A/N: Hey! Sis here. YEPPPPP SIS! YOU KNOW? THE ONE FROM LOVE AND BETRAYAL? YEAAAAAH... Blame Author if you want a new chapter of The Cruel Truth, not me. Lol. Anyway, since I missed Aaliyah (sorry, Selene, but don't worry. You have Author), I decided to make some sort of modern!Aaliyah&Azul story... crueler than Love and Betrayal or The Cruel Truth. One shot. Rated T for theme, language and violence.

"I'm fucked up," she told him while she was lying her head on his lap.

He fiddled with her short, green hair for awhile and pushed back the bang that she kept when she cut her hair. It hid her wounded eye: a wound that she, herself, made, for fun, or so, she told him.

He traced the scar on her eye. In his mind, he thought of his past, of a boy who was always sickly and ill and more ghost than human. A boy who thought that dying was better than living.

He sighed, "that's funny."

He watched as her eyebrow raised in question.

He turned his attention back to the TV screen. "'Cause I am too."

It was a queer arrangement they had: they lived in the same building, her apartment room just across his. But she was barely even here. She was always at his place, hogging his bed, but would occasionally crash at his couch when she felt like it. Sometimes, they even slept side by side.

"Why do you even pay your rent?" he asked her.

She shrugged. "Dunno. Why do you let me stay here? We barely know each other."

He nodded. "Point taken." But that was a lie, for he knew her. He's always known who she was, right from the start. So it came to no surprise when he felt his borrowed heart ache because of it.

The girl's world started out as perfect. But at the death of her older brother, her life started spiraling down. Her dad buried himself in work. Her mom filed a divorce. It was during those times that she found solace in the arms of a boy, and found out what love and romance meant.

Her dad heard, and the next thing she knew she was being sent to another country to study. She had no choice in the matter and she wasn't even allowed to communicate with anyone. But when, a year later, she came back, she was heartbroken.

Raphael was dead.

They said it was an accident, but she knew better. So she confronted her father and after doing so, she had gone missing ever since. She left everything, including a tearstained note for her beloved younger sister: I'm sorry.

"I haven't even visited their graves yet. Both of them would probably haunt me," she remarked offhandedly during dinner.

He nodded. "Do you want to visit them? I'll drive."

So he does.

Later, on the way home, she asked, "How did you know where they're buried? Did I tell you?"

He shrugged.

"Ah, me and my big mouth."

She didn't see Azul talking to Raphael's headstone just before they left.

He was always sick. So sick that he was never allowed outside. Things that ordinary children can do, he can't. For his heart can't take it. Fortunately, he was allowed to look out the window.

He saw her outside, playing with his cousin. Day after day, he would watch her, thinking no one would notice. But someone did: Raphael, his cousin.

His cousin pleaded, begged, for him to meet the girl. But he would not yield. Only Raphael was persevering, that he cracked and told his cousin that fine. But he'll only send her letters, and never meet her face to face.

Raohael happily agreed, even helping by being their sender.

He learned a lot of things about her, that her name was Aaliyah, and that she was a middle child. That she had an older brother named Hans, a younger sister named Selene. That she had a pet.

It was fun while it lasted, but at his next bout of attacks, he was sent to the hospital to stay there for months.

When he came back, the girl had moved away, and even Raphael wasn't allowed near him. They said he was the cause of his attacks, his pain. He understands his parents, but they don't understand him.

The next time he'd hear of his cousin was of his death. Of how Raphael made sure that his heart would be donated to Azul upon his demise.

It was Christmas. He was surprised NOT to see her at his apartment. With the leftover chocolate cake he got from work, he got the duplicate key to her room and entered. He found near the answering machine with its light blinking, indicating an unheard message.

"You know, you really should hear that," he commented.

She gasped, finally noticing him. He gave him an unsure glance, then forced a snide smile. "I will take that key from you if you use it that freely. You didn't even knock—"

"Stop it."

She was avoiding it, running away from this.

"Stop pretending you don't wanna hear them. Your mom. Your sister. That you don't wanna talk to them. It's Christmas. At least give yourself that."

She didn't move, so he sighed, guided her hand to the phone.

"What about you?" She asked and looked at him, voice hoarse.

"I'll manage."

That night, he held her tight, as she cried and cried and cried. That same night, their boundaries have been straddled, as she pulled him in for a kiss.

They could have gone on with their life blissfully after that. In fact, they did. They went in a 'relationship,' though they never labeled it as such.

Until Azul's parents came and the thing about being Raphael's cousin was spilled.

"So all this time, you were lying?! All this time, you were pretending you cared! You never did, did you?"

They had a quarrel that night.

She was gone the next morning. He waited for days, but she never came back. Eventually, her things got evicted. It really hit him then, that she was gone. At loss of what to do, he tried looking for her. And when that failed, he immersed himself in work, in papers and properties and deals.

Months later, as he sat in his office, his door opened.

"I told you, I'm not going to meet whoever it was—"

"Really, even if it's me?"

At the sound of her voice, he stood up. He stared at her fearing that if he blinked she'd disappear.

She looked at his table. "You're turning out exactly like my father."

He could've retorted, but he didn't. "You came back."

"Silly, of course I would. I didn't say goodbye."

"Is that why you're here? To bid me farewell?"

She shook her head. "No."

Silence.

"You left," he whispered.

She shrugged. "You told me to leave."

"You never listened to anyone."

"And you wonder why I'm back."

He laughed. "You're so… so…"

"Fucked up?" she helpfully supplied.

"Yes," he nodded.

"So are you," she replied.

He looked at her. Her hair's gone longer, and her eyes, though broken, was definitely much brighter. And then she smiled. And it was the smile she had the first time he saw her. His heart clenched in a way that he feared he's having those attacks again. He wonders it it's Raphael feeling that or him.

Either way, he would really like that smile to be on her face much more. He knows that's what even Raphael would want.

He walked towards her and then he hugged her.

She giggled. "You were that boy I write letter to, then?"

He didn't answer, burying his head on her neck, breathing in the scent of her hair. "I missed you, you know."

"I know."