[Week 17; Day 4->Day 5][Dream] I almost told you that I loved you...
Everything has a plan, everything has a certain pattern and design. You've always known how to decipher it, how to read into things and see what's truly there. But at the same time, you keep yourself an enigma, never allowing anyone to see passed the flawless mask you've made for yourself over the years. Seeing and judging others, deciding what traits were worthless and what actions and reactions caused things and got people's attention. A mask, a shield to protect you from the world. Your last line of defense, knowing the world rests on basic actions and reactions. With less reactions, there will be less actions. It's as simple as that.
But, life's not always simple. Before you realize it you're standing on the edge of a cliff, the sun slowly rising behind you to light up the clouds on the horizon. It's so tempting, to simply give in. You think you know what you're doing, that you have complete control over the situation at hand. You hesitate for only a moment before letting yourself fall. Not jumped, for you would never allow yourself to do something so reckless. But as the rock at the edge begins to crumble, you don't make any move to stop it from letting you slip into the pit below.
The surroundings fade and twist, no longer from a cliff but now a dark tunnel you'll falling into. And yet there's a light, the clouds in the sky above is still visible and you focus on that, confident in your abilities to stay strong. It's a game to you, to see how far you can go. Along the way pieces of the mask are strategically set aside, carefully placed where they can be picked up and pieced back together flawlessly in an instant. You're not afraid as you fall deeper and deeper into the abyss, because you know there's a ladder there and you can easily climb back out whenever you wish.
The deeper you fall, the less confident you become. You can't even remember when you fell from the cliff anymore, can't understand why you let it happen. But you're not worried, the light from the sky is still there and you can still see the clouds carelessly drifting by above. Somehow, that convinces you despite everything you've believed in before that it's going to be okay. It becomes normal to you, almost relaxing even once you stop worrying about it. But then, the sky starts to darken above, the sun finally setting.
Before you realize it your body impacts harshly with the ground, the shock from it causing you to lose all your focus. When you try to gather your wits and look up, the clouds are gone and the sky is dark. The ladder is gone and those pieces you had so strategically set aside before are now shattered on the ground around you like shards of broken glass digging into your hands. The light feeling you felt while falling is gone, replaced by a cold emptiness that seems to make itself at home.
Your gaze falls from the now dark and empty sky to what remains of your mask, the cold emptiness turning into a dull throb from the impact of how you landed. As you slowly begin to pick the pieces up, you're not surprised. You knew this would happen from the moment before you let yourself fall from the cliff, and you know that there's really no one to blame for this but yourself. You can't let it happen again.
You put the shards back together, stronger this time, and swear you won't set them aside again.
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[Fran's eyes blink open slowly, for a few minutes all he does is stare at the ceiling above him. He knows his Hitomi is on, still recording more than likely, and his bored expression turns towards the device. For a moment he simply stares, but that doesn't last long. Sitting up in bed he pushes himself to his feet before grabbing the Hitomi on his way out the door, slipping it into his pocket and ending the feed.]