and a convulsion of realization came forth into existence. Then, the world split in halves, and the pounding between his brains came to an astonishing halt. His eyes widened in not only recognition, but also a cruel fairytale understanding. He felt his world melt away like burnt cotton candy, the bits of pink fraying into the dirty earth of the carnival ground as raindrops of light danced in the ebony of the evening. Perhaps, far away, a jester with hand full of multi-coloured balloons boomed with frightful laughter as he outstretched his hand towards you, beckoning you into that disturbed wonderland. The carnival symphony sung a wicked tune, and you could not escape its gravity. As azure peered into brown, an eruption occurred.

Soubi brutally pushed Katsuko aside as he ran from the terrace. His stomach churned with nauseous comprehension. He swam through the ocean of bodies, his eyes burning from the sparkling chandelier fires and the crushing force of the mountain of voices and noises. The breath and the scream hitched in his throat and made a home; he could not breath, nor could he make sense of anything. The gleaming gala whirled before his eyes, a mesh of colours—bright gold, soft silver, and an ominous white. The music of the strings shrieked in trill, but was drowned in the imprudent laughter of the crowd. Amidst the confusion, the obscured visions, and the stabbing of his wretched, wretched heart, Soubi made his way through the crowd, fumbling, tumbling, nearly falling, but making his way from the grand room and into the infinite stretches of hallways, and the swirling vertigo staircases. He went up the layers of stairs, traveling inside a fantastic cake-world of icing and sweetness, up and up and down and up, through the labyrinth passageways of a blasphemous House, and up the levels of this impregnable catacomb. Only one pounding suggestion ringed inside his brain, and it became the sole cure for this incessant illness of the mind that festered at the corners of his mentality. He opened a thousand, thousand doors, and saw a thousand, thousand rooms—but all that lay before him were empty carcasses.

Then—

Voici la porte!

The final door, his own most sacrosanct asylum.

He touched the golden knob, and released a most vile reality.

"…Ritsuka."

A most beautiful creature stared back at the azure-eyed man, a thing of white porcelain skin, and supple ebony hair, and it was so fragile a thing that it seemed as if it would shatter into a million, million pieces if it were ever touched. A pair of wide, exquisite mauve jewels stared at Soubi in odd curiousity. Aoyagi Ritsuka stood in the vast room; standing in nothing but an exceedingly outsized white shirt, touching the edges of his hips, the sleeves reaching over his hands. And he stared at Soubi, with only a peculiar interest, but he was neither startled by his sudden invitation into the room, nor was he shy about the state of his dress. He simply stood there, motionless, one hand held up against one of the soft pallet of colours of Soubi's many paintings.

"Soubi…"

The single word emitted from his mouth sent the azure-eyed man into a dazed frenzy. He grabbed the boy roughly, flinging him onto the bed. Ritsuka did not speak; only quietly giggle as his body fell upon the bed. Soubi pinned him down, pressing his body against the boy, running a hand between his smooth, tender legs. A small moan and a small laugh irrupted from Ritsuka as Soubi felt within him; the pale, translucent ivory lapped on his hand, still warm and fresh, smelling of something poisonous and wicked. Soubi's eyes widened in realization as he gazed down at his small lover. His wretched heart convulsed at the painful comprehension.

"Why…" he asked, his voice nearly broken, haunted, tormented that he could barely speak.

And Ritsuka smiled a little smile, a dazzlingly beautiful smile, timid, yet knowing, innocent, yet holding this forbidden guile; and he reached up, brushing the silver from Soubi's tortured orbs, planting a butterfly kiss upon his lips.

"He promised to take me away," he spoke. "He promised he would take me away from here. I asked you to, but you wouldn't. Just like Seimei. I need to get away, I have to fly away. I can't stay here, I can't, and I won't. I have to leave Soubi, I have to go. I can't stay in this House any longer—I'll die, and you're not strong enough to take me away."

"I love you…"

He smiled. "I know, and perhaps if it weren't for this place, weren't for my mother, I would have loved you as I should have."

Azure stones narrowed in quaking anguish. "Did you care at all? Did you ever love me?" He slipped his fingers inside, feeling the softness and the warmth of the flesh.

Ritsuka moaned gently, reached up to take the man's face in his hands, kissing him cruelly tender. "Ah—you are my everything…Ah! But…but even with that, I have to leave, and you won't let me. I'm not just your butterfly; I can't be your pinned little prize. He promised to take me away, to America, or France, and…Ah! Ah! I need to leave. I hate this place, I've always hated this place, and my hatred is so much stronger than my love. For…hn…so long, mother's trapped me here, inside this delirious tomb. I have to escape this House, this name…Hn, ah…Seimei…expected me to follow in his footsteps, but I won't. He promised to take me away…he promised to let me be free…"

He gasped for air, his small body shuddering from pleasure as he was entered and filled. "…Soubi?"

"I won't let him take you. I won't."

"Ah! Ah! Y-You can't! Hn…"

Soubi kissed him on the mouth, and the eyes, and his cheeks, before whispering so softly in his ear. "I'm sorry. I won't let you go."

Je t'aime.

Je t'aime, mon beau papillon.

Mon lolita précieux.

He tilted his hips, and slowly thrust into the boy with a haunting rhythmic beat as a tumbling of wonderfully immature noises sang from the child's lips. Ritsuka gasped for air, for comfort, for stillness, for assurance, for love—he grabbed onto Soubi's shirt, his small hands digging into the fabric. The kisses were maddening and frantic, ecstatic desires that the body could no more be a weir against or fill this obscured wanting. There was pain, and love, and pain, and love, and the most delicious part of a ripened fruit, the juices flowing against the tongue and the lips with a wicked sensation, saturating all the blood of the veins that coursed so powerfully through the body. The pleasure was not pleasure alone, but a tormented fight of two lovers, entangled and trapped in their own wonderfully farcical affair. In this moment of pleasure and pain and flesh and desire, they fought with need of possession, of escape, of the most obscured part of their mad rapport. Soubi kissed his small lover passionately, opening his mouth to taste all of him; he gently moved inside, hearing the desperate moans of the boy as his hands grabbed onto his arms.

What was becoming of them? Their love had frayed away, burnt into precious silver embers by their own incorrigibility.

Shall they die now, in their most licentiously enchanting moment, and drown in that night forever?

No, no…Non, non, mon amour. The story is not that simple.

Voici l'objet exposé le numéro deux.

Exhibit number two; a madman's notions can only lead to disaster, and all the world is a stage for the fabulous tragedy to unfold in a five act play. There is the naïve jester, the troubled history of a troubled ghost, the most beautiful of all lovely butterflies, and the sullen hero, who carries a bloody sword within his heart, which only his most exquisite lover can repress. Of course, all this is hidden away in the setting of a marvelously historical manor, a deliriously beautiful place, with as much lies as there are maids and hands. Was a Shakespearean tale introduced? No, dear love, just a simple tragedy, and tragedies are right as rain, and just as often, for it is in humanity to be tragic, pathetic, lethargic, idiosyncratic, and most of all!—eclectic.

Such is the sin of being human.

And so, our fevered hero continues his descend into a most tragic state of affairs.

In his quiet blue room, folded white clothes littered the four-poster bed and Victorian chairs as Ritsu prepared for his departure from the grand gala. The guest were downstairs, dancing their macabre waltz to the sound of a haunting melody; but Ritsu-sensei hurried for his escape and kidnap of a beautiful butterfly child, and the anticipation of that exodus was eating away at his fortitude like some disastrous infection that rotted the flesh. Quickly, quickly, his movements waltzing to the music; he gathered his things, placing them scrupulously into the black leather cases; the good professor's mind was clear, but disarrayed with passion for a fruit he only moments ago had swallowed whole and enjoyed thoroughly. But this was not a time for the rekindling of that chapter of possession, obsession and passion, where the libido consumed the ego, as Freud would say, and the blasphemous desires of the flesh became all too unbearable; this was not a time for memorabilia—it was a time for action, to act and move so quickly, to disappear and fade into anonymity with that exquisite, porcelain boy before it was noticed by anyone. He must be careful; he must be swift.

That azure-eyed guardian would not emancipate him so effortlessly (and then there was that god forsaken psychiatrist); Ritsu knew this, understood this, for he himself would never gratis that child with the alabaster skin—he was much too expensive a doll to just be given away. Azure stones were too much like sapphire gems, after all.

The White One pauses for a moment, his deep, sapphire eyes peering at a few chronicles of papers and notes he had jotted down on paper—poetry, lyrics, sonnets, and other assortments from the grotto of his mind. The professor felt the fabric of paper beneath his fingertips, the rough and smooth textured skin and contrast of black ink against white. Behind his ears, the sound of Giuseppe Tartini's Devil's Trill resonated through the thick, white plaster walls. The music trembled vehemently, with a cruel ardor that was nearly incomprehensible, quaking every bone within Ritsu's body, sending his blood pulsing through his veins.

Then—the music got louder. And a door opened; Hamlet wanted his revenge—the beginnings of a tragedy was set.

Ritsu turned.

"Ah. Soubi-kun." He smiled rather sardonically. "How nice to see you."

The man did not say anything.

"Care for a smoke?" he asked nonchalantly; he patted his pockets, and prepared to turn away to the suitcase to fetch a little smoking gun.

"Down!" Soubi suddenly shouted, the abrupt command shocking Ritsu-sensei onto the bed. He sat there, amused, bemused, staring at Soubi carefully.

"You need not roar at me, Soubi-kun. Just wanted a smoke. Dying for a smoke."

"You're dying, anyways."

Ritsu laughed, his voice ringing as he got up nonchalantly, "You really are beginning to bore me, Soubi-kun, and I've always thought you a fascinating man from what Ritsuka has told me. None the matter. Let's see—" He continued fretting over the packaging of the assortment of clothes. He noticed the dark little weapon lying inside Soubi's palm, a gift of ascension to the gods.

"You're kidnapping him."

"I am not! You're all wet. I'm saving him from a beastly pervert. I am not responsible for the rape of others. Absurd. Oh, but that joy ride!—he shall love Paris, wonderfully magnificent city. Vous voilà dans de beaux draps, mon vieux." He shuffled his clothing into his case.

"You took advantage."

"Pardon?"

"Because you took advantage of a sinner
because you took advantage
because you took
because you took advantage of my disadvantage…"

The further shuffling of papers and clothes, and clothes and papers, and the tumbling and rolling.

"That's good, you know. Very good, verse, always verse, prosaic, well done."

"…when I stood Adam-naked
because you took advantage of a sin
when I was helpless moulting moist and tender
hoping for the best
dreaming of marriage in a mountain state
aye of a litter of butterflies."

"Yes, well done, grand stuff! You're best poem, as far as I'm concerned."

"Because you took advantage of my inner
essential innocence
because you cheated me—
Because you cheated me of my redemption
because you took him, waxed-eyed,
bejeweled thing of envy and spite,
playing with a flock of papillon in a field
of awfulness of love and violets
remorse and despair, while you
tore a dull doll to pieces
and threw its head away
casting a broken, fangled thing into
the fringes of obscurity
because of all you did
because of all I did not
you have to die…" (1)

The dark little demon saw light; the bloody sword within his heart stood erect, poised to invite itself into the flesh of the enemy.

"You have to die."

Feu. They attacked each other, their bodies struggling for domination over that black little monster, rolling along the ground, around and around as if the room spiraled like a mad carousel while downstairs remained a fervent carousal, the violins shrieking of the Devil's trilled symphony, and they tumbled and fumbled, and roused and hurled themselves at each other like animals, desperate for dominance, for control and lack of control of control, rolling over one another like two large, helpless children, playing some deluded game; and he rolled over him, and he rolled over him, and they rolled over him, and he rolled over them, and they rolled over them.

Soubi grabbed the black weapon, lunging away from Ritsu. The two men stood before one another; staring at their reflections. One mirror smiled, and broke, while the other stood so casually still—and thunder boomed! And bang! The world burst—the gun exploded, and blood was flung onto the bleached, alabaster walls, staining hues of red and pink and strawberry, and that crimson liquor gushed like a flood upon the carpet, pouring into a large ocean of red dye. And bang!—another shot, into the flesh and the chest, and reality stood still, and yet another bang!—and the blood soaked the ground, and inundated around the azure-man, he who stood silent and still with that black demon in his hand as the room was dissolved into that hideous red colour.

Time became a specter, and sound became a disillusioned dream. The gun burned with a fanatical array of gray smoke; and Soubi stared, stuck between a rock and reality, unsure if the bleeding, dying man before him was really real, was truly real and not a fabrication of his own insanity—yes, yes, it was truly a man, a real man, whose blood hemorrhaged from his lungs, that crude liquid performing an asphyxiation on the last remains of the good professor's soul. And slowly, slowly, Soubi watched, that handsome weapon in his hands, the blood staining his cheeks—and he watched that man, that honest and real man, die.

Soubi watched as Soubi died.

La mort d'un miroir.

Écoutez…

…vous entendez ce symphonie tragique?

Il blesse.

Oh, mon papillon…how your wings are charred black, how you lay in the dust of the catacombs of this wretched romance.

All over the floor was the blood of a dead man—that gruesome colour painting a grotesque portrait on the carpet, a twisted tale of lust and wanting. Soubi sat upon the stained carpet ground, that perverse black demon still humming of heat from the solitary bullet that was given birth to; his back was juxtaposed against the silken wall with an enervated ease; his azure eyes gazed at the blood, at all that ocean of red, with a disheartening gaze. He felt numb, his ears still unable to recognize any vibrations of sound or noise—far in the distance, he would image, the shrill of the violins singing its mad macabre sonata, the people dancing and waltzing and twirling and spiraling at the command of the violin's bow. Downstairs was a world that he was utterly removed from; the downstairs party was a whole other dimension, with Mad Hatters, Queens with an iron heart, and Cheshire cats that never smiled. It was a wonderland he would never belong to again. His fingers moved to feel the warm skin of the gun, his hands and limbs tremulous, his eyes fixed on the image of the pale cadaver before him; Ritsu's blood had drained till there was no longer a drop remaining in his heart or veins, till he was a mere manikin of flesh and bones. The room smelled of a putrid odor of copper and something burning, and the air held the dangerous ferocity of something ancient and reptilian, so primal with need and lust and control. But in the end, it was all a lie, a dream, a fairytale, with no possible happy ending—it was a tragic farce, put on as a Shakespearean drama for all those who have eyes, in a five act play. There was no knight in gleaming armour of silver, no princess in a dainty red gown, no jester full of smiles—only a wicked, wicked mother with a heart as black as shadows. It was all just a tragedy, played on human affection—inside a house with many lies and many secrets.

"What have you done?"

There came the voice of a child, a charming papillon child; and he was so lovely a thing that he seemed so fragile, so pure, so utterly, utterly innocent, like a snowy dove inside a hail storm of gray hues and black thunder—a thing of alabaster skin, ebony hair, and mauve jeweled eyes, who's heart was so marred by cruelty that it was nearly unrecognizable. Standing so small and delicate, Ritsuka placed a pallid hand onto Soubi's trembling shoulder. The man did not look up, and continue to gaze almost dispassionately passionately at the dead thing lying on the floor. The child brushed the silver strands of hair away from azure eyes, and leaned down to place a soft kiss upon the man's cheek; his task was over, the kiss spoke in a haunting whisper, the task over, and there was nothing left to do.

"What have you done…"

Le fou…le fou…

You fool, you fool, you fool of man.

Imbécile.

Un imbécile dans l'amour.

A kiss on the lips, soft, tender.

"What have you done."

Soubi pulls the boy into his arms, leaning his head against the soft ebony hair that smelled of jasmine and lavender. He holds him close, holds him tight, afraid that if he should ever let go he'd shatter into a million, million pieces of stained colour glass. That black reptilian monster drops to the ground with a quiet sound, and then fades into obscurity; it does not exist now, it no longer exists; it has done its charge. Soubi tenderly holds Ritsuka in his arms, his hand gently feeling the boy's smooth velvet skin; he looks down upon him, confused, dazed, an utterly lifeless man.

"I couldn't let him take you."

"I know."

"I'm sorry…I love you."

"I know."

Silence thundered in that little revered colonnade of paintings; the pallets of art all arranged absentmindedly around the generous, Victorian room. Some held the downy textures of landscapes and flowers and greens of grass and rush; some held the picture of Heaven, of gold and silver gates bejeweled with sapphire and rubies, and all the dreams of a generation long lost to the specter of Time; some held the colour of a boy, a beautiful child of twelve rotations, whose image in those paintings was the mere silhouette of who he had become. But none of those canvases were worth any magnitude of importance, not anymore and possibly never more; soon, they would be hurled audaciously into the burning flame of the hearth, the colours fraying into bits of blackened ash. They would, in an infectious memory, speak of an imaginary time of a bravura affair between a man and the object of his obsession and adoration.

"They'll find this soon," speaks the painter. "They'll find this, and I will be thrown into some abysmal jail." He smiles bitterly, stroking the boy's hair. "I'll never be able to come back; you'll have to do what your name has always wanted of you. What this house has always wanted of you, my love."

Ritsuka turns to him hurriedly, gazing passionately, his eyes full of zeal and sorrow. "Then take me away! Take me, and leave this place—" He gestures with his arms the disaster that whirled around them like a bizarre kaleidoscope. He reaches up and kisses Soubi on the lips. "Let's leave here. There's nothing stopping us, no one to stop us. Let's leave, go, and never return."

Soubi shook his head. "We can't. They'll find us; and they'll take you away from me."

"But if we don't leave, they'll find us here! What can we do but run? What?"

Soubi is silent. "I don't know."

For a moment, they held unto each other, suspended within a dizzying vertigo of uncertainty and despair; and for what seemed like a perpetual subsistence in time, they existed inside each other's arms, because there was no other exit from this impossible labyrinth. But even eternity does not, could not last forever. Ritsuka turns to his older lover, gazing up at him monotonously; and then he kisses him, softly at first, then deeper and further, opening his mouth, his frail hand reaching up to gently touch Soubi's cheek. The azure eyed man embraces his small lover, kissing his supple lips, and down along his jaw, his tongue lapping at the soft skin of his neck, his nostrils heavy with the rich scent of lavender and jasmine perfumes. And then there was a boom, a thunderous sharp cry—Soubi was abruptly lost of oxygen in his lungs. A sudden, acute and intense spasm of pain coursed through his body; he shuddered profusely, his movements gradually coming to halt. He holds the boy in his stone arms, heavy from the pain in his body, and he lifts his head to gaze into the sorrowful eyes of his beloved. Ritsuka looked to him in grievance, in sadness and apology; and that was when Soubi felt the stinging coldness of metal against his bare and raw skin where the tiny projectile of metallic cut through his flesh—the blood drained from the wound and unto his clothes, soaking the two in a pool of cherry liquor that poured lavishly onto the ground.

"Why?"

"C'est la seule chose que je peux faire pour nous d'etre ensemble"

Because this was all I can do for us to be together.

The last image that Soubi ever saw before he was engulf in a shroud of infinite darkness was the sight of his beautiful butterfly smiling, the smell of his hair, black as the ebony ribbons and sweet as jasmine, the colour of his velvet skin an endearing porcelain white and pink as a rose, the shine of his bejeweled eyes twin gems of amethyst. There—he had found it, the most exquisite of all things, a magnificent beauty that was incomparable; and he was so happy. Then, there was nothing—only darkness.

I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, and the refuge of art.

…and this, my love, is the only immortality you and I may share.

fin

Author's Note:

My wasn't that vague and depressing? (dies) There, my darlings, is the ending of the tragedy of Lolita. (cries and goes to kill herself) After months of writing, and writing, and struggling with what I was writing, I'm finally done. Lolita has unconsciously turned out to be one of the best fics I've yet to write; a gathering of language and passion into a grotesquely beautiful story. (Gawd am I an egotistical bastard or what? Need to stop priding myself on how I well I wrote this) But overall, I am very happy with how this ended. (dies some more) Though this is concisely the ending of the five acts, however, there will be an Epilogue. A very important epilogue and it will tell what the hell exactly happened to Ritsuka and Soubi afterwards.

Err…and if the writing was too vague for you, yes…Ritsuka just shot Soubi. (coughs)

(runs around like an insane person) But YAY! I'm done! (grooves to random J-pop music) The story, as an entirety, ends here; however, I will wrap it up nicely, like how Shakespeare wraps up his plays with a recount of all the events that have happened. So, you'll just have to wait for the epilogue to find out what happened! XD

The reason I decided to end it this way is because…

1) The original story of Lolita had both Humbert Humbert (Soubi's character) and Lolita (Ritsuka) dying—H.H. died in jail after killing Quilty (Ritsu), while Lolita, also known as Dolores F. Schiller died in childbirth after getting married to some other guy that definitely was not H.H. I wanted Soubi and Ritsuka to be together "in the end" because Lolita and H.H. never got to be together in the end; since, although Lolita felt something for H.H., she also holds a lot of resentment towards him. She also loved Q more than H.H., and that always disturbed me. I hated Q. Just plain hated him. Thus, I had to work around that somehow, because Ritsuka obviously loves Soubi more than Ritsu, though he also holds a bit of resentment towards Soubi, but for different reasons than Lolita. Although my Lolita is based off of Vladimir Nabokov's novel, I had to re-invent it into my own story, thus is why you got the ending you got.

2) Although I had initially promised a happy ending, I found I could not be true to myself or my writing style if I did not write it the way I wanted it to go. I have always intended it to end rather positively, but I would not be true to the original intent of the story, even some what, if I did not add some tragedy into it. Originally, Act V was supposed to have Soubi kill Ritsu and had Soubi burn down the manor and whisk Ritsuka away—but in the end, I found that too conflicting, too cliché, and too weird, and I didn't like it. So I changed it.

3) I like tragedy. I like angst. Lolita + Loveless tragic angst! Besides…this allows more room for me to screw around with the epilogue.

(does the hypnotized eyes thingy) Epilogue…important…very much so…read epilogue…

There was also something I noticed extremely important that I did not realized till I re-read the entire story: Seimei and Ritsuka's mother was suffering from MAJOR post-pardom depression, which is probably why she hated Ritsuka so much; she also held a lot of other psychological problems; hence why she was the way she was towards her two sons.

Anyways, a couple more notes of importance. There is a lot of play on words in this fic, especially the phrase "carousel and carousal" (which you should look up to see why they are a play on words). The poem in the story, which had a foot note by it (1), is a variation of the original poem that H.H. read to Q before he shot him in the novel, so I thought it would be appropriate that Soubi says this to Ritsu before he shoots him. This chapter also had predominately less French than all the rest, because it would have deterred and lessened the effect of the story. I ended up doing a lot of variations of excerpts from Lolita the book, like the opening first lines, and the end. It's a truly brilliant novel, Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, and everyone should read it just for the writing alone. As you can probably tell, I loved this book. The writing was beautiful, brilliant. I'm so Nabokovian in the way I write, and studied his style quite extensively. Good book; go read.

I would also like to thank my beta, K-chan, and my long time editor, Tsubasa-neechan, for their generous support and arse-kicking for me to finish this fic, and of course, for the patience of my readers. And to my nee-chan: congratulations on your baby. I dedicate this fic to you, since you're the one who introduce me to Nabokov in the first place. I would also like to give a big thank you to Pandarosi, for doing a fanart of the rocking chair scene that totally made me want to finish this faster. And to all my readers, you ROCK! (glomps you all) Thank you all so much! I would not have finished this were it not for your support! (glomps some more)

Anyways, I think that is enough rambling for now. My, this is definitely the longest chapter of Loli. Hope you enjoyed this story! All your comments and questions are welcomed! And read the Epilogue when it comes out! (Hopefully soon!)

(And this is where Jia will advertise that people should check out a couple of her original short stories, such as Confessions of a Murder, which is a story that has been described as a meeting between Dahmer and Famous Last Words, as well as M O N S T E R, the most disturbing story she has ever written—all of which are available on her Livejournal. Much thanks, lovelies…)

(bows) Thank you for reading everyone!

Jia Zhang