Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Ghost Story ❯ Ghost Story ( One-Shot )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

This is a stand alone ficlet that is not related to the multi-chapter fiction I'm writing called Persistence . It's just a little something based on Sting's Ghost Story - lyrics at the bottom .

Rated solely for language use. No sex in this one, although that it once occurred is certainly implied.

I forgot to mention this with Persistence , but comments and reviews are welcome. Thanks for reading.

-Elfen


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Ghost Story
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With little conscious thought of how I came to be there, I find myself standing upon the apartment's balcony, watching the sun's descent as the light of day slowly dies and twilight begins to stake its claim over the cityscape below. Another foreign city. Another place to kill. I've lost track of how many there have been since Tokyo. Every apartment is much like the other, filled with creature comforts but little else. They are merely places of shelter, but never truly a home. I do not have a home anymore. Sometimes I wonder if I ever did.

The raucous calling of geese interrupts my thoughts and I tilt my gaze upwards to watch them as they wing their way across the atmosphere, intent on escaping this place in an effort to find warmth of some southern destination. Envy, brief and potent, washes over me. I, too, hold thoughts of escape. Usually such thoughts are easily quelled and banished to the untouched recesses of my mind, but at this moment it seems to be a lost cause despite the fact that I know escape is impossible.

Staring out over the horizon, I find myself overtaken by memories yet again. Memories are powerful, hateful things are they not? They remind us of past mistakes and past triumphs. They remind us of what we once had and what we once lost. They tease and taunt with images of joy and of misery. They elicit unwanted and unneeded nostalgic emotions without permission. But I am immune. After all these years I have become skilled at keeping emotions from having any bearing on my life.

If I could not feel, I could not suffer. I could not be rendered helpless by concerned for others. Not ab out my teammates, not about my countless victims. Only my sister could draw forth emotions from my shriveled heart. No, that is not correct. Only my sister's comatose body, lying there motionless in the hospital for years, could stir those emotions. Cold, black, dangerous emotions that fueled my ability to bring death to those I held accountable.

Ah yes, death. It has been my only close companion for some time now. I am a murderer, an angel of death -- nothing more. I end the tomorrows of the black beasts all in the name of someone else's justice. When did it stop being my justice? Was it the night Koua Academy fell or was it sometime after that? When did the reasons of killing cease to matter? Surely it had nothing to do with your absence from my life.

Suddenly a child's laughter, disembodied and fading, filters across the chill breeze to my ears. Are the gods having a laugh at my expense? I tell myself it is the coldness of the air , the promise of harsh winter to come, that drives me back inside where the fire already blazes, warming the room but not my soul. My soul has been gone for a long time and I have since stopped mourning its loss. Only you refused to believe that it was dead and buried, but not even you could overcome this reality.

But you continued to try, did you not? We had agreed to share our bodies. You wanted more. You pushed, we fought, we fucked. It was an endless, destructive cycle that neither of us could free ourselves from no matter how hard we tried. How many times did one of us walk away, swearing to end the utterly screwed up thing we called a relationship? You wanted to touch my heart and I would not let you.

I despise nights such as this one. Try as I might, I cannot escape the flood of memories and the deeper thoughts they stir. So I sit in front of the fireplace and contemplate the dance of the flames, letting my mind wander free and unfettered. Is it a sign of my weakness that I no longer struggle? Perhaps I simply wish tonight would finally bring peace.

This time all my thoughts are centered on you. It does change, the mental scenery, although more often than not it is your face that haunts me. Not my sister's and not the others. Then again, I know where each of them are and what they are doing. You may not be physically dead, but you are out of reach. Is it because you are unattainable that my thoughts seek you out? I decide to let them have their way tonight. It is not as if they will change the inevitable.

Still, I cannot help but get swept away by remembrances of your smile, your scent, your skin. On nights such as this I swear I can even feel the touch of your fingers against my flesh, hear the whisper of your breath in my ear. Sweet torture to be true, but no less than I deserve. Closing my eyes, I force myself to go further into those memories in effort to saturate myself until I can take no more. This is how it always is, how it always will be.

The ringing of the telephone shatters the silence surrounding me and yet I am unmoved. How much time has passed? The only illumination is that of moonlight as it pierces the sliding glass door, casting wavering shadows over the walls and floor, surrounding me on all sides. I look back at the fireplace and discover that the rhythm of the flames has slowed as they flicker gingerly among the growing collection of burning embers.

When the answering machine switches on it finally draws my attention. The voice I hear is familiar, its soft tenor still youthful despite the passing years. No longer a source of endless energy, it too has been weighed down by responsibility and guilt. I wonder, as I usually do whenever he calls, if he will ever give up on me. I do not answer his phone calls. I never return his messages. He wants to know when I am coming home to Tokyo. There is only one answer to that question and it is one he does not wish to hear, so I do not say it aloud to him.

A shiver overtakes me and I realize that the outside cold has permeated the room at last. Another memory claims me then, reminding me of a time when betraying the slightest shiver would have brought you and your warmth closer. The smell of your cologne suddenly fills my nostrils and I have to remind myself it is nothing but the ghost of remembrance paying me another visit. It meant nothing back then and it means nothing now. We had nothing to offer each other but the use of a willing body. Nothing more was involved. I would not accept your need to discuss nonexistent feelings and eventually you stopped trying to speak to me with words altogether. It was better that way, was it not?

How many times did I have to tell you that I could not love? Such an emotion was beyond my capabilities. I was undeserving. I gave you my physical self because it was of little value. Two bodies rutting in effort to bring forth a moment of peace that was achieved with sexual release. That is all we ever had. As soon as it was over, I was dressed and departing without a single glance back. Your pleas for me to stay the night were always ignored. The loneliness I felt afterwards was my just reward.

I shift upon the couch, coming back to myself for a single moment as my senses are unexpectedly bombarded. Images of you after we had fucked each other senseless fill my mind. The sight of your glistening golden skin, the way strands of your dark blond hair clung to your face and, above all, that stupid, self-satisfied smile you always wore right before you reached for the necessary post-coital cigarette. Smug. Wanton. I hated you. At least, that is what I kept telling myself. What I will keep telling myself.

Hate is an emotion, I remind myself, which means that I was not immune to such feelings whenever I was in your company. But was it really hate? Quickly, I crush that train of thought and concentrate on cloaking myself in indifference. I am rather skilled at achieving that particular state of being. Practice makes perfect, after all.

Was it really indifference, what I felt for you? Try as I might, I cannot shake free from the questions rising in my mind. Am I not the one who sought to delve deeper tonight? Will I run away again this time, or will I push through the veil and accept what lies beyond? I refuse to be weak and I fear nothing. Onward I will go and I will face whatever it is I find waiting for me.

Still more memories come unbidden then, pulling me back to past missions where we kept each other alive. I remember watching you perform your killing dance and thinking you beautiful. I remember the way my heart ached when you were injured, the way my anger would grow at the thought of someone marring your perfection with another scar. I was merely appreciating your outward appearance of course. Nothing more. Never anything more.

Do I need to remind you even now that I was never meant for love? Even if I was, what good would having my love bring you? Need I remind you that once we were no longer living in that dreadful trailer, that once you had a chance to find more freedom while working in another country, you wasted no time in taking another lover? Perhaps she was merely part of the mission, perhaps she was more. I did not ask. I did not want to know. It would have changed nothing.

But yet I still remember how lost I felt when you were gone. How alone. How desolate. How angry. How cold. How hurt. How I hated you when you called and talked about your time with her. How I wanted to ask you to come home. How I hated myself for being so damn weak. After all, you meant nothing. Then when you returned there was another waiting to take her place. And it was not me. You did not ask. I did not offer. It should not have mattered, but it did.

With a sigh I lift a hand to my eyes, rubbing them in effort to ease the stinging that has begun. Drawing the hand away, I stare down at it, startled to find my fingertips are wet. Touching my cheeks only serves to dampen my fingers more. How long have I been sitting here, shedding silent tears? Lifting my gaze upwards, I see that the fire is nothing more than a pile of ashes and one lonely glowing coal. The moonlight has long since vanished, leaving the room shrouded in darkness that will soon give way to the pale light of dawn.

The moment of clarity, when it arrives, is swift and overpowering. My mind reels with its impact and a cry is torn from my throat. How can I label myself as indifferent when indifference is so far from what I feel? What I feel. I can feel. I do feel.

I must have loved you.

I must love you still.

Those words have, until this very second, eluded me so completely. Trembling, I climb to my feet and walks slowly over to the telephone, picking it up and dialing from memory the number I have heard repeated over the answering machine many times. I have little thought for whatever the time might be either here or there. When he answers, I barely give him time to speak his name in greeting before I tell him I am at last coming home.

He wants to know why and I have an answer for him this time. For you, Yohji. I am coming home to find you and tell you that I love you. I may be too late and you may not want to hear the words, but I will do it all the same. I should have said them so long ago. Three simple words

I love you.

Perhaps I will pray to the gods that I am not too late.

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Ghost Story
by Sting

I watch the western sky
The sun is sinking
The geese are flying south
It sets me thinking

I did not miss you much
I did not suffer
What did not kill me
Just made me tougher

I feel the winter come
His icy sinews,
Now in the firelight
The case continues

Another night in court
The same old trial
The same old questions asked
The same denial

The shadows close me round
Like jury members
I look for answers in
The fire's embers

Why was I missing then
That whole December?
I give my usual line,
I don't remember

Another winter comes
His icy fingers creep
Into these bones of mine
These memories never sleep
And all these differences

A cloak I borrow
We kept our distances
Why should it follow that
I must have loved you?

What is the force that binds the stars?
I wore this mask to hide my scars
What is the power that pulls the tide?
Never could find a place to hide

What moves the earth around the sun?
What could I do but run and run and run?
Afraid to love, afraid to fail
A mast without a sail

The moon's a fingernail
And slowly sinking
Another day begins
And now I'm thinking

That this indifference
Was my invention
When everything I did
Sought your attention

You were my compass star
You were my measure
You were a pirate's map
Of buried treasure

If this was all correct
The last thing I'd expect
The prosecution rests
It's time that I confessed
I must have loved you
I must have loved you