KR Den-O: So Sleep in Your Only Memory of Me
Title: So Sleep in Your Only Memory of Me
Fandom: Kamen Rider Den-O
Character: Yuto/Airi
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: The characters belong to TOEI, and the title is taken from the lyrics of Silent Hill OST’s Room of Angel.
Warning: Spoilers for Chou Den-O: Episode Red Movie.
A/N: I’m writing this under the assumption that Airi has regained back her lost memories by the time the movie started.
Summary: Because he’s young and stupid, and she’s just cold and lonely.
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Say goodbye to the world
You thought you lived in
~Any Other World - Mika
This is how he breaks her heart into tiny little pieces:
Looking right at her, Yuto says, “Despite that, I think I still want to see you again.”
*
“I wonder,” Airi says, “when you will stop adding sugar, Yuto. When we first meet, you didn’t do that.”
This is what she fails to mention:
He didn’t add sugar because-because he was a fool who didn’t want to offend her by adding additional taste to her rumored perfect blend of coffee. After that first time, he secretly added sugar to his cup when she wasn’t looking, and. And she only found out weeks later, when Ozawa-san claimed (loudly) how Yuto was such a kid for adding that much sugar to his coffee.
Yuto looked so panicked and guilty and oh-so-careful not to look her way that she finally pitied him and said, smiling, “do you know? Most people around the world add sugar or milk when they drink their coffee.”
He paused. Blinked. Then tentatively, glanced her way, before casting his eyes down again quickly - but not quickly enough to hide the shy, grateful little smile at the corner of his mouth.
It was then she felt the corners of her own lips curve upwards, unbidden.
*
Yuto says, “Despite that, I think I still want to see you again.”
This is what she wants to say but couldn’t: Please stop letting me break your heart.
*
More often than not, Ryotaro came home with bruises all over his body, and equally often, with various ridiculous excuses for them. Every single time, she just patched him up again and again, letting his excuses wash over her, asking him to be more careful, but never asking him to not do it again (because it would be a lie, and she didn’t want him to lie to her.)
(She never realized she’s such a hypocrite.)
*
She used to tie her hair in ponytail, because it made her look more like a woman than a girl she really still was (is). It made her seem mature, responsible, more in control than she actually was.
But now (after everything) she wears her hair down, long tresses flowing down her back, with few strands constantly getting in her way.
She likes it, she thinks.
Likes the way it changes her overall looks, even when she still wears the same clothes.
Mostly, she likes the way it lets her hide without needing to turn her back.
*
She used to call her Sakurai Yuto ‘Yuto’, and the younger version of him ‘Sakurai-kun.’
Even before she regains her memories back, she never put him in the same place as her Yuto - simply because he isn’t.
Sakurai-kun is-he’s rude and cutting and unbelievable and-
He’s nothing at all like her Sakurai Yuto. There’s no way she could mistake one for the other, even with the same name.
Only-only somewhere along the way, she started calling Sakurai-kun ‘Yuto’, and often times, even she herself has to ask whether she really means Sakurai-kun, or-or her disappeared Yuto.
And it’s just-it’s. Exhausting.
She needs it to stop.
(She doesn’t want it to stop.)
*
Ryotaro is strangely silent on the matter.
One thing she doesn’t fail to recognize is that Ryotaro is somewhat protective over Sakurai-kun, in subtle little ways Ryotaro never shows on her Yuto. Sakurai-kun is his friend, his bestfriend, someone he doesn’t want to let be hurt; but on the other hand, she is his sister.
She wonders when it comes down to it, whom Ryotaro would choose.
(She doesn’t think she wants to know the answer.)
Maybe that’s why Ryotaro’s face is always so blank and downcast every time he looks at the telescope.
(Or maybe it’s more because she no longer recognizes the tells of his body language, now that he’s stuck in his twelve-year-old body.)
*
This is the secret she can never even admit to herself: she can’t stand looking at the twelve-year-old Ryotaro.
Not when she knows he is way past his eighteenth birthday. Not when she keeps seeing glimpses of Sakurai-kun and her Yuto and how they both are not the same person, even if they essentially are.
(Not when he’s such a painful reminder of how she has failed as a sister, a fiancée, a mother.)
*
Yuto says, “Despite that, I think I still want to see you again.”
This is what she wants to say but can never let herself to: I love you. I love you. I love you. God I’m so in love with you.
*
“How’s Hana?” she asks, her hands busy measuring the coffee beans, eyes firmly on the coffee grounder in front of her.
She feels Ryotaro look at her back, hears his startled little breath at the unexpected question.
“She’s,” Ryotaro says, hesitant, before swallowing and shouldering on, “fine, I guess. As always.” She could feel him hesitate further before he adds, “she’s always been strong, though. So I’m sure she would be o-I mean, I’m sure she is okay.”
Her hand stills at the coffee grounder, hearing the answer to the question she could not quite voice out.
“I see.”
She remembers the way the little girl avoiding her without blatantly doing so, remembers the way the little girl’s eyes never quite meeting hers, remembers the way the little girl bossing the Imagins around when Airi was visiting the dinner car, her small body moving in flurry hurricane, incidentally never facing Airi’s direction.
Airi takes the hint, and never tries to drop in again where the (her sweet, sweet) little girl might be present.
Ryotaro clears his throat. “And how are you, Nee-chan?”
She doesn’t even think about it before she turns around and smiles at him. “Hmm?”
“Ah.” He smiles back at her, unbidden, swallowing back his words with nothing but a flicker in his eyes. “Never mind.”
(She wonders when they become so good at dancing around each other.)
*
Yuto says, “Despite that, I think I still want to see you again.”
She looks at him and looks at him and keeps looking at him, but all she could see is a little boy in love with a dream, in love with the idea of her.
He knows his future self was in love with her, and with that knowledge alone, he sets off to find out just what it was that made his future self interested, and in the process, he molds her image and rationalizes her traits and makes her out to be an ideal person to *him*, not realizing the person in his mind is far removed from the real thing.
Delusional, is what she thinks he is.
(She could never believe anyone would ever love her after all the things she’s done.)
*
This is what she shouldn’t do but does anyway: she kisses him.
His motorcycle stops in front of her coffee shop, where it is nearly dark with only the street lamp partly illuminating the place, since none is home to turn on the front door lamp. She climbs off and starts for her door, but then she stops when she hears his voice.
“So.”
It sounds a little high and a lot desperate, with a side of self-deprecating and a bit hesitant still-like he knows he shouldn’t but he just can’t help himself.
It’s then she realizes he hasn’t turned off his motorcycle-unsure of his welcome, and just as ready to bolt.
Her heart breaks for him.
She turns back.
Even in semi-darkness of her front door, the pain etched onto his feature is so stark she could never pretend to not see it even if she tries.
“I-“ he starts, struggling for words, yet still unable to continue.
She knows what he needs: a closure, a clean cut ending, something definite to put a nail to the coffin. He can’t keep hanging on to false hope forever, just like she can’t keep stuck in the past.
He needs her to say ‘no’.
She takes a step closer to him. “Yuto…”
“I’m sorry, I just-God.” He laughs. It’s not a nice sound-like a glass breaking and open wound and cold sweat and everything wrong in the world.
She hates it.
Hates it even more that she’s the one who makes him let out such a sound.
“I know it’s unfair of me to ask you, but I. I mean, I just had to know. I can’t-we’ve let so much passed already. I have DenLiner-just say the word, and I could make sure you would never, ever, see me in your lifetime again. Just-”
She grabs his arm. “Yuto.”
He stops. Blinks. Looks down at her hand around the fabric of his jacket sleeve. Looks back at her.
A twist to the corner of his mouth, as he says, voice breaking, “Please.”
Her grip tightens.
For once, he doesn’t look defensive. For once, he doesn’t look angry. For once, he doesn’t look like he’s preparing to be hurt. For once, he doesn’t look like he’s seconds away from being scolded. For once, he-
For once, he looks resigned.
And she-
She thinks about her coffee shop, a place that used to be her safe haven, now nothing more than a bad reminder of what once was. She thinks about the remains of her present life: she got an empty house, a little brother who keeps telling her sweet little lies (she’s asking for it), a daughter who can’t even stand to look at her (she can never forgive herself), a fiancé who is lost to her forever (please come back), and a boy who-
A boy who looks at her like she’s the only thing that ever matters in this entire world.
It’s-flattering, is what it is. It’s flattering and exhilarating and impossible and all the things that she shouldn’t be feeling again-not now, not ever.
“Yuto.”
He still doesn’t take his eyes off of her, still looking at her like she’s the most wonderful person he’s ever met, like he knows he never has a chance to begin with but he just had to try anyway.
She doesn’t remember being looked at in such a way before.
It makes her giddy and worry and excited and scared out of her mind.
If only-if there’s only some way for her to make right of her faults, no matter how small-
She’s just so tired of feeling guilty.
So she stands on her tiptoes and-
Kisses him.
Presses her lips against his, eyes closed, until she feels him yield and kiss her back. Leans into the kiss further, one hand still on his arm, as the other reaches out and turns the key in the ignition, effectively killing the engine.
The silence that follows is nothing short of deafening.
She pulls away slightly, and presses their forehead together. There’s a wonder in his eyes, a question, and about a milliard of other things. She really needs to address them, she really should, but for the moment, she just lets the feeling wash over her and says:
“Stay.”
They have lost so much already.
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fin
This entry was originally posted at http://mi-key.dreamwidth.org/54944.html.
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