Title: A Wish Left Ungranted

Summary: Tohru has just moved out with Kyo. Yuki reflects on the past and ponders over his feelings for her.

Genre: Romance/ Hurt, Comfort

Rating: T

Word Count: 1,985

I only wished and prayed that she'd be mine one day, but no deity or other wish-granting figure ever bothered to grant me my greatest desire.

My fingers raced across the number pad of my phone, dialing a number I had memorized so long ago. How could I not? I dialed this number over a hundred times a day. Why wasn't the receiver annoyed with me by now? It's simple. I've never hit the send button as of yet.

A week had passed since Tohru Honda, the love of my life, left with Kyo, my cousin and nemesis. Seven days had gone by since I'd seen her last. She moved miles away, and I never even properly told her goodbye. I didn't go off to see her on her last day here. If I had done that, I wouldn't have been able to let her go. I would have let it slip that I was slowly dying here without her. I would have ridden her with enormities of guilt to force her to stay with me, so I didn't see her off. I wanted her to stay behind with me because she wanted to, not out of manipulation, but I knew she wouldn't choose me over Kyo, so it didn't shock me when I found her gone the next morning. Regardless, her absence left me just short of comatose. I could see no reason for anything anymore.

Since her departure, an empty void had resided in my chest, and all true emotions had vanished from my face. I've wasted into an emotionless puppet without her.

Peering down at the yellow ribbon in my hand, I laughed bitterly to myself. It was the one I had given to her on white day a couple of years ago. Of everything she could have forgotten to bring with her, she left this, just as she left me.

She hasn't called me, and I didn't dare call her. I know she has called Rin, Kagura, Kisa, Momiji, even Shigure and Akito, but she seemed to have had cast me aside.

She didn't need me anymore now that she had Kyo. Kyo may have changed her world like the ripples of a boulder tossed into her lake. Perchance I disturbed her waters for a fleeting moment like the ripples of a pebble or the graze of a breath of air, but I shouldn't compare myself to something as precious and essential as air. I was nothing more than the remnants of dirt that had soiled her pure water. While the boulder proudly protrudes out from the surface of her life, I've sunken to the bottom, unnoticed and impotent. Had I even left the tiniest streak upon her life? Perhaps, but only a blemish.

None of that bothered me though. I know from Haru and Momiji that she's happy, and I just need to know that to continue living. My pain meant nothing if it ensured that a smile remained etched across her face. I wouldn't even care if she tortured me to death if I knew it'd guarantee her happiness. I'd do anything for her. If she wanted, I'd tear out my own heart and give it to her. I'd do that, but she already has said item.

With a sigh, I pressed the end button as usual and shut my phone. I wearily lifted my gaze to the window. A beautiful scene lay before me, yet I could see no beauty in it. I haven't seen beauty in anything other than her since I met her. She outshined all else. Nothing could come close enough to compare. Her beauty blinded me, shocked me, froze me, yet she never seemed to notice my affection for her. She never seemed to notice the love for her I felt burning in my body. She couldn't she see that I loved her more than Kyo did. I would die for her. I am dying for her. Would Kyo die for her? I couldn't answer that question, but I knew he wasn't dying now, as I was without her presence.

She never thought twice about falling in love with him. She just jumped into his open arms the first day she met him while my heart remained locked behind iron bars to keep it from breaking, but even with all my defenses up, she still found that rusted key and freed my heart, taking it away with her. If I had been more careful, more cautious, maybe I'd still have a piece of my heart, but she managed to possess the entirety of my heart without even knowing. She stole my heart, my breath, and now she could keep those as hostages, but even prisoners need to be cared for. Neglected, my heart shattered, cracking again and again each time I saw her. Saw her with him. Perhaps it was through breaking. Dust doesn't break down much further, and that was precisely the condition of my heart, but maybe a finer substance. Something unnoticeable to the human eye. My heart had left the decay stage a long time ago. It died when I discovered her feelings for him, yet it still throbbed and trembled each time I saw her.

Did she mockingly heal my heart every night just so she could watch it rupture again?

No. She wasn't cruel.

That healer was me.

It was I who couldn't let go. It was I who clung to these feelings. It was I who was in love with someone blind to me.

Tohru Honda hung from my sky like the sun. I guess she was my sun. She'd rise and comfort me just as the darkness became too much. She bathed me with light and warmth. I needed her, yet I couldn't quite call her mine. I could bask in her soothing rays, but while those rays were vital, standing in her presence for too long would leave me burnt. Yet, just as I grew to love her, she'd whisk away, dipping behind the horizon and forever beyond my reach. Vanishing, she'd let darkness engulf me once again, just as I grew accustomed to light.

I wasn't her other half, so why was she mine? I doubted I ever crossed her mind, but she never left mine. She had practically made a home in the crevices of my head. I couldn't even remember the last time I had slept without dreaming of her. I wondered if I could consider those nightmares or just taunting wisps of what could have been. She had truly conquered my life like an addictive toxin. It was too late, however, to suck out the poison. It had already spread. I wanted to see her. I wanted to think of her. I wanted to love her, yet my feelings only scorched me the more I yearned for her.

I longed for this pain to end by any means necessary. I needed something excruciating to make me forget this fiery burn in my hollow chest, yet nothing came close. Death might, but he'd be a double-crossing friend, so I ignored the sweet nectar he tantalized me with. He'd end my pain in exchange for hers. Maybe I was narcissistic to think my death would bother her, but if it did, there'd be no way to pay penance. Hurting her, even in the most miniscule way was unacceptable. So to keep my suicide from haunting her, I continued to exist. I wasn't living, just enduring. Physically, I was alive, but inside, I couldn't come any closer to death.

My eyes drifted back to my phone. No one had called me for days. They all must have grown tired of this lifeless creature I've become. I had grown sick of myself too, but I had nowhere to hide. Haru had called last with news that Kyo had proposed to Tohru. I've been meaning to call her to congratulate her, but I couldn't. Almost delirious, I ached to hear that beseechingly sweet voice of hers, but I knew it'd be nothing but sweetened venom, a siren's call to destruction. Sure it'd be pleasant at first, a treasure too grand for anyone, but enormities clung to the edges. Unintentional but still existent. She was too kind to be malevolent, but even her joy pierced my heart like a dagger. She was happy with him, and that hurt almost as much as seeing her in misery.

Finding myself still begging to hear her voice, I sought to distract myself. I picked up the ribbon and scrawled down a short message for Tohru. I only wrote three words on the scalloped edge. Hesitantly glancing at the garbage, I fought to decide whether I wanted to toss it out or walk over to Tohru's house and leave it on her porch step. I knew it'd do neither of us any good, but it felt wrong not letting her know. Perhaps I only wanted to pass by her house in hopes of catching a brief glimpse of her through a window.

Then the voice I had longed to hear for ages sounded in a frenzy, from seemingly miles away.

"Shigure-san! Have you cleaned out my room yet?" she hollered.

"Why yes, Tohru-kun. Someone came over yesterday to clean out the rest of your stuff that you said you couldn't bring with you. Why? What's the matter?" Shigure asked.

"Oh no! Oh no!" she wailed.

"Tohru-kun?"

"I left something very important here! You don't think they threw it away, do you?"

"Your room was empty the last time I checked, but you're free to go look yourself," he told her.

Hardly a second past before I heard feet thundering up the stairs. Struggling to breathe properly, I felt suffocated as I stared at the door in a panic, willing my body to move, to get up, to hide, to do something, but I remained frozen on her bedroom floor, lying there hopelessly as I heard her fingers grasp the door knob and wrench the wooden structure open. Her chestnut hair fluttered in first. The tantalizing long strands gravitated towards me, but before I could even raise my arm to reach for them, the locks sank, and she stumbled inside, nearly toppling over. With her mouth agape, she gawked at me with her bright eyes blinking in astonishment, and my breath caught. I could hardly keep my thoughts coherent.

It was her.

My love.

I wondered for how much longer this euphoria would cradle me before it sent me off to the gallows.

We both stared at each other, neither knowing what to say, before finally, a smile spread across her face. I watched her, with both sheer horror and pure exuberance meshed in my eyes, as she kneeled down on the ground. If I only lifted my arm and uncurled my fingers, I could graze her warm skin. If I could only shove myself off the ground, I could give her the hug I've held back since she broke the curse. If I possessed any courage, I could greet her and call her by her first name, but I had none, so I settled for drinking in her presence in a trancelike state because I knew she'd disappear again. In my perusal, I couldn't help noticing that she had no ring upon her left hand.

"Yuki-kun," she finally breathed in a delicate whisper.

Snapping out of my reverie, I only managed to nod.

"Tohru-kun?" Shigure called from downstairs, interrupting the peace that had settled between us, "Did you find what you were looking for? That very important thing?"

"Yes…" she trailed off with a warm smile.

Whether she directed her gaze at me or at the ribbon, I never knew, but it didn't matter anymore because that grin gracing her face at the moment could only be for me.

I had believed my wish had been ignored, but perhaps I was mistaken.

I aimed for beautiful angst but got an emo-fest lined with hope instead. :c Oh well. What's a collection of oneshots without one melodramatic rant? Review please.