Raventhedarkgoddess: It's been a while, hasn't it...? Sorry. Ah well, here I update.
Chapter Four: Kokoro
Robin sighed- His hands were shaking, his face felt hot despite the air that had rushed to greet his face, and the tension was written into the movement of every muscle in his body. It was all coming through to him now- He was holding her phone number. He could really hear her voice again, if only...
"You all right?" Robin turned, looking up from his gaze on nothing to see Cyborg standing there. "You seem kinda tense," he added, lightly punching Robin's shoulder.
"I guess I am."
"You're thinking about Rae. I can tell." Cyborg sat down next to him. "Look, you need to stop beating yourself up over what happened."
"Even though you miss her as much as I do?" Robin asked,his temper already mounting because he just wanted to go upstairs and call her. Even if Cyborg is my best friend, this is something for me. If I can get her back, if I can just tell her I'm sorry...
"Look, that's not the point. She and I had something special, something that's hard to get over." Seeing that Robin was in one of his moods, he stood up, relenting. "I'm going to go rest. If you need me, I'll be in my room."
He did have feelings for Raven, Robin found himself thinking, but at the same time, he didn't care. This wasn't about Cyborg anymore- This was about him, and...
He decided that thinking too much about it was dangerous and got up. "There's never been a better time to try to be sorry," he thought, and headed to his room, where the call could be made in private.
Hand trembling, almost more afraid of the telephone than of a face-to-face confrontation, he picked up the cold plastic reciever and held it to his ear. The dial tone sounded loud and threatening, almost a warning, but he ignored it and, sweating under his gloves, and punched each number as he saw it in the loopy handwriting of her editor.
One, two, three, four... "Hello?" Said a low voice.
"Raven, listen, it's Robin. I just want to say..." What do I want to say? That I'm sorry I was a moron? That I'm obsessive and need to see her again?
"There's no Raven here. You have the wrong number."
Click.
Could that have been her? The voice didn't match anything in his memory, and he looked down at the piece of paper again.
"Wrong number," he muttered, and picked it back up, determined this time to reach her, and not freeze up. He put each number in with twice the care, and finally decided to send it.
I'm going to do this, he promised himself.
Raven Roth sank down on the edge of her bed in her apartment. Most of the day had been spent in a silent wave of fury, her anger undirected yet always present, always just under the surface and mounting with her every thought.
Gently, she ran her fingers over the edges of her coffee mug, (actually filled with a strong stress-relieving tea) staring off into an empty space just outside of her field of view. Part of her dreamed in color of that vivid time when she had left the tower, the rest of her given over to a blank apathy that she tried not to think about.
Almost subconciously, wondering who the message was from, she reached out and pushed the button reading 'Play' on her small answering machine. Part of her was expecting her editor's voice- And so the shock she recieved nearly sent her off of her bed and to the blue carpet below, the only splotch of color in the room she'd brought from her former 'home.'
"Raven, it's Robin, listen, please, before you try to delete this... I miss you and..."
Raven tuned out the rest of the message, the words 'I miss you' sticking in her ear as her mind began to engluf her, pulling her back to another time and place where...
Robin released her roughly and stomped away, leaving her to slump against Cyborg, who hugged her and muttered words she wasn't listening to with the accusations of 'demon' ringing in her ear.
"I'm nothing but worthless..." Her own voice had been frail, pained then, and she couldn't remember
And now this same boy claimed to miss her? "...If you could meet me somewhere, I'd really appricate it. I was thinking we could meet..."
Raven paused. A chance to reconnect with my old life...
Do I really want to take that chance?
