Hanadan fic : Foolish game (6/?)
Hokay... I think I'll need another couple of chapters to finish the story. *fingers crossed*
Pairing : Yuki/Soujiro
Rating : PG
Title : Foolish game (6/?)
Word count : 1,972
Disclaimer : only messing around with characters. Original chars obviously belong to the mangaka
Summary : Yuki had been missing from everyone’s life for quite some time. And no one really knew why. What would happen when they managed to find her?
PART 1 : STAR
PART 2 : SOLAR
PART 3 : VENUS
PART 4 : EARTH
PART 5 : MARS
PART 6 : BLACK HOLE
Not only that God does play dice, but that He sometimes confuses us by throwing them where they can't be seen. - Stephen Hawking
How did a mistake, one mistake, change the course of one’s life?
She remembered waking up in an unfamiliar room one night, about two hours before dawn. Her throat was dry, like she was going to choke from the pain, her temples throbbed, her body screamed for cold water. She sat up on the bed, still in that delirious state of someone who had one (or ten) drinks too many. It’s a miracle that she found the bathroom without making too much noise. But she was a creature of habit, of countless repetition. She couldn’t tell how many times she had woken up in an unfamiliar hotel room with Soujiro before. Finding a bathroom was an easy enough thing to do, without making any noise.
She opened the expensive looking bottled water provided by the hotel, quickly drank half the content to quench her thirst. Her eyes had adjusted to the soft white bathroom light. She looked at her reflection in the huge bathroom mirror. Her face was a bit swollen from the alcohol after effect, her eyes sleepy. She didn’t look the least attractive at all. One of the reasons why she rarely went out drinking with Soujiro.
She turned on the tap and splashed her face with cold water, shuddered when the liquid strayed to her bare chest. She was naked, with visible bruises on her arms, and neck. Soujiro never gave her such bad marks before, she thought idly before sat on the toilet seat, to relieve herself. She hated the fact that she couldn’t hold her alcohol well. She always woke up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet every time she had a drink in the evening.
She stood up and flushed the toilet after finished cleaning herself.
The hand soap was nice, she remembered thinking to herself, the white foam smelled like strawberry on her hand. She glanced at her reflection again. Bloated face. Bruises.
That’s why she rarely went out drinking with Soujiro
Soujiro never gave her such a bad mark before.
That’s why she rarely went out drinking with Soujiro
Soujiro never gave her such a bad mark before.
Soujiro.never.gave.her.such.a.bad.mark.
Soujiro.
Her eyes widened in shock.
A wave of broken recollections and nausea swept over her body, and in seconds she keeled over and puked her guts out. Her face was wet. She couldn’t tell what made it so wet. Cold sweat. Tears. Tap water. She didn’t eat anything for dinner except for some potato crisps and salty peanuts served at the bar, and yet she couldn’t seem to stop throwing up what was stored in her stomach.
It took her ten minutes to clean up and gather all her clothes and belongings.
She crawled in the dark, looking for her scattered clothes; one hand covered her mouth, afraid of the sounds she might let out.
She left the room without turning her back once. It’s over. It’s over. She knew her life - this part of her life- was over. She sat rigid in the taxi that took her home. She didn’t want to remember, but pieces by pieces, her recollection of the night before clouded her mind. It’s over.
***
Many, many times she wished that it had been a nightmare she could wake up from. But it was real enough to make her locked herself inside her apartment for a couple of days without once stepping her foot outside the front door, ignoring the many phone calls from Soujiro. Like a broken dvd, she played the scene over and over. It’s scratchy, hazy, and hurt to recall, but her mind kept pushing the rewind button. Rewind. Play. Fast forward. Play. Rewind. Play. Fast forward. Play.
That particular day had started pleasant enough. She was smiling the whole day because Soujiro had called her early in the morning, asking her to meet him for dinner.
‘What’s the occasion?’ she asked excitedly, pretending to forget that it was their anniversary. Yes, it was their anniversary, at least that was what she always thought it was. It was precisely the date she approached him years before. Did he finally acknowledge the importance of that date to her?
‘Nothing special,’ he said. ‘I just want to have a dinner with you.’
And with that, he said good bye and see you later. Her heart dropped a little bit but then again he might have planned a surprise dinner. And just like that, her smile came back in full force.
***
She spent the whole afternoon thinking about the dress she was going to wear.
Light blue or any pastel color would have been too tame. She wouldn’t like that. He wouldn’t like that.
Red? She loved red so much, but she had worn that color for far too many times. Even if she looked good in red, she was afraid it would lose its effect by now. Such a stupid thought, later she realized. But a lot of things looked stupid after a period of time.
She decided on a black dress. Black, like her hair, with a burst of red, like the curly ribbon on her stylish ponytail. She bought the dress on a whim only a week before, blew most of that month paycheck. It was sleeveless with tiny spaghetti strings over her shoulders. Tight on the upper half, hugging her chest while revealed a bit if her cleavage. The bottom half was prettily layered, the hemline fell a few centimeters above her knees. It made her look oddly sexy in a fragile kind of way. She had lost a bit of weight after her graduation from college, and it showed on her face. Her slightly chubby cheeks had gone to make way for her high cheek bones. She did not look half bad.
Right on the dot, she arrived at their favorite restaurant.
Five minutes.
Ten minutes.
Thirty minutes.
It’s unusual for him to be THAT late.
She sat at their usual table. The best table in the far corner of the room where they could see but not be seen. The place was a white linen affair, with the best wine list (and glass) she had ever seen.
His phone was turned off when she tried to call.
Forty minutes.
Fifty minutes.
One hour.
She finished her glass of sparkling white, paid the bill, and left the restaurant when her mobile finally rang. It was Soujiro, of course. His voice was calm and collected, with a hint of regret.
‘Yuki, I had a sudden meeting for hours. We’ll do this tomorrow OK? I still have to go with these people at least for another couple of hours. I’m sorry, you’re OK aren’t you?’
No, I’m not, she thought, but said nothing except turning off her mobile.
On impulse she asked the taxi driver to take him to the club Akira and Soujiro usually frequented at that time. She couldn’t say why. Maybe because she was a masochist at heart, enjoying the infliction of that rusty blade in her heart. Because what would you call her beside that (except maybe, stupid?)
She didn’t know what to expect, really. But she remembered how she laughed out loud when she saw Soujiro left the club with a couple of sexy, leggy girls as her taxi finally arrived in front of the building. She was such a hopeless romantic. A stupid, hopeless romantic. A stupid, brainless, hopeless romantic who couldn’t see where the world was heading, or rather, she could but refused to believe.
She couldn’t really remember what happened after. It went like a dream, except that she woke up in that unfamiliar hotel room the next morning with a giant hangover, after spending the night with her best friend’s husband. What could have been worse than that, she wondered, she would love to know.
The answer came to her quite easily two weeks later.
It was apparently, spending the night with her pregnant best friend’s husband.
The news came like a thunder in a bright day light, beating her senseless with its many shockwaves. And to complete her misery, her period came a month late. Enough to send her world into complete chaos, in between avoiding Soujiro and Tsukushi like crazy.
She remembered lying on her bed thinking about abortion, weighing the pro and cons, checking the places where she could have done the procedure, and more importantly, asked herself if she was ready to do it. Thankfully it wasn’t the case, she wasn’t ready to deal with the consequences, but the knowledge about what could have happened and what she could have done scared her to pieces. A month later she left Tokyo. She didn’t care if it was not fair for Soujiro to be left behind without knowing what had happened; the years she spent with Soujiro were not exactly fair for her either.
It was Tsukushi she worried the most.
But even the thought of her pregnant best friend couldn’t have prevented her from running away. She’s not her doctor, see?
Was she a coward? Probably.
Was it a right move for her? It did not really matter.
Would it mend the broken pieces she created? No it wouldn’t.
If there was another option, would she take it? But that was the only option she could think of at that time.
Six months later she arrived in her new country.
Not at all healed, but she was no longer hopelessly and completely broken either.
***
The café was quiet, and the silence deafening.
‘You hate me, don’t you?’ She asked Soujiro who had stopped talking for quite some time. His eyes looked past her, his jaw set, and his hands unconsciously clenched.
She didn’t tell him the whole story (because THAT would be too embarrassing, yes?) Only the fact that she spent the night with his best friend who happened to be her best friend’s husband.
I’m sorry; did that sound a little bit too fucked up for your liking? Well then congratulation, we share the same feeling.
She smoothen the nonexistent wrinkles on her shirt nervously.
Please, please, don’t let anything happened between him and Domyouji. Don’t let anything happen between Domyouji and Tsukushi. It was all her fault. She was only an accidental passerby in their life. And it should stay that way.
‘You promised nothing will change after I told you my story, you promised,’ she managed to find her voice again albeit a lot weaker than before. But he didn’t seem to listen.
His eyes still fixed on the space behind her head. His jaw set, his hands clenched. Was it anger? Pain? Hatred?
She wanted to say how she missed them all. That he was still the only man who ever so stubbornly visited her at night and giving her wet dreams.
But she didn’t.
Just as she didn’t tell him how, after she left, she always turned the light off whenever she had sex. That when she was closed to orgasm, she often had to clasp her mouth for fearing of crying his name out loud.
She had a few relationships, not many, and more like distraction from her daily life than relationships. They were okay, not great, and none lingered more than a couple of months at best. Maybe it wasn’t fair for her partner, but at least she tried.
‘I’m sorry,’ she forced herself to smile and grabbed her shoulder bag from the chair and started to walk out off the café. She didn’t expect him to follow. And he didn’t. He sat still in that café until she was out of his sight. His jaw still set his hands clenched. Pain. Anger. Sadness?
***
Pairing : Yuki/Soujiro
Rating : PG
Title : Foolish game (6/?)
Word count : 1,972
Disclaimer : only messing around with characters. Original chars obviously belong to the mangaka
Summary : Yuki had been missing from everyone’s life for quite some time. And no one really knew why. What would happen when they managed to find her?
PART 1 : STAR
PART 2 : SOLAR
PART 3 : VENUS
PART 4 : EARTH
PART 5 : MARS
PART 6 : BLACK HOLE
Not only that God does play dice, but that He sometimes confuses us by throwing them where they can't be seen. - Stephen Hawking
How did a mistake, one mistake, change the course of one’s life?
She remembered waking up in an unfamiliar room one night, about two hours before dawn. Her throat was dry, like she was going to choke from the pain, her temples throbbed, her body screamed for cold water. She sat up on the bed, still in that delirious state of someone who had one (or ten) drinks too many. It’s a miracle that she found the bathroom without making too much noise. But she was a creature of habit, of countless repetition. She couldn’t tell how many times she had woken up in an unfamiliar hotel room with Soujiro before. Finding a bathroom was an easy enough thing to do, without making any noise.
She opened the expensive looking bottled water provided by the hotel, quickly drank half the content to quench her thirst. Her eyes had adjusted to the soft white bathroom light. She looked at her reflection in the huge bathroom mirror. Her face was a bit swollen from the alcohol after effect, her eyes sleepy. She didn’t look the least attractive at all. One of the reasons why she rarely went out drinking with Soujiro.
She turned on the tap and splashed her face with cold water, shuddered when the liquid strayed to her bare chest. She was naked, with visible bruises on her arms, and neck. Soujiro never gave her such bad marks before, she thought idly before sat on the toilet seat, to relieve herself. She hated the fact that she couldn’t hold her alcohol well. She always woke up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet every time she had a drink in the evening.
She stood up and flushed the toilet after finished cleaning herself.
The hand soap was nice, she remembered thinking to herself, the white foam smelled like strawberry on her hand. She glanced at her reflection again. Bloated face. Bruises.
That’s why she rarely went out drinking with Soujiro
Soujiro never gave her such a bad mark before.
That’s why she rarely went out drinking with Soujiro
Soujiro never gave her such a bad mark before.
Soujiro.never.gave.her.such.a.bad.mark.
Soujiro.
Her eyes widened in shock.
A wave of broken recollections and nausea swept over her body, and in seconds she keeled over and puked her guts out. Her face was wet. She couldn’t tell what made it so wet. Cold sweat. Tears. Tap water. She didn’t eat anything for dinner except for some potato crisps and salty peanuts served at the bar, and yet she couldn’t seem to stop throwing up what was stored in her stomach.
It took her ten minutes to clean up and gather all her clothes and belongings.
She crawled in the dark, looking for her scattered clothes; one hand covered her mouth, afraid of the sounds she might let out.
She left the room without turning her back once. It’s over. It’s over. She knew her life - this part of her life- was over. She sat rigid in the taxi that took her home. She didn’t want to remember, but pieces by pieces, her recollection of the night before clouded her mind. It’s over.
***
Many, many times she wished that it had been a nightmare she could wake up from. But it was real enough to make her locked herself inside her apartment for a couple of days without once stepping her foot outside the front door, ignoring the many phone calls from Soujiro. Like a broken dvd, she played the scene over and over. It’s scratchy, hazy, and hurt to recall, but her mind kept pushing the rewind button. Rewind. Play. Fast forward. Play. Rewind. Play. Fast forward. Play.
That particular day had started pleasant enough. She was smiling the whole day because Soujiro had called her early in the morning, asking her to meet him for dinner.
‘What’s the occasion?’ she asked excitedly, pretending to forget that it was their anniversary. Yes, it was their anniversary, at least that was what she always thought it was. It was precisely the date she approached him years before. Did he finally acknowledge the importance of that date to her?
‘Nothing special,’ he said. ‘I just want to have a dinner with you.’
And with that, he said good bye and see you later. Her heart dropped a little bit but then again he might have planned a surprise dinner. And just like that, her smile came back in full force.
***
She spent the whole afternoon thinking about the dress she was going to wear.
Light blue or any pastel color would have been too tame. She wouldn’t like that. He wouldn’t like that.
Red? She loved red so much, but she had worn that color for far too many times. Even if she looked good in red, she was afraid it would lose its effect by now. Such a stupid thought, later she realized. But a lot of things looked stupid after a period of time.
She decided on a black dress. Black, like her hair, with a burst of red, like the curly ribbon on her stylish ponytail. She bought the dress on a whim only a week before, blew most of that month paycheck. It was sleeveless with tiny spaghetti strings over her shoulders. Tight on the upper half, hugging her chest while revealed a bit if her cleavage. The bottom half was prettily layered, the hemline fell a few centimeters above her knees. It made her look oddly sexy in a fragile kind of way. She had lost a bit of weight after her graduation from college, and it showed on her face. Her slightly chubby cheeks had gone to make way for her high cheek bones. She did not look half bad.
Right on the dot, she arrived at their favorite restaurant.
Five minutes.
Ten minutes.
Thirty minutes.
It’s unusual for him to be THAT late.
She sat at their usual table. The best table in the far corner of the room where they could see but not be seen. The place was a white linen affair, with the best wine list (and glass) she had ever seen.
His phone was turned off when she tried to call.
Forty minutes.
Fifty minutes.
One hour.
She finished her glass of sparkling white, paid the bill, and left the restaurant when her mobile finally rang. It was Soujiro, of course. His voice was calm and collected, with a hint of regret.
‘Yuki, I had a sudden meeting for hours. We’ll do this tomorrow OK? I still have to go with these people at least for another couple of hours. I’m sorry, you’re OK aren’t you?’
No, I’m not, she thought, but said nothing except turning off her mobile.
On impulse she asked the taxi driver to take him to the club Akira and Soujiro usually frequented at that time. She couldn’t say why. Maybe because she was a masochist at heart, enjoying the infliction of that rusty blade in her heart. Because what would you call her beside that (except maybe, stupid?)
She didn’t know what to expect, really. But she remembered how she laughed out loud when she saw Soujiro left the club with a couple of sexy, leggy girls as her taxi finally arrived in front of the building. She was such a hopeless romantic. A stupid, hopeless romantic. A stupid, brainless, hopeless romantic who couldn’t see where the world was heading, or rather, she could but refused to believe.
She couldn’t really remember what happened after. It went like a dream, except that she woke up in that unfamiliar hotel room the next morning with a giant hangover, after spending the night with her best friend’s husband. What could have been worse than that, she wondered, she would love to know.
The answer came to her quite easily two weeks later.
It was apparently, spending the night with her pregnant best friend’s husband.
The news came like a thunder in a bright day light, beating her senseless with its many shockwaves. And to complete her misery, her period came a month late. Enough to send her world into complete chaos, in between avoiding Soujiro and Tsukushi like crazy.
She remembered lying on her bed thinking about abortion, weighing the pro and cons, checking the places where she could have done the procedure, and more importantly, asked herself if she was ready to do it. Thankfully it wasn’t the case, she wasn’t ready to deal with the consequences, but the knowledge about what could have happened and what she could have done scared her to pieces. A month later she left Tokyo. She didn’t care if it was not fair for Soujiro to be left behind without knowing what had happened; the years she spent with Soujiro were not exactly fair for her either.
It was Tsukushi she worried the most.
But even the thought of her pregnant best friend couldn’t have prevented her from running away. She’s not her doctor, see?
Was she a coward? Probably.
Was it a right move for her? It did not really matter.
Would it mend the broken pieces she created? No it wouldn’t.
If there was another option, would she take it? But that was the only option she could think of at that time.
Six months later she arrived in her new country.
Not at all healed, but she was no longer hopelessly and completely broken either.
***
The café was quiet, and the silence deafening.
‘You hate me, don’t you?’ She asked Soujiro who had stopped talking for quite some time. His eyes looked past her, his jaw set, and his hands unconsciously clenched.
She didn’t tell him the whole story (because THAT would be too embarrassing, yes?) Only the fact that she spent the night with his best friend who happened to be her best friend’s husband.
I’m sorry; did that sound a little bit too fucked up for your liking? Well then congratulation, we share the same feeling.
She smoothen the nonexistent wrinkles on her shirt nervously.
Please, please, don’t let anything happened between him and Domyouji. Don’t let anything happen between Domyouji and Tsukushi. It was all her fault. She was only an accidental passerby in their life. And it should stay that way.
‘You promised nothing will change after I told you my story, you promised,’ she managed to find her voice again albeit a lot weaker than before. But he didn’t seem to listen.
His eyes still fixed on the space behind her head. His jaw set, his hands clenched. Was it anger? Pain? Hatred?
She wanted to say how she missed them all. That he was still the only man who ever so stubbornly visited her at night and giving her wet dreams.
But she didn’t.
Just as she didn’t tell him how, after she left, she always turned the light off whenever she had sex. That when she was closed to orgasm, she often had to clasp her mouth for fearing of crying his name out loud.
She had a few relationships, not many, and more like distraction from her daily life than relationships. They were okay, not great, and none lingered more than a couple of months at best. Maybe it wasn’t fair for her partner, but at least she tried.
‘I’m sorry,’ she forced herself to smile and grabbed her shoulder bag from the chair and started to walk out off the café. She didn’t expect him to follow. And he didn’t. He sat still in that café until she was out of his sight. His jaw still set his hands clenched. Pain. Anger. Sadness?
***