A/N: It's a very anticipated one-shot. Deds to Nubia: early birthday presents. It's M. Violence. Please pay close attention to everything; setting, flashbacks, etc. It's not in present tense, thank goodness.
Disclaimer: I own the plot only.
Summary: Fairytale: They were stuck in a twisted fairytale only to spite the odds. She was determined to keep it that way.
Keyword:
Fairytale
Tilting. She bared her teeth; the emotionless lilt of syllables of her name and the delighted growl of her assailant had caught her off guard.
Run.
Run.
Run.
"Guh!" A sudden impact of force grabbed her by the chocolate hair and slammed her against the counter. With aid from her attacker she stood again— hauled by her mane. She then struggled furiously against the arm on her neck, holding her against the wall with minimal effort.
A strangled cough erupted in the tense silence as her skin blazed in his touch. "S-Stop!"
Fingering the hard object, crystal, without pretense; she swung it over their heads and shattered on his head. Blood and water and violets matted his hair and he fell a few steps back— barely enough for her to escape. Liquid traveled like silk over the sides of her face; her shaking hand jerked to touch it. It was on the floor too; splattered in drops that touched the ends of her toes.
Run.
Run.
Run.
Her legs scrambled up her staircase for dear life and bolted into her bedroom. He was as quick as her shadow as his body reached the threshold. He shook the door open from its hinges that the force knocked her frail form to the floor.
"I'm sorry," she whimpered, breathless. "I can't!" Gathering the hem of her nightgown, she rose to her feet only to be blindly struck by him. She could hear the slap of blood drops hitting the floor, pattering on her dress like finger paint. Do you feel pain?
Vision blurred, she swayed to the distant, resounding 'clink,' followed by a loud crash of objects hitting the ground. She ducked with a screech as thousands of shards flew past her hair and face, embedding them all over her bedroom walls. All things of glass were shattered. Knees buckled, she slid onto the wooden floor, convulsing. Slashes on her legs were like fine lines of a brilliant diamond— bending light, beautiful. Gasping for air, she held her abdomen in wincing pain. He seemed satisfied and blinked solemnly, letting his eyes fade into nothingness once more.
Step.
Perspiration slid off her frigid skin, she swallowed and was unable to look at him in the eye. Unable to find comfort or to be touched, he only observed in stony silence.
Step.
Raising a steady hand, fingers charred and bloodied, she shielded her eyes from the piercing light that danced in the horizon…through her yellow ripped curtains.
A sudden exhale tickled her lips…
Burning, bleeding, crying, retching…tiny feeble limbs move above the marbled floors. Asphyxiating and tasting his own blood clogged in his throat, he manages to choke out a single word.
His final message of clarity is what his last living relative resents the most.
"Die."
It was a night so dark that stars couldn't find their way. Florescent lights shone down on her sorry form with mocked pity; how her skin glowed magnificently with contours of red. A fallen angel lost in the new moon, Kai watched as she dragged her sleeves downward. Her long brown hair cascaded in tangles and her fingers were busy with a white daisy.
With probing golden eyes, Rei was shocked. "Who attacked you?"
"It's not important." She insisted, mutilating the daisy's white petals.
Kai had ceased the unnerved pacing with a shadowed expression clouding his aristocratic face. Apprehension skewed upon Hilary's as she covertly observed him through a slit in the plastic green curtains. Layers of linen swathed her arms, where underneath her skin had burned to near ivory bone. A few deep scrapes blighted the smooth skin of her neck and a fairly-large yellowing pronounced on her jaw.
Repetition: "Who attacked you?"
Hands weighed down in thin pockets of his lean green uniform, Kai stalked haughtily closer to her. Behind the curtains, he stopped on a mid-step.
"Max. I told you, this was all a freak household accident!" She dismissed hastily with a smile. Fake. Fake. Russet tresses, cascading down to her shoulders, fluttered noiselessly as she shook her head in dissent.
Despite his blank façade kept in place, the bitterness was hard to miss. "Hn."
"You're a terrible liar," Takao murmured wistfully with a sadness tinged in his voice.
"Is there something we don't know about?" Rei added in a whisper.
Kai watched, arms folded and strictly-business façade in place. Then he spoke to the bed at large, "We will find whoever did this."
Lips insufferably pursed in offense, Hiromi glowered at everyone in annoyance. "No." She made an indistinctive noise in her throat. "You won't."
Why was she protecting that monster?
Kai's threatening breaths whistled through his nose.
An uncomfortable silence descended, and the only palpable sound was that of their breathing. Kai quivered in suppressed rage that was coursing through him without an outlet. It made his insides twist to see the girl in front of him nod her head silently, resigning herself to it. Simply, Hiromi had submitted to her assailant without reluctance. She would gladly take those blows and burns repeatedly— out of sick obsession of pain, was it?
No, it couldn't be.
"What do you remember?" Rei inquired once more.
She hated pain.
"That's the problem," pressing her eyelids with her fingertips, Hiromi shuddered out a shaky whimper, "Nothing at all. I'm happy that I lived."
She was lying.
His spit of defiance is returned with a fisted clout against his jaw and it burns like the rest of his body. It erupts in severe pain, and sends weak limbs into spasmodic convulsions that forced strangled and rasping cries to tumble from his dry lips. The pain spreads like a channeled fire through rigid veins with a dire desire to possess control.
"I own you. Never forget, Kai."
After that, the phone went unanswered and her door unopened. She disappeared, swallowed up by a silhouette of the creature that refused to free her. Kai had felt the whole world end tenfold; drugs did not have an effect to change it.
This lasted for three months. Takao and only saw her during classes, and afterward she would disappear into the school crowd and took the first bus home. Kyouju noticed the caked on foundation she wore and Max pointed out how she had refused attending practices. Rei had even tried coming to her house, only to have her parents lie that she's asleep. Daichi had spotted her buying flowers once a week at a flower shop near his apartment.
And then one night Hiromi knocked at his door one night, hair dark and tangled with rain, skin pale and cold. Her wrappings were removed and he could see a road map of her imperial blue veins once more. He could see only half her countenance like an eclipse; a water-marked maroon eye, a pale patch of skin drenched from the rain and lips curved downward. She held a withered bouquet of fennel flowers, which had confused Kai.
She stood with her arms at her sides, sighed at him, her eyes reddened and chest heaved. Indigo-black marks traced around the ring of her neck like charcoal smudges; a child's play. Those were never healed.
"I'm sorry I ignored you," she murmured, sulking. Then she threw her arms around him. He was stunned because he'd almost started to believe that her soul was gone. But there she was; weight in his muscles and he could feel her skin through her rain-seeped shirt. He responded to her trembling and carefully placed an arm around her.
"What's happening to you?"
"It doesn't matter." Her mouth was by his ear, breath chilled by the pulsing winds that had seeped into her lungs. Kai was speechless.
A tangible pre-winter, he recalled and she choked. "You are so warm, Kai."
It's okay, Hiromi. (It wasn't.)
"It's been awhile, right? Sorry about leaving you, I…I shouldn't have!"
Calm down. (Why?)
"I missed you."
I'm here. (How close?)
She cried harder, letting the wilted, yellow fennels drop to the ground.
He took her in that night.
It feels distinctly familiar; an inkling long forgotten and buried under his flesh and bone. He sees bright red feathers emerge from his marred skin— crackling and hissing, he burns.
"You will do everything I wish!"
He cries in pain of his slowly atrophying skin. STOP. STOP. STOP. STOP.
"You will reborn and free the Phoenix!"
He is the single source of light, the vivid flames dancing off his skin in the darkness, and his assailant shakes him like erstwhile candlelight.
Patches of peach and red split the night sky apart, and inundated it with breaking dawn. Hiromi perched on a long ledge attached to the windowsill and watched the familiar scene. Ruby eyes stayed open at the startling sunlight and did not waver.
Kai watched her from the corridor as sweat damped her forehead and her long, chocolate fringes were collected to the side with a flowered pin. The nook became her willow bough and she became a beautiful Ophelia facing his eyes. Daylight reflected deep auburn roots of her hair and revealed the bruises that covered the smooth of her neck and the length of her arm.
"Hiromi."
She smoothed her snow-white sleeves over them, startled by his full-blown stare.
Light disappeared into his black gakuran, which meant he wasn't leaving Japan for a long time.
Hiromi shifted awkwardly in her long night dress as its long trail billowed freely under her bosom. She took her shaking fingers and drank the tea to soothe her nerves. The tiny tea cup clicked against the saucer in a disarray, un-lady-like.
Never was she this uneasy around him.
"Ohayou."
The aroma of the tea bothered Kai; unrecognizable but peaceful.
"Ohayou," she supplied in a soft voice. "Nice day, isn't it?" Over the quiet neighborhood, she gazed at it with glassy eyes. He approached her in calm, even steps until he was at her side.
Accusation: "You weren't in bed."
"I can't sleep," with this, she brought the cup to her lips and sipped the liquid. Faster mouthfuls, this time…
Guilt and embarrassment erupted in the pit of his stomach. He felt helpless.
"Don't worry Kai," she allowed herself a giggle. It was high and breathless. Faked and lacked control but it slipped off Kai's scrutiny like droplets of water off a duck.
His instinct had instructed him, rather: "May I lie on your lap?"
She had set the tea-cup down gently and moved her legs from the nook. Tightly, she squeezed her legs together and paused for Kai to lay his head.
Kai laid down, his legs on the nook and his head tucked into her stomach. He felt her breathing hitch at this. Through the cotton fabric, Hiromi was incredibly warm. At that moment, he was dead with eyes closed. He wanted to lie there in peace but he could hear everything. A quiet drum was beating in perfect tandem. At her every breath, her body rose and in perfect rhythm with her heart. Kai could taste her scent of peaches and morning breeze. He could smell flowers.
Hiromi reached a hand to cup his cleaned cheek, her vision kept attentive to a drained tea-cup beside her.
He really wasn't going to leave, which she felt both dreaded and assured. One day, he would discover. She could 'walk in the sun' by then, she hoped.
Cold skin under her fingers' caress, she soothed,
"Sleep for now, my prince."
To be continued.
A/N: Gakuran is a black bottoned-up school uniform used by high-school boys. If you get what's going on, you're REALLY smart. If you don't, it's O.K. I don't expect a lot of readers to understand. :D
Part 2 will be up.
Thank you for reading and please review. They're love.