Dare You to Live

By ElveNDestiNy

February 3, 2007

Dedication: To my 'twin.' I don't think you've changed much at all.

- Rewind -

When Riku woke up, it was already dark outside, and she was in her own bed. She must have slept for six or seven hours, but her eyes felt gritty and sore, although she didn't recall crying for long enough to produce such effects. Sensing that she was alone in the room, she didn't bother to turn on the lights and instead went to wash her face in the bathroom. The coolness of the water was pleasant, and, skin still slightly damp, she wandered over to the window. The moon was almost a full sphere and very bright, illuminating everything in shades of blue, silver, and white.

Impulsively, she decided to go out onto the balcony, feeling the cold night air wash over her, making her shiver slightly. She had never felt so clear-headed, not since… Riku wanted to think that it had begun with Risa's death, but she was honest enough to admit that she had been unhappy before as well. Being bereft of her twin had simply worsened everything, and by magnitudes she could not have comprehended before. She'd lived day after day in a sort of haze, as if somehow dissociated from the world around her.

Now she felt oddly light and uncaring. It was as if all the pent up emotions she had held inside had faded to a gentle release, here where so many of her memories had been made. Her fingertips gently traced the smooth wood as she remembered her younger self.

"Dark…" It was almost a surprise to hear her own voice whisper his name. Riku closed her eyes, wondering if she would ever be released from whatever curse he had cast on her.

She remembered the sensations so vividly; his strength and warmth when he'd carried her, the sudden feeling of weightlessness when they'd been in the sky, the wind rushing past them and carrying away her tears. She'd felt such things once before, when she had been in Daisuke's arms when he had transformed into Dark, adding to the confusion she felt. Riku had begun to struggle, overcome by the strong but mixed emotions he created in her. She realized now that Dark had sent her into sleep to calm her.

Her cheeks warmed when she remembered suddenly how he'd almost kissed her. She wanted to hate him for it, but she knew that it was a purely defensive response. She let him mean too much, and she should have learned better, after Daisuke, after Risa. A wave of useless self-pity made her chest ache, and she took a deep breath, glad that he had left her here alone. Riku returned to the room silently, drawing the curtains across the windows and leaving the room in shadow, as if she could block out the memory along with the sight.

The loud knocks startled her and for a moment her heart beat arrhythmically before she realized that Dark would never be polite enough to knock. Telling herself that she was being unfair to him, Riku went uneasily to open the door, expecting to see Sabochi-san.

A very different person stood before her, looking as surprised as she was.

"N-Niwa-kun?" she stammered, seeing him again for the first time in four years. Gone were the softer curves of his face, replaced by more angular, matured features. He had become taller than her, and subconsciously, she compared him to his other half. No, not quite as tall as Dark, but they were surprisingly alike in all except in coloring, and might even have passed as brothers. Still, the claret red eyes that met hers were kinder and more innocent.

"Dark told me to come," he tried to explain, a little hesitantly. "I didn't know you would be here…"

The simple words, the sound of his voice that was so familiar even though it was deeper, proved that Daisuke hadn't changed so much at all. Hardly aware of what she was doing, she bridged the gap between them in two short steps and then flung her arms around him. "I'm so glad you're here," she cried into his shoulder.

He slowly put his arms around her, one hand coming up to comforting cup her head against him. Four years were erased, but also remade in those few moments. There was no need for words, no yet. It was enough for her to let go of whatever regrets she harbored still from the way that they had been undone. She found everything that she had needed, expected, in the embrace of a boy who had grown up to belong to someone else.

"I'm so sorry," Daisuke whispered against her forehead. She shook her head negatively, drawing back enough to gaze at him. What she found in them was reassuring.

"Now that I look into the past, maybe it's better this way," she told him frankly. The relief she saw in his eyes hurt, but only a little. There was no magic spell to take them back in time to when they had parted, and she neither wanted to blame him, nor wanted him to feel guilty about anything. Whatever she had lost as a lover, she still had as a friend, and that meant the most to her, in the end.

Riku let him go and beckoned him into the room, where they sat somewhat awkwardly on the bed. Daisuke seemed to still be adjusting to her ladylike appearance, and she almost wondered if he was imagining Risa. Truth to tell, it would have been more logical for Riku to even more adamantly reject anything feminine after Risa's death, since it would have made her look more like her twin. But she hadn't had the will to fight over something so trivial as clothes, although she still could not look into the mirror without thinking of Risa.

Risa would have loved the dress she was wearing, would have been thrilled to meet Dark again, no matter the circumstances. Just thinking about it made her fist clench. Risa had died because of Dark. How could she still have feelings for someone who had made her unwhole? How could she feel so strongly about someone who had killed her lovely and lighthearted twin, and in doing so, made her damaged beyond repair?

She wondered if Dark had told him about Risa, and if that was why he was so silent now. But Daisuke did not seem to be grieving, only uncertain about something. It was difficult to meet with someone she had known so intimately in such a different part of her life, yet who was now almost a stranger.

"Riku, those marks on Dark's face—did you do it?" Daisuke looked sidelong at her, and then down at where his hands were clasped in his lap. Startled, she turned her head towards him even so. She had almost completely forgotten how she had lashed out at Dark, had almost forgotten the four thin slashes she had left on his cheek.

"I…" She should have felt sorry, perhaps have even apologized, even if it would have been misdirected at Daisuke. But Riku didn't feel sorry at all; she was filled with rage still, stemming from a secret source of feeling she had yet to identify. So she simply gave a slight affirmative tilt of her head, expecting Daisuke's anger.

But he didn't try to judge her. He simply asked a question she did not know how to answer. She did not even know where to begin, if she tried. Daisuke turned to face her, his weight shifting on the bed and making her slide a little closer to him. "Why?"

A long pause ensued before she was saved at another knock on her door. Rising a little too hastily, Riku went to meet Sabochi-san. "Harada-sama, the dinner will be ready soon. Will the young master be staying?"

Riku turned to Daisuke. "Please," she asked simply. They still had so much to talk about. He nodded.

"Very well, I will set the table for two." The old servant looked at her for a moment after he said the last word, as if aware of what wounds he had perhaps unwittingly opened, but Riku's expression didn't change.

"Thank you, Sabochi-san." She smiled gratefully at him before turning back to Daisuke, who had noticed the odd tension. He finally caught the implication of the words, although he came to the wrong conclusions.

"You came back without Risa?" he asked, puzzled.

The smile slipped away as if it had never existed. "Risa will never be here in these rooms again, Niwa-kun. She never lived to see our nineteenth birthday."

"W-what do you mean?" Daisuke seized her hand, emotions swimming in wide eyes that were impossible for her to meet. She blinked back tears, telling herself that she had cried too much already, more than in all the past three months altogether.

But for the first time, she wasn't alone in her grief. It was what she had hoped for, when she had decided to come here. To feel close to her twin again, where Risa had walked and laughed and lived, to fill the absence. To see those people again, who had loved her dearly and known them as what they had been—twins. It had been wonderful sometimes, absolutely unbearable in others, but she had always thought that it was a bond that was eternal.

"She was with me." Her throat closed and she swallowed, striving to keep a steady tone. "We were walking, and she was distracted; she stepped off the curb a little, but there was a driver trying to park his car." There were no words to describe the fear that had sliced into her when she had seen Risa's limp body on the pavement. A broken doll, and yet all Riku had thought of at the moment was that her twin hated getting dirty, and the ground was filthy. It had been something so trivial.

Daisuke's hand gripped hers hard, almost to the point of pain, but she clung to it as if it were her anchor to the world. She had never spoken of it, not even to her parents who had asked a thousand questions. Why had Risa stepped off the pavement? Had Riku tried to stop her? What color was the car? What did the driver look like? Did she remember anything else? Could she pick out the person who had killed her twin out of a lineup?

"Yes," she whispered. Daisuke looked at her in worry and confusion, putting his arm around her faintly trembling shoulders. Yes, she wanted to say, I can pick him out. It was Dark. It was Dark who killed my twin. But Riku shook herself free of the memories and held onto Daisuke, who deserved to know the whole story.

"She was taken to the hospital and we thought she would be fine, although she never woke up on the way there. She hadn't broken any bones, and there was no blood. The car hadn't been going that fast. I thought she would just wake up and be like her usual self, laughing off the scare. My parents came and we waited for the tests to come back, and then the doctor told us that she would never wake. She had hit her head, and all along she was bleeding inside and none of us had known. I never knew, even though she was my twin."

It was impossible not to cry. Riku shut her eyes, despising the hot tears sliding down her face, hating the salty taste of it, hating the way that they cooled on her skin. Even now, it seemed unreal. Daisuke murmured to her and Riku almost regretted being selfish in her grief. It wasn't all about her, she knew. Her parents had grieved too, but Riku had rejected all their comfort, all of Risa's other friends, shutting herself away in solitude, because they could not understand. A twin was more than a friend, more than a sister, more than just a loved one.

"The person who did it, what happened to him?" His voice was almost unrecognizable.

It was the hardest part to admit, the reason why Riku couldn't put it behind her. "I couldn't remember enough. The car drove off after Risa fell and all I saw was that she was lying there. They brought in people at the police station, but I couldn't recognize any of them, and I was the only one close enough to Risa to have had a chance of identifying the driver."

Daisuke held her tight, and it was almost enough. She wanted to tell him everything, especially about Dark, but Riku remained silent, swallowing her tears. No, it was between them only, and it wouldn't be right to involve anyone else.

Finally she excused herself and went to wash her face again, wincing at the terrible image she made in the mirror. But the world waited for no one and nothing, and this was how it worked. She lived each day, tears or not, even if most days she felt only half-alive and wondered what she was doing.

Over dinner they seemed to come to a tacit agreement, veering away from any subjects that were too serious or difficult to talk about. Daisuke told her a little about what had happened over the last four years, and she did the same, although neither brought up the matter of exchanging letters. He laughed shyly at her troubles with the French governess, complimenting her on her new appearance although he admitted that she was just as cute either way. She listened to how Daisuke gotten together with Satoshi, and how it had depended on a great deal of miscellaneous meddling from Dark, who had not liked it at all in the beginning.

"He was constantly calling him Creepy Bastard," Daisuke told her, sitting up straighter out of indignation and remembrance. "I told him that it wasn't his fault that Satoshi had been stuck with Krad."

"Do you…" Riku began impulsively, stopping when she realized it wasn't any of her business. But she wanted to know, and her eyes entreated Daisuke to forgive her lapse. "Do you think he misses Krad?"

Daisuke's eyes widened with surprise, and then narrowed in thought, although his expressions were lost on Riku, who kept her eyes lowered on the table and spooned little bits of dessert with what seemed like total concentration. "I don't know," he answered honestly. "I always thought they hated each other. Krad's always trying to kill Dark, they inflict so much damage to each other. But I guess he's the real constant in Dark's life, almost as if all of it's become a special kind of routine, a ritual that only they know."

"They are opposites," Riku said softly. "Nothing at all like each other, but so unlike that maybe that's what makes them the same. Two sides of a coin."

"Funny, I always thought you and…" Daisuke let his voice trail off. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," she answered. "Everyone's been so afraid to talk about Risa, it's like she never lived. It makes everything worse, as if they've all forgotten, as if they want to forget and can't understand why I can't."

"I'll remember," Daisuke promised her. "Always."

She smiled, and for the first time it was all right, although Daisuke, catching the fleeting expression, thought it had a bittersweet quality. "You wanted to say that you always thought Risa and I were completely different, didn't you?"

Daisuke nodded to the question, unable to think of anything to say and afraid to bring back the shadows in her eyes. He watched as she put her spoon down carefully, then sat back and folded her hands in her lap. It was strange to see that they had the same nervous habits. He was already done, so there wasn't even the minor distraction of food.

"I think we were. But I think that maybe that's what made it all the worse, because we balanced each other, and now that's gone. So, I just wondered if it was like that for Dark." She laughed self-consciously. "I don't know why I asked you, as if you would know."

"Maybe you should ask Dark then," he suggested quietly. She flinched, unclasping her hands and then lacing her fingers together.

"It's more complicated than that," she said. "I was the one who marred his face. There's no justification for it, either, not in the way you're hoping. It's…difficult to explain why."

"He probably deserved it," Daisuke said in an attempt to lighten the mood, but she only looked stricken at his words. He hastened to say something else, but could not think of how to change the subject. "He was concerned, though. I think he would have come himself, but he didn't think you would want to see him, so he sent me."

"I met him while looking for you," she explained, and looked away. "I don't understand it. I don't understand how I hate him, but at the same time, I don't."

"You and Risa," Daisuke began slowly. "You two have always had a connection with him."

"More that you would guess," she said almost too softly for him to hear. He wondered what she meant, but didn't press it.

A grandfather clock somewhere in the house chimed, nine peals slowly ringing out, and Riku stood hastily, realizing that their late meal had taken far more time than usual, since most of it had been spent in talk. "I didn't mean to keep you, Niwa-kun, and you probably have a lot of things to do. I'm just so thankful that we talked."

It had made her happy to hear all the different stories, but at the same time Riku was aware of the gap that seemed to grow between her and Daisuke with every word he told her. He was happy, she could clearly see that. Things couldn't be any better for him, whereas Riku felt as if she were only here bringing up the past again, making things painful, spoiling everyone's contentment.

She had thought that if she came back here, she would feel more as if she fit in. There were no outside signs; it wasn't as if anyone who looked at her would mark her out as being odd or unusual, but that was almost how Riku felt, sometimes. Somehow, in some mysterious way, she was different. Riku had left with the idea that this place, these people would always be waiting for her, exactly as they were, should she simply decide to come back. But life had gone on with or without her and it was a slightly painful realization.

Daisuke assured her that he would not have rather been anywhere else as she escorted him to the door. Halfway there, she stopped abruptly, looking as if she'd seen a ghost. Daisuke reached out to steady her in alarm as her face turned white, and he followed her gaze to the windows next to the door. There was nothing there.

"What's wrong?" he asked urgently. Riku only shook her head, transformed before his eyes from someone who was grieving but finally coping, to someone on the verge of completely falling apart. "What did you see?"

"I-I thought…there was a man who looked l-like the one in the car…"

It took him a moment to grasp what she meant, and Daisuke put his hands on her shoulders, whirling her around. "The driver of the car from the accident?" he exclaimed.

Riku was shaking her head negatively, almost trembling. "It must have been a shadow. It was no where near here, there's no way. It must have been my imagination. I've been having dreams, sometimes. I'm just…I don't know what's wrong with me!" Her sentence fragments were jumbled and barely coherent.

Daisuke released her and strode to the door, opening it and flicking on the outside light with a definitive click of the light switch. Riku cringed as the door opened, but the light revealed only a deserted porch and yard. They stood in silence for minutes until the porch light's automatic sensor flickered off, casting everything into shades of silver from the moonlight.

Except a shadow passed over the moon, blocking the natural light for a moment, and Riku covered her mouth with one hand, stifling a scream. In minutes Daisuke was standing between her and the door, watching as something—someone—stepped out of the shadows. He let loose a slight cry as he charged at the indistinct figure, only his fist never connected as the person stepped nimbly out of the way and caught his wrist with an iron grip.

A/N: It would take two seconds to make this author really happy, so please review!