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31_days2005-08-15 03:25 am
zauberer-sirin.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2005-08-15 03:25 am
[Aug. 14th] [Furuba] the practice of farewell - a beginner's guide
Title: the practice of farewell - a beginner's guide
Series: Fruits Basket
Day/Theme: August 14th / all night long I've held your hand
Character/Pairing: Kyou/Tohru
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: for current situations in the manga, but I'm not totally up to date so there might be canon mistakes, sorry
Akito is getting impatient.
"I´ve let you do what you wished for so long," and Kyou backs off a bit, that smile again to go along those words. "And you are graduating soon..."
That was our little wager...it´s impossible, isn´t it?...for the cat to defeat the rat...but you said you could...
"I can´t let you show your disgusting face around my family anymore."
My poor, pitiful monster...
Kyou thinks it´s strange how cold the word "family" sounds on Akito´s lips.
(a word that should sound so differently, that should sound messy and restless like breakfast between Shigure´s jokes and Yuki´s bad mood, a word to evoke the sky he could touch when in his sensei´s arms and a word for every time Uotani has picked on him and Hanajima has freaked him out -that´s how "family" sounds and not hollow and threatening, caged and burned)
And it´s strange for Akito to say "disgusting" to him when it´s this place what reeks of decay, of dry sweat and imprisioned air, like an expensive perfume that has been bottled to long and it´s ruined when you uncap it.
Kyou just nods.
"Good luck in your graduation," Akito dismisses him with a fancy gesture of hand.
*
It´s been so long since they have stayed like this, and now Kyou knows this is the last time.
This is where he began to love her, this rooftop, these warm nights and such great heights and the illusion that the world has stopped, for a moment, just for them.
And now he knows there won´t be more.
"Aren´t you nervous, Kyou-kun?" Tohru asks with the hands on her lap and the stupid confidence that the world is a great place.
Kyou nods half-heartedly and hiding it, and doing a good job; the sky is partially covered with clouds but that is okay because Tohru sits a little closer to him than she used to and their shoulders are almost touching -Kyou wonders if it´s the first time they touch and of course not, you silly, they have touched plenty of times but still there is this panic in Kyou´s throat that tells him otherwise, like his organs swelled and the bones and skin can´t contain him.
"We shouldn´t stay up late, then, if we want to be full of energy tomorrow," she swings her fist in the air when she says that and Kyou laughs, he laughs so much that Tohru knows something it´s wrong. She knows more than she lets on, like the way she has of looking at him when she is sure no one is looking, and the way she has of subtly and silently clinging to him that it´s saying don´t go.
"Go to bed," he tells her in a big-brotherly fashion. "I´ll stay a bit longer."
But Tohru just stares at him with an odd expression and then, in a blinking moment (that it´s like flashlight or summer fireworks) her face relaxes and her tone turns intent and confident.
"Then I´ll stay, too."
Kyou wakes up with roof-tiles marks on his cheeks and Tohru´s hair over his lips.
They are late to their own graduation, but they don´t mind.
*
Kazuma has always had the fantasy that if this moment had to come Kyou would go down fighting.
Maybe that´s why he finds it so hard to see him here, in Hatori´s house -why here? we can talk at my house, and a glance from both Kyou and Hatori told Kazuma that it was just it, the reason, neutral ground and all that- sipping the lukewarm tea Hatori has made and avoiding his gaze.
Whatever it is Kyou really wants to say (and not what he has come to say, not what he needs Hatori covering his back for) the boy doesn´t know there is a vocabulary for, there is a secret history of words.
"Please, sensei," he bows. "Do not interfere."
Please, sensei, I don´t want you to get hurt.
"What nonsense is this?" and Kazuma prays to all the gods he doesn´t believe in never to love someone this much again.
The boy turns his face to Hatori, looking for support before he can go on.
Hatori´s house has always had a distinct smell for Kyou -different from the rest of the Sohma, even for the few and far occassions he has visited. It´s not only that it smells of doctor and sickness and healing, it is there of course -the odour of antiseptic that somehow makes Kyou think of swimming pools rather than hospitals- but underneath, or maybe he is imagining it, maybe he fantasizes, surfaces a sweet scent, of crushed fruit, like the colour of Hatori´s eyes, like his soft lips pressed up against his cold tone.
Kyou draws a long breath.
"I´ve decided to accept my fate."
"That´s not accepting your fate!" his sensei shouts, spilling some tea on the floor (Hatori gets up soundlessly to clean it). "That´s giving up."
For a moment the expression "giving up" sounds incredibly comforting to Kyou.
Hatori finishes cleaning -it´s going to leave a stain, but Hatori thinks it´s okay, life always leaves a stain, it´s like saying Kyou was here, the kid was part of your life, this was important to you- and refills Kazuma´s cup.
Kazuma quietly withdraws Hatori´s hand.
*
There is a humble and vast graveyard and then there is The Sohma Mausoleum (yes, in capitals, because that´s The Sohma Way) and Kyou knows exactly where he is going to end.
"This is where sensei´s grandfather is buried. Right?"
Hatori nods when he catches up. The Sohma burial ground is as beautiful and artificial as everything else here, but somehow holds more truth within it, and almost no one ever comes here to worship, except on special occassions, people here have to learn to live with death everyday, they don´t need a reminder of how definitive it can be. Hatori likes the place.
"I come here when I want silence," he tells Kyou, because he knows the boy is not listening. "I mean, more silence. It´s a nice spot to brood. Don´t you think?"
Kyou looks right back at him -straight back at him, as if noticing Hatori for the first time in that afternoon. Hatori chuckles softly, trying to reach him. Teen angst is more than justified in Kyou´s case.
"I wonder what it was like for him," Kyou continues, graves and prisions swirling in his mind. "To be alone for so long. Sensei said he was a kind man..."
"Well, I was too young to remember," Hatori puts his hands inside the coat pockets -it´s getting cold- and feels exactly that, too young still, every bit as young as Kyou and as much in pain. "But I do remember an old story, that his parents used to cover the mirrors in the house with white cloth, afraid that he took off the rosary and..."
Mum used to say I was too beautiful for anyone to see me, Kyou ponders, unconciously mimicking Hatori´s gesture of burying his hands in the pockets; it´s all the same.
Hatori knows what that glance means, what the lips pursed together and the tense shoulders mean-
(you have it wrong, Hatori told Kazuma once Kyou had left; he is not doing it because he gives up, he is doing it because deep down he believes he deserves to be locked, and it´s easy to see, Hatori thought, why Kyou loved his sensei so much, big-eyed and pure and impossibly unjaded, because Kazuma will never understand the boy completely and still would give his soul for it, but it´s Hatori who knows a lesson or two about self-hatred)
This is the supreme irony, standing here and Hatori knows he should at least say something, a bit of what´s going on his mind; he thinks about Tohru and Yuki -it´s a fascinating moment, when you discover you have the power to break someone´s heart- and for the first time in his life he doesn´t feel any love for Akito, not even a drop of pity, just pure and raw despise and the disgust of an accomplice. The feeling only lasts a moment, but its taste lingers and is sweet, like blood, like iron, like freedom.
He has these words in his mind: it´s hard to find people who know our dark and still see our light. You are lucky. We are lucky. We should grab it and run for it.
Run. Run. Run.
(he sees himself at the beginning of a Hollywood road-movie and yelling at Kyou Grab Tohru, I´ll grab Mayu, get in the car, we´ll drive until no one knows who we are, where Akito can´t find you, and it´s only a fantasy but it´s been uncomfortably playing in his head all day)
Instead: he tells Kyou about the Jewish tradition of covering all the mirrors of the house when somebody dies.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" It´s his last effort.
"No," Kyou answers truthfully and there is this little beginning of a smile playing in the left corner of his lips. "But if I change my mind I´ll let you know."
Hatori puts his hand on the boy´s shoulder, calculatedly distracted.
"I´d like that."
*
One day, some time ago, Shigure found a tube of pale-pink lipstick in Tohru´s bathroom and wondered if it had something to do with Kyou.
*
"If I were different..." Kyou starts, and it´s easier and harder than he has imagined,and maybe he should have done it long ago and it´s the only thing that´s left for him, regretting the lost chances, missing a life he´ll never have, keeping precious memories of things that never happened.
Tohru looks at him with big and unguarded eyes, there is a bit of satisfaction in knowing that he can crush it all, that she cares enough to get hurt.
"If I were a normal boy..."
"But you are a normal boy!"
There are times when Tohru´s loyalty and her kindness and her faith and her whole wonderful being infuriate Kyou to the point of wanting to smash things against the wall.
This is one of those times.
His expression silences her.
"I´m not good at this," he says, but what he really means is: I´m good at running away but not at saying goodbye, and what he means is this: is there any way of saying this without having to say "I love you"?
He turns to leave, discovering leaving is the one things he is good at, theory and practice; but Tohru catches his intention and catches his hand, firmly circling his fingers around his wrist. It burns; it burns like hormones do, like death by lightning does. For a second Kyou is extremely grateful he is not going to see her again.
"Is everything alright, Kyou-kun? You are not going anywhere. Right?"
There is a moment of alarm in him.
she knows she knows she knows she knows she knows she knows
"What do you mean?"
"Mmm, nothing. Just...is everything fine?"
don´t go don´t go don´t go don´t go don´t go don´t go don´t go don´t go
Kyou puts his hands on her head and counts all the things he has done for the last time and then counts all the things he´ll never have the chance to do, clumsily caressing her hair while Tohru gives in, seeks his touch and yes, yes, yes, right now everything is alright, if only this very minute before all falls down and Kyou thinks: so this is what happines feels like.
"It´s been a long day," he says -this is the last time I´ll ever have to lie to you, he keeps counting-, "we´ll talk tomorrow."
"Okay," is her reply, and she lets him go.
*
That night he challenges Yuki to fight, once more.
He loses.
It´s so much fun that when the two are spread on the ground, battered and worn out, Kyou brushes his lips against Yuki´s arm and almost laughs.
He is going to miss this. He wonders if Yuki is.
*
It´s dark but his eyes get used soon.
He is alone but Kyou is already used to loneliness.
There is silence, but he keeps hearing...
Then I´ll stay, too.
Series: Fruits Basket
Day/Theme: August 14th / all night long I've held your hand
Character/Pairing: Kyou/Tohru
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: for current situations in the manga, but I'm not totally up to date so there might be canon mistakes, sorry
Akito is getting impatient.
"I´ve let you do what you wished for so long," and Kyou backs off a bit, that smile again to go along those words. "And you are graduating soon..."
That was our little wager...it´s impossible, isn´t it?...for the cat to defeat the rat...but you said you could...
"I can´t let you show your disgusting face around my family anymore."
My poor, pitiful monster...
Kyou thinks it´s strange how cold the word "family" sounds on Akito´s lips.
(a word that should sound so differently, that should sound messy and restless like breakfast between Shigure´s jokes and Yuki´s bad mood, a word to evoke the sky he could touch when in his sensei´s arms and a word for every time Uotani has picked on him and Hanajima has freaked him out -that´s how "family" sounds and not hollow and threatening, caged and burned)
And it´s strange for Akito to say "disgusting" to him when it´s this place what reeks of decay, of dry sweat and imprisioned air, like an expensive perfume that has been bottled to long and it´s ruined when you uncap it.
Kyou just nods.
"Good luck in your graduation," Akito dismisses him with a fancy gesture of hand.
*
It´s been so long since they have stayed like this, and now Kyou knows this is the last time.
This is where he began to love her, this rooftop, these warm nights and such great heights and the illusion that the world has stopped, for a moment, just for them.
And now he knows there won´t be more.
"Aren´t you nervous, Kyou-kun?" Tohru asks with the hands on her lap and the stupid confidence that the world is a great place.
Kyou nods half-heartedly and hiding it, and doing a good job; the sky is partially covered with clouds but that is okay because Tohru sits a little closer to him than she used to and their shoulders are almost touching -Kyou wonders if it´s the first time they touch and of course not, you silly, they have touched plenty of times but still there is this panic in Kyou´s throat that tells him otherwise, like his organs swelled and the bones and skin can´t contain him.
"We shouldn´t stay up late, then, if we want to be full of energy tomorrow," she swings her fist in the air when she says that and Kyou laughs, he laughs so much that Tohru knows something it´s wrong. She knows more than she lets on, like the way she has of looking at him when she is sure no one is looking, and the way she has of subtly and silently clinging to him that it´s saying don´t go.
"Go to bed," he tells her in a big-brotherly fashion. "I´ll stay a bit longer."
But Tohru just stares at him with an odd expression and then, in a blinking moment (that it´s like flashlight or summer fireworks) her face relaxes and her tone turns intent and confident.
"Then I´ll stay, too."
Kyou wakes up with roof-tiles marks on his cheeks and Tohru´s hair over his lips.
They are late to their own graduation, but they don´t mind.
*
Kazuma has always had the fantasy that if this moment had to come Kyou would go down fighting.
Maybe that´s why he finds it so hard to see him here, in Hatori´s house -why here? we can talk at my house, and a glance from both Kyou and Hatori told Kazuma that it was just it, the reason, neutral ground and all that- sipping the lukewarm tea Hatori has made and avoiding his gaze.
Whatever it is Kyou really wants to say (and not what he has come to say, not what he needs Hatori covering his back for) the boy doesn´t know there is a vocabulary for, there is a secret history of words.
"Please, sensei," he bows. "Do not interfere."
Please, sensei, I don´t want you to get hurt.
"What nonsense is this?" and Kazuma prays to all the gods he doesn´t believe in never to love someone this much again.
The boy turns his face to Hatori, looking for support before he can go on.
Hatori´s house has always had a distinct smell for Kyou -different from the rest of the Sohma, even for the few and far occassions he has visited. It´s not only that it smells of doctor and sickness and healing, it is there of course -the odour of antiseptic that somehow makes Kyou think of swimming pools rather than hospitals- but underneath, or maybe he is imagining it, maybe he fantasizes, surfaces a sweet scent, of crushed fruit, like the colour of Hatori´s eyes, like his soft lips pressed up against his cold tone.
Kyou draws a long breath.
"I´ve decided to accept my fate."
"That´s not accepting your fate!" his sensei shouts, spilling some tea on the floor (Hatori gets up soundlessly to clean it). "That´s giving up."
For a moment the expression "giving up" sounds incredibly comforting to Kyou.
Hatori finishes cleaning -it´s going to leave a stain, but Hatori thinks it´s okay, life always leaves a stain, it´s like saying Kyou was here, the kid was part of your life, this was important to you- and refills Kazuma´s cup.
Kazuma quietly withdraws Hatori´s hand.
*
There is a humble and vast graveyard and then there is The Sohma Mausoleum (yes, in capitals, because that´s The Sohma Way) and Kyou knows exactly where he is going to end.
"This is where sensei´s grandfather is buried. Right?"
Hatori nods when he catches up. The Sohma burial ground is as beautiful and artificial as everything else here, but somehow holds more truth within it, and almost no one ever comes here to worship, except on special occassions, people here have to learn to live with death everyday, they don´t need a reminder of how definitive it can be. Hatori likes the place.
"I come here when I want silence," he tells Kyou, because he knows the boy is not listening. "I mean, more silence. It´s a nice spot to brood. Don´t you think?"
Kyou looks right back at him -straight back at him, as if noticing Hatori for the first time in that afternoon. Hatori chuckles softly, trying to reach him. Teen angst is more than justified in Kyou´s case.
"I wonder what it was like for him," Kyou continues, graves and prisions swirling in his mind. "To be alone for so long. Sensei said he was a kind man..."
"Well, I was too young to remember," Hatori puts his hands inside the coat pockets -it´s getting cold- and feels exactly that, too young still, every bit as young as Kyou and as much in pain. "But I do remember an old story, that his parents used to cover the mirrors in the house with white cloth, afraid that he took off the rosary and..."
Mum used to say I was too beautiful for anyone to see me, Kyou ponders, unconciously mimicking Hatori´s gesture of burying his hands in the pockets; it´s all the same.
Hatori knows what that glance means, what the lips pursed together and the tense shoulders mean-
(you have it wrong, Hatori told Kazuma once Kyou had left; he is not doing it because he gives up, he is doing it because deep down he believes he deserves to be locked, and it´s easy to see, Hatori thought, why Kyou loved his sensei so much, big-eyed and pure and impossibly unjaded, because Kazuma will never understand the boy completely and still would give his soul for it, but it´s Hatori who knows a lesson or two about self-hatred)
This is the supreme irony, standing here and Hatori knows he should at least say something, a bit of what´s going on his mind; he thinks about Tohru and Yuki -it´s a fascinating moment, when you discover you have the power to break someone´s heart- and for the first time in his life he doesn´t feel any love for Akito, not even a drop of pity, just pure and raw despise and the disgust of an accomplice. The feeling only lasts a moment, but its taste lingers and is sweet, like blood, like iron, like freedom.
He has these words in his mind: it´s hard to find people who know our dark and still see our light. You are lucky. We are lucky. We should grab it and run for it.
Run. Run. Run.
(he sees himself at the beginning of a Hollywood road-movie and yelling at Kyou Grab Tohru, I´ll grab Mayu, get in the car, we´ll drive until no one knows who we are, where Akito can´t find you, and it´s only a fantasy but it´s been uncomfortably playing in his head all day)
Instead: he tells Kyou about the Jewish tradition of covering all the mirrors of the house when somebody dies.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" It´s his last effort.
"No," Kyou answers truthfully and there is this little beginning of a smile playing in the left corner of his lips. "But if I change my mind I´ll let you know."
Hatori puts his hand on the boy´s shoulder, calculatedly distracted.
"I´d like that."
*
One day, some time ago, Shigure found a tube of pale-pink lipstick in Tohru´s bathroom and wondered if it had something to do with Kyou.
*
"If I were different..." Kyou starts, and it´s easier and harder than he has imagined,and maybe he should have done it long ago and it´s the only thing that´s left for him, regretting the lost chances, missing a life he´ll never have, keeping precious memories of things that never happened.
Tohru looks at him with big and unguarded eyes, there is a bit of satisfaction in knowing that he can crush it all, that she cares enough to get hurt.
"If I were a normal boy..."
"But you are a normal boy!"
There are times when Tohru´s loyalty and her kindness and her faith and her whole wonderful being infuriate Kyou to the point of wanting to smash things against the wall.
This is one of those times.
His expression silences her.
"I´m not good at this," he says, but what he really means is: I´m good at running away but not at saying goodbye, and what he means is this: is there any way of saying this without having to say "I love you"?
He turns to leave, discovering leaving is the one things he is good at, theory and practice; but Tohru catches his intention and catches his hand, firmly circling his fingers around his wrist. It burns; it burns like hormones do, like death by lightning does. For a second Kyou is extremely grateful he is not going to see her again.
"Is everything alright, Kyou-kun? You are not going anywhere. Right?"
There is a moment of alarm in him.
she knows she knows she knows she knows she knows she knows
"What do you mean?"
"Mmm, nothing. Just...is everything fine?"
don´t go don´t go don´t go don´t go don´t go don´t go don´t go don´t go
Kyou puts his hands on her head and counts all the things he has done for the last time and then counts all the things he´ll never have the chance to do, clumsily caressing her hair while Tohru gives in, seeks his touch and yes, yes, yes, right now everything is alright, if only this very minute before all falls down and Kyou thinks: so this is what happines feels like.
"It´s been a long day," he says -this is the last time I´ll ever have to lie to you, he keeps counting-, "we´ll talk tomorrow."
"Okay," is her reply, and she lets him go.
*
That night he challenges Yuki to fight, once more.
He loses.
It´s so much fun that when the two are spread on the ground, battered and worn out, Kyou brushes his lips against Yuki´s arm and almost laughs.
He is going to miss this. He wonders if Yuki is.
*
It´s dark but his eyes get used soon.
He is alone but Kyou is already used to loneliness.
There is silence, but he keeps hearing...
Then I´ll stay, too.