Disclaimer: I do not own, nor am I in any way officially affiliated with, the characters in this story. Gravitation is the original creation of Maki Murakami.
A/N: Er...yeah, I promise I'm working on the other stories, but tonight my mind went where it went. Sorry. Anyway, thanks for riding Castalia's Scary Brain Transit. Next stop, Angst City.
I killed him.
I'll never be able to forget that, or forgive myself for it.
The memory will torment me until the end of days...and I deserve it.
o-o-o-o-o
The boy was backed up against the wall, tears shimmering in his wide eyes. He trembled as the men drew nearer, trying to press even closer to the plaster, as though he could disappear within it.
"Move, Yuki!" One of them shoved the slim, brown-haired man out of the way. "Come on, I'm giving you ten dollars." The folded bill was proffered casually between two thick fingers.
There was a pause as Yuki drifted to the side and took a lingering look at the blond sixteen-year-old—pretty little Eiri, his prize student. The boy looked at him pleadingly. "...help me?" he begged softly. But there was very little hope in his voice.
Even so, Yuki heard the hurt little gasp as he accepted the money with a smile. He pushed away from the wall, heading for the couch. "After you."
Yuki flopped down, casting about haphazardly for the bottle of wine. The men's bulk prevented him from seeing what was going on yet, but he could hear the tearing of cloth, heavy breathing, quiet sobbing. Then footsteps, as the men dragged the boy away from the wall and forced him to the ground.
He wasn't even fighting them much, Yuki noted. His groping hand found his glass, and he picked it up and drained it with the same ease he'd drained the last four...or was it five? Whatever. He closed his eyes and let the empty glass drop from his hand.
His mind started to drift, and he heard a heavy thud. Vaguely, he wondered just how drunk he was. That glass sure had taken a long time to hit the carpet.
"Son of a—" In English...rough voice...one of the men? What was going on? Yuki started to open his eyes...and then the shot rang out. He clawed at the couch and managed to yank himself upright, looking wildly over the back.
The man who'd paid him ten dollars was sprawled face-down on the ground in a pool of blood. Yuki was just in time to see Eiri, looking terrified, point the gun at the other of the pair. Even as the tutor struggled over the couch, the other man dove for Eiri. There was another flash of light and sound, and the man dropped in a spray of blood.
"Eiri-kun! What have you done?" Yuki took an involuntary step backwards as Eiri turned, still clutching the gun in both hands. Tears were streaming down the boy's face.
"Just put the gun down." The man edged forwards, his hands outstretched, bloodshot eyes widening when the gun was shakily raised. "Eiri-kun!"
"...No..." the boy whispered.
"What do you mean, 'no'? You...made a mistake, but you're a good boy. Put the gun down." Yuki was advancing step by unsteady step.
"No...get away..."
"You wouldn't shoot your Sensei, Eiri-kun." He was almost close enough. One more step, and he could reach out and grab Eiri's wrist. "You wouldn't. I know you love—"
The boy's face contorted.
He pulled the trigger.
o-o-o-o-o
As a student, I sometimes wondered...if there was a Hell, would it be as Dante imagined?
It's not.
The day I killed a beautiful child was the day that put me past redemption. I got to find out for myself what Hell is. My body died, but my awareness continued, clearer than it ever had been. I knew, as I watched him grieve for me, that what I had done was unforgivable. I watched him, and I learned the true meaning of remorse.
Yes. Yes, it was my flesh that bled, but as I watched him—I was unable to stop watching him—he bled from wounds that went far deeper. They drained away his joy, his innocence, his trusting kindness. There had always been an inner light, breathtaking and golden, in him. It was what drove me to break him, desperate to get closer, to let it spill out on me, to possess such a priceless treasure.
If I could not, then no one else would. So I wrapped my hands around it greedily, and when I found that it would not touch me, would not warm me...
I choked it off.
And he shot me. But as I watched that golden light bleed away to its last listless spark, I came to know that the murder I had perpetrated was infinitely more profound and damning...and it went on, and on, and on.
His memories of what I'd done to him killed him a little every day. He was drowning in anguish. He was suffocating under the weight of his guilt. Isn't that a bitter irony? He felt guilty for what he'd done to me. I had to watch as his pain consumed him, and as he tried, again and again, to escape it.
For years, all he tried to do was commit suicide, overtly and covertly. He picked fights. He pushed away all who tried to get close to him. He took my name, I am convinced, so that even in his success he could continue to berate himself. He smoked and drank and worked away an empty life. It's impossible to describe how painful it was—is—to know every time he went to sleep he hoped never to wake up...and to know that I am the one who wrought this tragedy of what should have been a beautiful life.
And then a boy came into his life. He had the same golden light about him, a light that called out to the spark buried deep within the man I'd killed. But soon I saw that as it touched him, it healed him but a little, and burned him almost as much as it healed. That was my doing, too. I saw him struggle with it day by day, until finally he ran away from his chance at happiness...ran away to this moment.
Now he sits in the apartment where I once killed him. He has a gun. He is apologizing to me, for he still does not see that he only slew a monster. He has a gun. I am desperate, but as clearly as I can see him, I can do nothing to stop him, nothing to comfort him, nothing to save him.
He has a gun. I do not know if the light will ever touch him again, all because I killed him, and I'd be screaming if I could.
Dante didn't know what Hell really was...
...but I do.