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Epilogue
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The first few months Yuuki spent in London, she hardly slept. She lay awake, exhausted, unable to drift off. Every time she closed her eyes, all she saw was Kyoya leaning out of the car, screaming at her. His face...
The girl would pick up her phone, every morning for six months and play the same message, over and over. She cried for a day when it expired from her memory card. Yuuki wanted more than anything to hear his voice.
"Yuuki." Pause. "I know you don't want to hear from me right now...or at all. But, I needed to tell you that, I came that night. Tamaki and I, we came for you. I couldn't let you go. I...um" silence. "...it didn't take me long to uh..." Pause "I'm sorry..." Long pause, unsteady breathing. "Yuuki. Just...stay safe." Click.
When Yuuki had left Japan, she had pulled her heart out, strings and all, and thrown it on the tarmac like the dejected puppet it was. And now, there was a hole, a gaping, burning, aching hole. One that she couldn't stitch up. One she lived with like a burden. The thing that scared the girl the most though was how she was forgetting. She couldn't remember what Kyoya's voice sounded like, exactly what colour his eyes were, the shape of his face...it was fading. Yuuki had left so that it would fade, but now that it was happening, she found it was like a nightmare in waking.
So, she threw herself at her riding. Every day she would ride, without complaint, without break. Yuuki pushed herself, trying to get her mind of the pain. But it never left. Every time it snowed, she felt a longing, every time her mobile rang her heart would falter, every time she saw a silver car – she had to look away.
Six months after leaving, Yuuki had her application for visa denied. She was no longer a British citizen thanks to the divorce and would never compete for her birth nation as her mother had. She hated Kyoya for that. She hated how she wanted to remember what he smelled like. She hated how he always claimed he was an egoist when he wasn't. She hated it how...he never came after her. Kyoya never came hunting, which proved how he had used her. Cast her aside, expired. He had wanted one thing, got two and lived with it when his second prize fled.
Even so, Yuuki could never prove that, not when she had seen him trying to reach her from the side of a car. Telling her not to leave. But she had. She had betrayed him as much as he had her.
She was disappearing. Vanishing in her search, her struggle to cling to Kyoya. To grasp what she had left. The girl couldn't go back, she couldn't move forward. For a year she struggled in stagnant water, wanting to just stop swimming but never having the guts to do even that.
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Empty
spaces fill me up with holes
Distant faces with no place left to
go
Without you, within me I can find no rest
Where I'm going
is anybody's guess
I tried to go on like I never knew
you
I'm awake but my world is half asleep
I pray for this
heart to be unbroken
But without you all I'm going to be is,
incomplete
Voices tell me I should carry on
But I am
swimming in an ocean all alone
Baby, my baby
It's written on
your face
You still wonder if we made a big mistake
I tried
to go on like I never knew you
I'm awake but my world is half
asleep
I pray for this heart to be unbroken
But without you all
I'm going to be is, incomplete
I don't mean to drag it on
But I can't seem to let you go
I don't wanna make you face
this world alone
I won't let you go..........
I try to go
on like I never knew you
I'm awake but my world is half asleep
I
pray for this heart to be unbroken
But without you what I'm
going to be is, incomplete...
Incomplete....
(Incomplete, Backstreet Boys)
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Kyoya never went after her. It was his purgatory. His suffering for making her suffer. His penance for killing her spirit, crushing her as he had. A final blow to having part of himself ripped out cruelly and never having it replaced again.
He took up being the heir of the Ootori group as one would pick up the threads of an old life. It was a constant reminder of how he had created shards from something magnificent. Destroyed something otherwise perfect. In his push to get his father's pride, to become more than second rate – he had pushed away the only real treasure he would find.
It scared him. Kyoya would never be able to fully move on. Not after what had happened. He spent days after Yuuki's departure in silence, every evening returning home and holding the navy box in his hands. Reading the note. It was all he had left of her. It was all he deserved of her.
Kyoya didn't deserve the Ootori group, he wanted it yes. He still did everything for merit, yes. But...the part of him that said that doing those things was alright had been removed, replaced with a duplicate that did the job but not with passion. He was passionate about the thing he could never hold again.
He couldn't remember the shape of her eyes, the texture of her hair, the way she smelled. He couldn't remember how she looked after she had ridden, how early she got up, how she clicked her pen.
Kyoya had gone numb. Cut off. Scarred. Unfeeling. He removed himself and became cold and hard. His walls climbed higher than before and he froze those around him. Only those in the Host club ever saw him out of his private world. Only those he let close.
He had screwed up. And he loathed himself for it.
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Time
can never mend the careless whispers of a good friend
To the heart
and mind, ignorance is kind
there's no comfort in the truth
pain
is all you'll find
Should've known better
I feel so
unsure
as I take your hand and lead you to the dance floor
as
the music dies, something in your eyes
calls to mind the silver
screen
and all its sad good-byes
I'm never gonna dance
again
guilty feet have got no rhythm
though it's easy to
pretend
I know you're not a fool
Should've known better
than to cheat a friend
and waste the chance that I've been
given
so I'm never gonna dance again
the way I danced with
you
Time can never mend
the careless whispers of a good
friend
to the heart and mind
ignorance is kind
there's no
comfort in the truth
pain is all you'll find
I'm never
gonna dance again
guilty feet have got no rhythm
though it's
easy to pretend
I know you're not a fool
Should've known
better than to cheat a friend
and waste this chance that I've been
given
so I'm never gonna dance again
the way I danced with
you
Never without your love
Tonight the music seems so
loud
I wish that we could lose this crowd
Maybe it's better
this way
We'd hurt each other with the things we'd want to say
We
could have been so good together
We could have lived this dance
forever
But noone's gonna dance with me
Please stay
And
I'm never gonna dance again
guilty feet have got no rhythm
though
it's easy to pretend
I know you're not a fool
Should've
known better than to cheat a friend
and waste the chance that I've
been given
so I'm never gonna dance again
the way I danced with
you
(Now that you're gone) Now that you're gone
(Now that
you're gone) What I did's so wrong
that you had to leave me alone
(Careless whisper, George Michael)
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Even so, burns can be healed. Tissue can be sewn back together. Scars faded. Even if memory of an incident remains.
They were like Romeo and Juliet. They had the world. They had each other. Life. Love. Passion. Undying. Until Romeo decided to turn Juliet's life upside down by slaying one who she loved. He had hurt her, and she had loved him still. They were ripped apart by his acts. Lived apart in suffering, incomplete without the other, scared of what would happen should they meet again. Would the world stop? Or cease to exist? Would things change? Could the past be changed? Yuuki had not severed their bonds, just cut in it such a way as to push them apart every time they tried to be together. Tugged the in the wrong directions and pained them.
The only real difference was that...Romeo and Juliet died together.
Yuuki and Kyoya had died apart.
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How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on when in your heart you begin to understand there is no going back? There are something's that time cannot mend some hurts that go too deep, that have taken hold ... You cannot always be torn in two ... Your part in the story will go on.
(Lord of the Ring's: The Return of the King, J.R.R Tolkien)
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Stay tuned for the sequel, "Roses of Jericho"