InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Gamble ❯ Chapter 5 ( Chapter 5 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

I know, as a frequent in my life, I had a habit of making the wrong choices.

A talent for it, even.

And then, I… honestly couldn't decide at that point.

But… giving up seemed the only way to go.

So… I grabbed a piece of the broken mirror, watching the way the light glinted off of it like it was mesmerizing... It entranced me, almost seemed to mock me…

Daring me to just get it over and done with.

...So I did.

I pressed it to my left wrist, and cut. I remember the frenzy it seemed to drive me in, slicing and slicing and slicing and still… getting no where.

Blood didn't pool to the surface.

Blood dripped from my hands, from my body…

Everywhere except the one place I cared about.

The harder I pressed, the more desperate I got, the more ineffective it became.

I ditched the shard.

I went through numerous other sharp objects, but nothing would do it.

Nothing would give me reprieve from the nightmare that had become horrifyingly real, with no way to drown out that static that filled my mind. The whirlwind, the endless screaming in my head from someone to just hear me.

I remember I did end up screaming loudly.

I was so pissed.

Even life was against me, or with me… depending on how you view it. It wouldn't let me just give up.

Like Kagome wouldn't give up on me.

It seems something always believed in me, even when I didn't.

I raced downstairs, berserk.

I remember going hysterical to my father, who just looked at me like I wasn't even a real person.

Like he didn't even know who I was.

That I wasn't his son.

I remember saying, `Hello father, do you not hear me?! See this? Do you see me NOW? This is what I've become!'

But he sat there, beer in his hand, just staring blankly, and not saying a word. He was motionless, as I destroyed the house in a drunken fury.

Bloodied, confused, and enraged.

I had never done something to this degree in my life.

Years of pent of anger, depression, rejection, denial, and guilt came out all at once in incomprehensible sentences, furious threats, suicide mentions, and destruction.

And the entire while he sat there, frozen like a statue, as my hysteria seemed to drag on forever. Not once did he move, or speak…

I think he barely even breathed.

I wonder, how does it feel to watch that?

Perhaps as horrible as it did to go through it?

…keh…

I remember the hate, most of all.

I hated my father, I hated my mother, I hated Sesshomaru, I hated Kouga, and Kikyo, and Sango, and Miroku and the Shinitachi, and all the boys Kikyo fucked with and the drugs and the violence and the silence and the alcohol and the denial and the pressure.

The pressure that rips your chest open, pulls out your bleeding heart before you and eats it for pleasure.

The pressure that makes your ears ring, your sight go red, and the world to cease existing.

Nothing exists but that pressure.

…and the hatred.

The hatred I contained.

...Hatred for Kagome, in all her perfection and persistence.... Hatred for her love, her acceptance, her smiles.

But most of all, sickening, self-loathing hatred for myself.

Because most of all, I didn't deserve that love…

And after hours of this endless war, I was drained. I had drained myself, and had nothing else left inside of me.

And for the second time that day, I fell to the floor, sobbing and crying out loudly for someone to help me.

Like a child.

No one had ever seen me like that, except for my father.

No one knows, except for Kagome, what I did that day.

And even Kagome does not know how I cried, how I just begged my guts out with snot running shamefully down my face and incomprehensible tears and guilt wracking sobs that shook my entire body… hyperventilating to the point my father said if I didn't stop he'd hit me for he was scared for me.

To the point breath was nearly pointless because I was turning blue in the face anyway.

I never felt so helpless in my life, so very weak.

And the one who rescued me was my father.

He threw his beer down onto the carpet-the first time in damn near three years by then I had seen him without some kind of liquor in his hand-… and knelt before me, wrapping his arms around me in a tight hug.

I leaned against his chest, allowing him to cradle me like I was four years old again, and the mean kids down the street had beaten me up again and I was angry because I couldn't do anything about it.

`I'm sorry.'

If you can imagine... those words just made me cry harder.

By now those cries were those ones you never want to hear, I'd imagine.

...The kind that comes from the soul.

And it sure as hell felt like it was being ripped from my body with every shuddering sob I took.

He told me… he never wanted me to feel this way again.

That he had no idea.

And he was sorry, for fucking up.

He would be there to listen…

And by then, I could barely hear his words… I drowned them out.

I couldn't hear him over my own bawling.

All I cared was that he held me, pulled me into his lap and promised to protect me.

That he did love me.

...He cared.

…someone cared…

And I knew then, I couldn't possibly be as alone as I felt.

Since that day, I never drank again.

I promised him, and he promised me too.

His promised lasted about three weeks, and he fell back into it. I couldn't blame him, because I understood. But I vowed to help him too, the way he helped me, though his words were so goddamn simple.

Sometimes, people just need to hear someone cares…

Since then, we've had some sort of shaky truce. We communicate, if you can call it that, by yelling.

But we get the point across.

And people say you only argue if you really care about each other, right?

…heh, right…

What fucked up logic.

Anyway, I… like I said, I can't blame him for falling back into it. For days and days afterward, he looked haunted. I never knew what he was thinking, though.

I just knew it was related to that day.

I can't imagine how you're supposed to feel.

Fucking shitty, I'd assume.

Eventually… I returned to school. I was so far behind, I failed the grade.

It was all right with me, strangely, somehow.

…I wanted to do better then, anyway.

Now, don't think I had some life-epiphany and I was fucking goody-goody choir boy after that.

I still had issues…

But the difference was, now I had resolve.

Determination.

…hope…

A will not to just give in.

Not to fuck up like that.

It wasn't coincidence I couldn't cut myself.

It still feels like a cruel joke sometimes, but I suppose I'd glad of it.

I have Kagome.

Anyway, when I returned… no one asked what happened. They just seemed to somehow know to keep out of it, and if I felt like telling them, I would.

But I never did.

To this day, they still don't know.

…and they still know not to ask.

But then, my first priority was Kagome.

Fix things with her, as best as I could.

That was all I cared about.

But for a long time, I couldn't build up the courage, or the nerve.

The shame was almost unbearable…

And eventually, as always, she was the one to come around.

I think she just got sick of me staring.

`…hi…'

I remember the nervous tremble in her voice. The softness of that one word. The meaning of it.

…perhaps, a new beginning.

`…yo.'

Silence.

It wasn't surprising, I guess we both didn't really know what to say.

Saying hi was hard enough as it was.

I watched her scuffle around on her feet.

I remember thinking how cute she looked just then… still…

`I… I was…w-wondering…'

I had never heard her stutter before.

How much damage had I caused?

Was it irrevocable?

`…would… you… like to, uhm…'

I think I got annoyed.

`Spit it out already.'

She flinched, and I remember that shitty feeling in my stomach I'd get everytime she acted that way.

I was still an asshole.

`Lunch?' she forced out quickly, and I blinked.

Lunch.

Together, with her.

Next gamble… go with her, or stay here…

Though I'm sure, to you, the choice is only too obvious.