beautiful face
¤ kairiku oneshot --
- - -
"This is your last chance to cooperate, Mr. Braedy.
Why did you kill her?"
Riku hesitates then. For a fleeting instant, his face contorts into a grimace of pain or concentration.
Then the next moment it's gone, and his pale façade returns to its usual placidly blank expression once more.
"She had such a beautiful face."
The lawyer halts his pacing to stare at the suspect. In his own mind, he is already convicted. He is the murderer and is guilty as hell.
Placing his hands sturdily on the podium, they're eye-to-eye. Beautiful cyan-cerulean-aquamarine meets his dull brown ones.
"Is that an excuse?"
A collective laugh resonates from the courtroom. Tentative, like the chuckle you emit when you're doing something you're not supposed to and are unexpectedly caught.
"Let's run over the scenario," The lawyer says, turning back to face his audience, "or the facts."
Another ripple of nervous muttered approval.
While looking at the convict near the beginning, he began to move around again, austere smoky grey suit not wrinkling.
"You take her to the beach. You both used to live there. It's midnight. The middle of the month and the setting's absolutely fantastic. Romantic, even – you think. You're jealous of her boyfriend, maybe, because he's planning on asking her to marry him –"
"No," He whispers, eyes lowered down at the table.
"You lead her out into the ocean. It's harmless; it's the simple love and adoration of a childhood friend that lets her allow you to do so. She trusts you.
But then you kill her."
"No!" He stands, a glint of fury caught in his eye. As blue as the ocean he drowned her in, the lawyer promptly muses.
"No interruptions, please," The judge chimes in with a polite tap on his podium.
"You lean her back into the water like you're about to freaking baptize her – come on; people!" He turns back to the alignment of pews placed in the back of the room. "Can you not see that this man is guilty? It's written all over his face! First confession, then denial! He's nuts. Braedy drowns a beautiful young woman of twenty-one when no one else can see them. But that doesn't matter! Because he killed her, and that, my friends, is what matters.
He drowned her and watched the life fade from her face as she died."
The crowd is silent. Contemplating. Deciding his death.
"Oh, God; no," The suspect moans, interrupting the uncertain quietus. His hand reached up to rub his face, fingers wringing his silky platinum hair.
Let it all settle in, Smugly decides the lawyer. His gaze flickers, switching back towards Riku and then to the judgmental population.
"Riku Braedy killed Kairi Amonte Friday morning two months ago. He did so in spite of his best friend, who was also the man she was dating." His voice was a quiet, soothing, and persuasive rumble, tamed by the finest beasts. "This man is clearly not innocent."
The judge clears his throat. It's like shattering glass piercing through the stuffy room. "Anything more, Mr. Braedy?"
Riku says nothing more.
"Very well then. Jury, please file out to your designated room."
- - -
"Your Honor,
The jury has reached a verdict."
The air hangs suspended.
"Riku Braedy is guilty as charged."
Riku only sees darkness and the sliding of bars across his line of vision for a while.
Then he begins to dream.
- - -
It was done at moonlight.
Full moon. Silver dollar, glowing bright. Shine your light down on me.
Illuminated. But everything else was dark. Navy, like velvet.
She giggled. Bringing them both back to childhood.
"C'mon Riku; where are you taking me?"
His large hands cover her eyes. Gentle yet firm and unrelenting.
"You'll see."
They walked a for few more paces – her slight and skinny form in front of his, nearly stumbling many times but his sturdier build always supporting her and ready to catch her if she were to fall. Finally, Riku stopped and positioned her to face the sea with his elbows on her shoulders. His hands fell away and she gasped.
"Wow! The beach!"
For a few seconds she leaned towards the tide, watching the waves furl and unfurl, basked in silvery light. Riku was focused on the back of her head, his expression unreadable except for the simple admiration in his bright eyes. Soon she jovially turned around and a large, sweet smile graced her lovely pallid visage.
"This is great, Riku. Thank you for taking me."
"I thought I knew you'd like it." Even though there was no hesitation in his speech, it was still jumbled and somewhat . . . odd. It was familiar to Kairi, but she couldn't quite place it. He's just a little nervous, just a little, She thought.
They stood there watching for another moment. Then, Riku gained hold of her hand. "C'mon." He led her out towards the water, and an incoming wave swirled around their feet, flooding their shoes. The water was up to mid-shin before their stepping ceased. Without warning, his form fluidly stretched down in a feline-similar motion and at that angle he splashed her.
"Riku," She protested, though giggling in delight.
Soon they were engaged in a feverish splashing-match. They were backtracking further into the ocean, though they weren't completely aware of it. Now the water was past their knees.
Riku won. He had always been more
(powerful)
than she was.
He attempted to twirl her in the deeper water. She spun elegantly, wet shoulders glistening in the moonlight. The waves were no longer breaking here; they had passed the surf but were still managing to remain on their feet.
Kairi, however, did not stay on hers for long. It wasn't that her footing slipped – Riku's hand had cupped the small of her back and tilted her gently down into the water. Like a dip – but far more intentional.
And there was that small ghost of a smile on her shimmering pink lips the entire while.
The lips, they moved – forming a few words. He couldn't hear – a wave fortuitously slipped over her face while it happened. She struggled to lift her head above the heightened water line, sputtering and shutting her eyes instinctively.
(Now, now, Ms. Amonte – we can't have you doing that, now can we?)
His hand blockaded her emergence; his fingers pinched her nostrils together, closing them shut. Bubbles, enough to count, escaped from the open slivers of spaces as she fought to breathe, crawling up towards the surface of the dark waters and then disintegrating into more liquid.
Her long legs were kicking beneath him weakly.
He returned this opposition with crushing strength.
The thrashing was weaker now.
Suddenly, her large eyes flew open. They were dark blue, blending in with the ocean that covered her. He was seeing them as windows to her soul. They stared up at him at first with puzzlement; molding into shock, it further advanced into extreme interest, as if finding the answer to the universe by looking up her to-be murderer through a film of liquid glass.
The kicking at his knees stopped.
Her body went limp.
And in the light of the moon he killed her.
Riku held her there just below the water for a few more moments. He was astounded at the way her face was delicately crafted to be moon like, illuminated with a phosphorescent glow by the nocturnal sphere above the two of them. The light began to fade from her milky face, waves lapping over it in obscuring layers.
(You can only ruin a face you love)
Something inside of him jerked violently, like a taut cord being snapped and uncoiling as a viper would, ready to strike – his fingers fumbled, letting her go. Her stiff and thin form sunk slowly toward the bottom of the ocean floor, atramentous hair floating, reaching up towards the sky in tenebrous strings briefly before bowling under her slender neck. She dimmed to an outline, sapphire eyes bleeding into the sea water, facial features undefined save for the couple round white spots of her cheeks. Then she was gone.
(You may love someone in life, but once they're gone you step back instinctively from their cooling corpse)
He bent over further and began to paw at the surface of the water, hands groping blindly for her body in the dark. He was splashing around like a drowning man – Jesus Christ, even she hadn't made this much commotion.
(She had such a beautiful face, such a beautiful face)
The attempt at searching was futile. Riku could not tell the difference between his tears spilling onto his hands in heavy, fat globules and the saltier wetness that covered them from the ocean depths. His own blubbering was not heard by his ears, because the waves were crashing, crashing – distracting white noise in his ears.
(Now I can't see it anymore)
From somewhere behind, a light was shining . . .
- - -
Riku woke up with a shrill scream whispering in his throat.
He could do nothing but whimper soundlessly and bolt upright in his bunk, an abrupt movement that nearly got him decapitated by the bed situated above him.
He blankly gazed out the tiny square of a window on the opposite wall, cut out of the eleven-inch thick rock and barred with iron. Hanging from the backdrop of midnight was the moon, a radiant bleached celestial body, pregnant with the most brilliant florescence.
(Kairi?)
Slowly, almost tentative in motion, his fingers rose to stroke his neck contemplatively. With the slightest action of five particle muscles and tendons flexing, his fingers hooked and transformed into claws. They grappled his throat, fingernails scraping the fleshy skin that stretched out thinly over his Adam's apple. They dug into the unyielding structure of his windpipe, not trying to pulverize but to discover. The flailing fingers finally found what they were looking for – the main source of blood in his body. The nails cut into his jugular vein; the incision caused a jet of crimson to project from his throat and splatter onto the sheets.
And in the light of the moon she killed him.
- - -
"Dead?" The man in the grey three-piece inquired, barely glancing up from his work.
"Dead by suicide," The agent reported.
"We found him this morning. We assume that he punctured his jugular vein with his own fingernails. Must have been quiet about it, as his cellmate apparently slept through it and no one else heard any sounds during the dead of the night. At first we thought it was a homicide case, but there was blood all over his fingers and his partner was unharmed. That, and the fact that there's no trace of anyone coming into the cell at that time of night."
Hayner Riegensen, the Amonte's family lawyer, idly rifled through his documents. Damn lawsuits – they were flooding in more than the money.
What a funny deal, though. He always figured that that Riku character was in way over his head.
"That's what I call cooperation."
- - -
holy crap.
i did not just do that.
i so did not just kill riku.
it was completely impulsive . . . and strange.
actually, everything in this entire oneshot was impulsive and strange.
i should be shot.
what the hey; i'm in a murdering mood.
( hide your children )
¤
inspired by various books & movies:
bag of bones ( stephen king )
by the light of the moon ( dean r. koontz )
firestarter ( stephen king )
the green mile ( stephen king )
the shawshank redemption ( stephen king )
it ( stephen king )
the last juror ( john grisham )
a separate peace ( john knowles )
12 angry men
¤
disclaimer – i'm not trying to say that i own anything.
¤
for tatikara.
because it's kairiku and kairi AND riku die
i think i'm going to write her a happyfic someday.
because i just love her that much.
♥