Snow and Ash - Eleven Part 2
Shige:
When I hand in my papers, all I can think about are warm baths and the word relax repeats in my head as I routinely go through the rest of the day. It is rather uneventful, and Koyama and I make plans to go out to eat again tonight.
To: Ryo
I made plans with Kei-chan to eat tonight~ No instant noodles (~’A’)
I will see you when I get back?
I press send and wait for a response which never comes. He must have his phone off or something.
When I see Koyama, he looks about as happy as anyone would be in his situation. He still hasn’t heard from Yamapi, and he tells me that Massu couldn’t take it anymore and went up to him at work to talk to him about it and Yamapi wanted nothing to do with him.
So now he’s ignoring us all?
“It’s not like him…” Koyama says, a hint of worry in his voice.
“Maybe he can’t face you or what he’s doing to you. And he knew talking to Massu would lead to you being brought up.”
I don’t like making excuses for him. But I still don’t want to make Koyama feel worse than he already does.
“I don’t know, Shige.”
“What about the moving on thing? Is there anyone you’re interested in?”
“I haven’t taken the time to really think about that yet. It’s like I’m stuck in between. I don’t want to be hurt anymore but I’m not ready to see someone else.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being single.”
“I guess not, but-“
I rub the back of my neck. “If you don’t want to be single and you don’t want to date other people, then maybe you should try talking to Yamapi again. But in my opinion with the way he’s acting right now, he’s not worth it. Saying that you want to be with him again would be like saying he can do whatever he wants to you and it wouldn’t matter. You can’t be a doormat or he’ll continue stepping all over you. The marks don’t fade easily.”
He nods. “I don’t want to be with him with the way he’s acting now. I want…”
“Him to go back to the way he used to be?”
“He’s not acting like himself,” he repeats.
“Confusion does that sometimes.”
He nods silently and gets up, not wanting to talk about it anymore.
“My treat,” he says with a smile before heading off to pay the bill.
---
Koyama goes over to see one of the kids across the street who call over to him and I step inside of the house. I head up to Ryo’s room to see if he is here yet, which he is. He’s sitting on the floor with his back against the wall and his knees drawn up to his chest. This is what he looked like when I first met him, withdrawn and cloaked with a mystery he didn’t want anyone to see through. Something’s wrong.
“Why are you here?” he asks, his voice rough.
He doesn’t want me here, but I don’t know why. I want to look into his mind, see what he’s thinking, see what’s upsetting him but I told myself I wouldn’t do that anymore.
“What’s wrong?”
“Like you don’t know.”
I step closer to him, and for the first time in a long time he uses his power on me, effectively holding me in place with a force that has always been far too strong for me to break. “I don’t know. You were fine last night…”
“Was I?”
My heart pounds and the forced immobility hurts, like I’m being suffocated and I can’t move away from it. It’s frustrating and he knows I hate it, but all that loses much of its importance when I see him bring his hand up and wipe away a tear from one eye and then the other. “Talk to me,” I choke out.
He doesn’t, and the hurt I feel emanating from him is enough of a push for me to read his mind but I don’t understand what I see. I see myself…under someone else.
“Why are you thinking about that?”
“I saw it.”
“In a dream?” I ask, still not able to move.
He looks up to me with anger and betrayal in his eyes. “No, not in a fucking dream.”
He breaks the force and I almost lose my balance. “Ryo…I-“
He cuts me off. “Stop playing innocent!” he yells and glares at me, throwing me back into the far wall. My back slams against it and it hurts like hell, and when I fall to the floor a shelf breaks and its contents fall on my back.
I look up at him, tears beginning to line my eyes, and he looks horrified at his own action but at the same time he doesn’t move to help me, almost like I deserved it. “I would…never cheat on you. You know that,” I somehow manage to say.
“Then why?” he asks, his voice soaked with desperation and things continue to float in the air as he slowly begins to lose control of his power to his emotions.
I’ve been in this situation before, back when the other mind control mutant was having fun toying with Ryo’s memories. I know what I have to do, but there’s nothing I want to avoid more.
The reason Ryo has this curse is because Noriko erased his memory and tricked him. She got into his head and erased what was undesirable for her. I don’t want him to continue thinking I cheated on him. I don’t want him to continue feeling like I stepped all over everything he’s ever done for me and everything he’s ever felt for me. But would erasing it be like what Noriko did?
Do I even have a choice? He won’t listen to me; he doesn’t believe me. How could he? Who would believe someone who said a memory that is as clear as this one never happened?
“I’ll make you wake up from this dream, Ryo.”
His eyes fall shut when I enter his mind and everything falls to the ground around me as I struggle to control his power for as long as it takes to erase the memory. When I’m done, he’s still collapsed on the floor and the pain I’m in becomes even more real to me with every slight movement.
I watch him as he wakes up, dizzy and confused, and he stares at me in horror. “Tell me I didn’t do this.”
He’s back, and that thought makes me happy but I know what I just did went against what he would have wanted. “You did, but…”
Suddenly, everything falls apart and I feel overwhelmed like a rush of water hitting my face, taking me under into the ocean as it smothers me.
---
Ryo:
My hands tremble as I watch him convulsing on the ground, a cut on his head bleeding down his forehead. I hear the door shut and the jingling of keys and I put together my terrified voice. “Kei-chan!” I don’t even know if it’s him, nor do I know if he’s here or why I’m here or why I hurt Shige like this. I yell for him anyway.
I go over to Shige, but I’m too afraid to touch him, afraid of making it worse.
I hear the footsteps on the stairs and I wish they would come faster. “What’s wr-...” Koyama says from the doorway, trailing off and freezing when he sees Shige on the floor.
“His power,” I manage out but I don’t even finish the word before Koyama runs out, comes back, and I look away as Koyama inserts a needle into him. I feel sick. “What is that?”
“I took it from the leader’s office along with the book recording his progress.” His words are quick and jumbled. “I saw ‘Kato’ on it and thought it might be important. When his power gets too strong or he becomes overwhelmed, it’s too much for his body to handle. This…was developed to fix it. He told me they used it on him when he was still in XMA…”
He didn’t tell me that, but then again he doesn’t mention a lot about what happened over those two days. I wait for a minute, my body feeling cold and my stomach turning, until things seem to start calming down. Koyama has his arms around Shige, rubbing him softly to ease the pain. Shige moves his arm, hooks it around Koyama and holds him back.
A drop of something falls onto my palm and when I look down I realize it’s one of my own tears.
“He’ll be out for a few hours,” Koyama says, exhausted but relieved.
“But he’s okay, right?”
“Yeah. But what the hell happened? He was fine all day.”
“I don’t know. I don’t even remember him coming here. But he said I did this.” I take my eyes off of Shige for a moment to see all the damage that I caused. I must have thrown him…
“Well…it’s okay now. Maybe you should take a rest too.”
Cautiously, I move closer to Shige and place a hand on his back. He’s breathing softly now and I want to hold him, apologize, but he can’t hear me anyway. “What would have happened to him if you hadn’t been here with that stuff?”
Koyama looks away and it confirms my thoughts. “You know what happened to the first mind control mutant. So I think you already know.”
It’s one thing inflicting his life, forcing a life of 10seconds on him, but it’s a whole other thing taking that life away from him. I suddenly want to run, to take myself away from him like I did before.
But I know I can’t. It’s the price of greed; I want to be with him, even after this. I want him to be clinging to me instead, even though I was the one who put him in the state where he had to cling to life.
I suddenly feel sick again, and I turn to Koyama. “Thank you…”
He nods, probably sensing my unrest but doesn’t say anything when I look to Shige one more time before leaving.
---
I can hear noise around me, but it’s all blurry. Glasses clinking molding with the sound of voices, energetic yells mixing with soft words.
“Hitting it pretty hard there, aren’t you?” I recognize the voice, and I look over to see Mika, smiling and taking the stool next to me.
“What are you doing here?” I ask and she takes my glass.
“Same as you,” she answers and drinks the remaining alcohol in the glass in one shot. “Getting a drink. Except I’m sure I don’t look as bad as you do.”
She orders a drink and prevents me from getting another one of my own. “Look, I know you don’t want to touch me, but you can talk to me, you know.”
Her eyes look sincere, and I find myself telling her even though I normally wouldn’t say any of these things to anyone. “I almost killed him.”
“Who? Your boyfriend? Why?” she asks, her eyes growing wide.
“Not purposely, obviously.”
She shrugs. “Then it was a mistake. He probably knows that…so stop beating yourself up for it.”
“How can I take it that lightly?”
“You said almost. It didn’t happen, so it’s better not to try to kill yourself by drinking too much. I doubt that’d make him happy.”
I look down at the empty glass - it was only my first. “I’m not trying to.”
“I’d be scared too.”
We sit in silence for a while, her company calming me down a bit. I think of Shige and wonder how he’s doing…why would I do something to hurt him like that?
“Hmm…Don’t laugh,” she says but just laughs herself anyway.
“Laughter would do me some good right now.”
“Okay, then in that case you can laugh.”
She leaves for a minute and comes back with a folded napkin.
“What is this?”
“Open it,” she urges and hands it to me.
I unfold it and on it is a drawing of Mika, smiling and hugging me and in the corner is written “Cheer up. He loves you. He’ll forgive you.”
I manage a smile, realizing that she thinks I don’t like people touching me and therefore she couldn’t hug me for real.
“Success!” she exclaims and continues to smile around the rim of her glass.
---
On the way back home, I stop and lean against the railing of the bridge, remembering what it was like to leave him. I wouldn’t do that again, but the feeling I have now is like what I felt back then. Wanting to protect him and wanting to see him live a long, happy life.
It was just this once, I tell myself. I won’t let it happen again; I’ll be more careful.
Would that really help, Ryo-chan? My body stills and when I look behind me, sitting on the bridge behind me is Shiku, swinging her legs and waving at me.
Long time no see.
And then it hits me with painful clarity why my power never did that to him until now. Because it didn’t.
“You did this, didn’t you?”
She applauds, and her usual eerie smile returns to her lips. Very good, Ryo-chan.
“Why can’t you give up?”
Her head tilts to the side. It’s a fight for survival…if we don’t win, we die along with you.
“You’ve been alive long enough. My lifetime added to that will be plenty.”
We’ll see you very soon.
“Don’t touch him again. Do whatever you want with me.”
Aw, the cursed freak is playing hero again. Isn’t that sweet. Don’t you get it? You’re not a hero. You caused this mess.
She waves goodbye and disappears. But her words stay with me.
---
Instead of going back home, I end up at the hill. I used to come here all the time because of its isolation. I remember I sat here with Shige on the day of broken greed the second time, telling myself never to let go of the hand I held. When I first found this hill, I sat here with black eyes, telling myself that I’d take someone here on a date if I could. When I took Shige here, I realized how much he changed my life. He was the only one who didn’t look at me like an idiot for deciding to keep this curse even though the consequences affected him directly. He fit perfectly into my ideas of what I’d never have in the life with a curse.
I hold my phone in my hands for a long time, just staring at the message he sent me when I got here.
I’m not mad at you. Come back.
And then another one comes.
Don’t make me come looking for you (~‘A’)/
You should rest.
I have been.
What happened tonight scared me.
Me too. But distancing yourself isn’t helping.
Lately all I do is run…
Then stop running. I want to see you.
---
I arrive at the door with heavy steps and Shige immediately opens it and smiles when he sees me. I pull him close to me, holding him in a tight and needy embrace.
“Ryo, you didn’t do that to me,” he says, resting his head on my shoulder. “Yeah, you threw me into the wall and it hurt but being overwhelmed…that wasn’t because of you.”
“I know.” I swallow. “Shiku told me.”
It takes him longer than usual to respond. “I guess she is back.”
“I knew she would be.”
I follow him up to my room, and instead of seeing the disastrous way I left it, I walk into a room that is in almost-normal condition. A broom is standing up by the window and most of the broken pieces have been swept up. “You didn’t have to…”
“Kei-chan did it. I woke up and it was like this.”
Before I can respond, he takes my hand and pulls me towards the bed. He lies down on it and I follow, getting under the sheets still fully dressed. But I don’t really care at the moment, especially when he sleepily pulls me close, making it obvious that he wants me here. His grip loosens as he slowly heads towards unconsciousness and I pull away a bit, smoothing a hand over his cheek before kissing it, beginning a trail of light kisses down his neck. He smiles but doesn’t open his eyes and this simple situation, his weak smile and his arms around me, holding me in place in a room I once spent my time alone in, causes something to break inside of me.
His eyes open when I am still for almost a minute. “What?”
I close the space between us, embracing him tightly as tears begin to line my eyes.
“Ryo, what?” he asks nervously and I can feel him fidgeting.
“…I don’t think I can do this anymore.”
He is silent for a while, his body completely still, and when he does speak his voice is shaky. “But I said I wasn’t mad. I’m okay.”
“No. It’s not that. Not us. Not you.”
“Then what?”
“Keeping the curse. I don’t know if I can do it anymore.”
End of Chapter Eleven
A/N: Now the real story has finally begun.
When I hand in my papers, all I can think about are warm baths and the word relax repeats in my head as I routinely go through the rest of the day. It is rather uneventful, and Koyama and I make plans to go out to eat again tonight.
To: Ryo
I made plans with Kei-chan to eat tonight~ No instant noodles (~’A’)
I will see you when I get back?
I press send and wait for a response which never comes. He must have his phone off or something.
When I see Koyama, he looks about as happy as anyone would be in his situation. He still hasn’t heard from Yamapi, and he tells me that Massu couldn’t take it anymore and went up to him at work to talk to him about it and Yamapi wanted nothing to do with him.
So now he’s ignoring us all?
“It’s not like him…” Koyama says, a hint of worry in his voice.
“Maybe he can’t face you or what he’s doing to you. And he knew talking to Massu would lead to you being brought up.”
I don’t like making excuses for him. But I still don’t want to make Koyama feel worse than he already does.
“I don’t know, Shige.”
“What about the moving on thing? Is there anyone you’re interested in?”
“I haven’t taken the time to really think about that yet. It’s like I’m stuck in between. I don’t want to be hurt anymore but I’m not ready to see someone else.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being single.”
“I guess not, but-“
I rub the back of my neck. “If you don’t want to be single and you don’t want to date other people, then maybe you should try talking to Yamapi again. But in my opinion with the way he’s acting right now, he’s not worth it. Saying that you want to be with him again would be like saying he can do whatever he wants to you and it wouldn’t matter. You can’t be a doormat or he’ll continue stepping all over you. The marks don’t fade easily.”
He nods. “I don’t want to be with him with the way he’s acting now. I want…”
“Him to go back to the way he used to be?”
“He’s not acting like himself,” he repeats.
“Confusion does that sometimes.”
He nods silently and gets up, not wanting to talk about it anymore.
“My treat,” he says with a smile before heading off to pay the bill.
---
Koyama goes over to see one of the kids across the street who call over to him and I step inside of the house. I head up to Ryo’s room to see if he is here yet, which he is. He’s sitting on the floor with his back against the wall and his knees drawn up to his chest. This is what he looked like when I first met him, withdrawn and cloaked with a mystery he didn’t want anyone to see through. Something’s wrong.
“Why are you here?” he asks, his voice rough.
He doesn’t want me here, but I don’t know why. I want to look into his mind, see what he’s thinking, see what’s upsetting him but I told myself I wouldn’t do that anymore.
“What’s wrong?”
“Like you don’t know.”
I step closer to him, and for the first time in a long time he uses his power on me, effectively holding me in place with a force that has always been far too strong for me to break. “I don’t know. You were fine last night…”
“Was I?”
My heart pounds and the forced immobility hurts, like I’m being suffocated and I can’t move away from it. It’s frustrating and he knows I hate it, but all that loses much of its importance when I see him bring his hand up and wipe away a tear from one eye and then the other. “Talk to me,” I choke out.
He doesn’t, and the hurt I feel emanating from him is enough of a push for me to read his mind but I don’t understand what I see. I see myself…under someone else.
“Why are you thinking about that?”
“I saw it.”
“In a dream?” I ask, still not able to move.
He looks up to me with anger and betrayal in his eyes. “No, not in a fucking dream.”
He breaks the force and I almost lose my balance. “Ryo…I-“
He cuts me off. “Stop playing innocent!” he yells and glares at me, throwing me back into the far wall. My back slams against it and it hurts like hell, and when I fall to the floor a shelf breaks and its contents fall on my back.
I look up at him, tears beginning to line my eyes, and he looks horrified at his own action but at the same time he doesn’t move to help me, almost like I deserved it. “I would…never cheat on you. You know that,” I somehow manage to say.
“Then why?” he asks, his voice soaked with desperation and things continue to float in the air as he slowly begins to lose control of his power to his emotions.
I’ve been in this situation before, back when the other mind control mutant was having fun toying with Ryo’s memories. I know what I have to do, but there’s nothing I want to avoid more.
The reason Ryo has this curse is because Noriko erased his memory and tricked him. She got into his head and erased what was undesirable for her. I don’t want him to continue thinking I cheated on him. I don’t want him to continue feeling like I stepped all over everything he’s ever done for me and everything he’s ever felt for me. But would erasing it be like what Noriko did?
Do I even have a choice? He won’t listen to me; he doesn’t believe me. How could he? Who would believe someone who said a memory that is as clear as this one never happened?
“I’ll make you wake up from this dream, Ryo.”
His eyes fall shut when I enter his mind and everything falls to the ground around me as I struggle to control his power for as long as it takes to erase the memory. When I’m done, he’s still collapsed on the floor and the pain I’m in becomes even more real to me with every slight movement.
I watch him as he wakes up, dizzy and confused, and he stares at me in horror. “Tell me I didn’t do this.”
He’s back, and that thought makes me happy but I know what I just did went against what he would have wanted. “You did, but…”
Suddenly, everything falls apart and I feel overwhelmed like a rush of water hitting my face, taking me under into the ocean as it smothers me.
---
Ryo:
My hands tremble as I watch him convulsing on the ground, a cut on his head bleeding down his forehead. I hear the door shut and the jingling of keys and I put together my terrified voice. “Kei-chan!” I don’t even know if it’s him, nor do I know if he’s here or why I’m here or why I hurt Shige like this. I yell for him anyway.
I go over to Shige, but I’m too afraid to touch him, afraid of making it worse.
I hear the footsteps on the stairs and I wish they would come faster. “What’s wr-...” Koyama says from the doorway, trailing off and freezing when he sees Shige on the floor.
“His power,” I manage out but I don’t even finish the word before Koyama runs out, comes back, and I look away as Koyama inserts a needle into him. I feel sick. “What is that?”
“I took it from the leader’s office along with the book recording his progress.” His words are quick and jumbled. “I saw ‘Kato’ on it and thought it might be important. When his power gets too strong or he becomes overwhelmed, it’s too much for his body to handle. This…was developed to fix it. He told me they used it on him when he was still in XMA…”
He didn’t tell me that, but then again he doesn’t mention a lot about what happened over those two days. I wait for a minute, my body feeling cold and my stomach turning, until things seem to start calming down. Koyama has his arms around Shige, rubbing him softly to ease the pain. Shige moves his arm, hooks it around Koyama and holds him back.
A drop of something falls onto my palm and when I look down I realize it’s one of my own tears.
“He’ll be out for a few hours,” Koyama says, exhausted but relieved.
“But he’s okay, right?”
“Yeah. But what the hell happened? He was fine all day.”
“I don’t know. I don’t even remember him coming here. But he said I did this.” I take my eyes off of Shige for a moment to see all the damage that I caused. I must have thrown him…
“Well…it’s okay now. Maybe you should take a rest too.”
Cautiously, I move closer to Shige and place a hand on his back. He’s breathing softly now and I want to hold him, apologize, but he can’t hear me anyway. “What would have happened to him if you hadn’t been here with that stuff?”
Koyama looks away and it confirms my thoughts. “You know what happened to the first mind control mutant. So I think you already know.”
It’s one thing inflicting his life, forcing a life of 10seconds on him, but it’s a whole other thing taking that life away from him. I suddenly want to run, to take myself away from him like I did before.
But I know I can’t. It’s the price of greed; I want to be with him, even after this. I want him to be clinging to me instead, even though I was the one who put him in the state where he had to cling to life.
I suddenly feel sick again, and I turn to Koyama. “Thank you…”
He nods, probably sensing my unrest but doesn’t say anything when I look to Shige one more time before leaving.
---
I can hear noise around me, but it’s all blurry. Glasses clinking molding with the sound of voices, energetic yells mixing with soft words.
“Hitting it pretty hard there, aren’t you?” I recognize the voice, and I look over to see Mika, smiling and taking the stool next to me.
“What are you doing here?” I ask and she takes my glass.
“Same as you,” she answers and drinks the remaining alcohol in the glass in one shot. “Getting a drink. Except I’m sure I don’t look as bad as you do.”
She orders a drink and prevents me from getting another one of my own. “Look, I know you don’t want to touch me, but you can talk to me, you know.”
Her eyes look sincere, and I find myself telling her even though I normally wouldn’t say any of these things to anyone. “I almost killed him.”
“Who? Your boyfriend? Why?” she asks, her eyes growing wide.
“Not purposely, obviously.”
She shrugs. “Then it was a mistake. He probably knows that…so stop beating yourself up for it.”
“How can I take it that lightly?”
“You said almost. It didn’t happen, so it’s better not to try to kill yourself by drinking too much. I doubt that’d make him happy.”
I look down at the empty glass - it was only my first. “I’m not trying to.”
“I’d be scared too.”
We sit in silence for a while, her company calming me down a bit. I think of Shige and wonder how he’s doing…why would I do something to hurt him like that?
“Hmm…Don’t laugh,” she says but just laughs herself anyway.
“Laughter would do me some good right now.”
“Okay, then in that case you can laugh.”
She leaves for a minute and comes back with a folded napkin.
“What is this?”
“Open it,” she urges and hands it to me.
I unfold it and on it is a drawing of Mika, smiling and hugging me and in the corner is written “Cheer up. He loves you. He’ll forgive you.”
I manage a smile, realizing that she thinks I don’t like people touching me and therefore she couldn’t hug me for real.
“Success!” she exclaims and continues to smile around the rim of her glass.
---
On the way back home, I stop and lean against the railing of the bridge, remembering what it was like to leave him. I wouldn’t do that again, but the feeling I have now is like what I felt back then. Wanting to protect him and wanting to see him live a long, happy life.
It was just this once, I tell myself. I won’t let it happen again; I’ll be more careful.
Would that really help, Ryo-chan? My body stills and when I look behind me, sitting on the bridge behind me is Shiku, swinging her legs and waving at me.
Long time no see.
And then it hits me with painful clarity why my power never did that to him until now. Because it didn’t.
“You did this, didn’t you?”
She applauds, and her usual eerie smile returns to her lips. Very good, Ryo-chan.
“Why can’t you give up?”
Her head tilts to the side. It’s a fight for survival…if we don’t win, we die along with you.
“You’ve been alive long enough. My lifetime added to that will be plenty.”
We’ll see you very soon.
“Don’t touch him again. Do whatever you want with me.”
Aw, the cursed freak is playing hero again. Isn’t that sweet. Don’t you get it? You’re not a hero. You caused this mess.
She waves goodbye and disappears. But her words stay with me.
---
Instead of going back home, I end up at the hill. I used to come here all the time because of its isolation. I remember I sat here with Shige on the day of broken greed the second time, telling myself never to let go of the hand I held. When I first found this hill, I sat here with black eyes, telling myself that I’d take someone here on a date if I could. When I took Shige here, I realized how much he changed my life. He was the only one who didn’t look at me like an idiot for deciding to keep this curse even though the consequences affected him directly. He fit perfectly into my ideas of what I’d never have in the life with a curse.
I hold my phone in my hands for a long time, just staring at the message he sent me when I got here.
I’m not mad at you. Come back.
And then another one comes.
Don’t make me come looking for you (~‘A’)/
You should rest.
I have been.
What happened tonight scared me.
Me too. But distancing yourself isn’t helping.
Lately all I do is run…
Then stop running. I want to see you.
---
I arrive at the door with heavy steps and Shige immediately opens it and smiles when he sees me. I pull him close to me, holding him in a tight and needy embrace.
“Ryo, you didn’t do that to me,” he says, resting his head on my shoulder. “Yeah, you threw me into the wall and it hurt but being overwhelmed…that wasn’t because of you.”
“I know.” I swallow. “Shiku told me.”
It takes him longer than usual to respond. “I guess she is back.”
“I knew she would be.”
I follow him up to my room, and instead of seeing the disastrous way I left it, I walk into a room that is in almost-normal condition. A broom is standing up by the window and most of the broken pieces have been swept up. “You didn’t have to…”
“Kei-chan did it. I woke up and it was like this.”
Before I can respond, he takes my hand and pulls me towards the bed. He lies down on it and I follow, getting under the sheets still fully dressed. But I don’t really care at the moment, especially when he sleepily pulls me close, making it obvious that he wants me here. His grip loosens as he slowly heads towards unconsciousness and I pull away a bit, smoothing a hand over his cheek before kissing it, beginning a trail of light kisses down his neck. He smiles but doesn’t open his eyes and this simple situation, his weak smile and his arms around me, holding me in place in a room I once spent my time alone in, causes something to break inside of me.
His eyes open when I am still for almost a minute. “What?”
I close the space between us, embracing him tightly as tears begin to line my eyes.
“Ryo, what?” he asks nervously and I can feel him fidgeting.
“…I don’t think I can do this anymore.”
He is silent for a while, his body completely still, and when he does speak his voice is shaky. “But I said I wasn’t mad. I’m okay.”
“No. It’s not that. Not us. Not you.”
“Then what?”
“Keeping the curse. I don’t know if I can do it anymore.”
End of Chapter Eleven
A/N: Now the real story has finally begun.