X/1999 Fan Fiction ❯ Ces Larmes Je Pleure ❯ Namida ( Chapter 1 )

Author's Note: Oh, boy. You have NO clue how depressed this fic is going to make me. I mean, seriously. It took me a month to get back to writing this one because I was getting so depressed. My school consoler thought that I was getting suicidal, I was so depressed.

Anyway... This fic has lots of angst. And I mean PURE angst.

Warning: Um…angst, angst, more angst, um…and even more angst.

Disclaimer: *empties pockets, we see a pack of Juicy Fruit, a single copper penny, and a handful of lint.* Um…right…

Part One

Two months had passed since the incident at Rainbow Bridge. Sumeragi Subaru had killed Sakurazuka Seishirou, the man he hated, and yet loved with all his heart. In doing so, Seishirou's position as the infamous Sakurazukamori had been passed on to the former Sumeragi Head. Subaru had left his own clan when he took on Seishirou's job.

After Seishirou's death, Subaru had found the key to the older man's apartment in the mail. With it was a letter. He had refused to read it, ignoring it and the key for several days. After a week and a half, he finally opened the letter. It was relatively long, written in Seishirou's elegant handwriting.

"Subaru-kun,

By the time you read this, I'll be gone. You'll have killed me by now. I want you to know something. You, Subaru-kun, have always meant something to me…"

Here, Subaru paused in his reading, Seishirou's final words repeating in his mind. Those few words had fucked him more than anything the older man hand ever said or done to him. They would be burned into his mind until the day he died.

(("I…really did love you, Subaru-kun…"))

Subaru choked back the sobs that threatened to overcome him. He took in a deep breath before he continued reading.

"My mother once told me that it was a beautiful thing, to be killed by the one you love," he read. "So, when I met you, I knew that you were the one."

Tears stung Subaru's eyes. So Seishirou had been playing to die by his hand since the beginning? Everything had been because Seishirou wanted Subaru to kill him.

"I want you to have the key to my apartment. You probably may never want to step foot in there, but just in case."

Subaru help the single key in his right hand. After a moment of hesitation, he pulled out his own set of keys and added it to the keychain. Then he continued to read. After the section about the key, the former Sakurazukamori had written a few details on how to go about his job. Subaru skipped that; he would go over it later. He read the end of the letter.

"Subaru-kun, I know you may never forgive me for everything I did to you, especially this, but I just for once want to tell you the truth. I love you. I always have. More than anything."

That was it. Subaru could no longer hold in his sobs. The letter fell to the floor as the tears ran down his face. He curled up on his couch, burying his face in the throw pillow. He didn't try to stop it…he just cried.

Seishirou was gone. And this time, it was forever. The dead do not come back. After a long while, Subaru fell asleep. He didn't wake for several hours. Not even when the phone rang.

*****

Kamui waited impatiently with the phone pressed to his ear. His heart skipped a beat when he finally heard Subaru's voice, then sank when he realized that it was only the older man's answering machine.

"I'm not here right now. Please leave a message after the tone."

There was a beep and Kamui began his message: "Subaru, I know you're there. There's no where else you could be."

He paused, think that over. No, there was a possibility that Subaru could be at the Tree, mourning over the man he had loved and lost.

"I know that losing him hurt, Subaru, but you have to let him go. He's gone and not coming back. I can't stop the pain, but perhaps if you gave me a chance, I could help you."

Kamui sighed. Subaru wasn't going to picking up any time soon.

"Just take care of yourself. Please. Your own life has value, too."

With that, he hung up, not knowing that he had just repeated words that Subaru's own grandmother had once said.

*****

The afterlife really wasn't what Seishirou had been expecting. For one, he hadn't been expecting that Hokuto would jump on him from behind and put him in a headlock.

"You IDIOT!!" she screamed. "It took you NINE YEARS and then it was only when HE KILLED YOU?!?!"

Seishirou choked. "Ho-Hokuto!"

The dead Sumeragi twin released him, and then embraced him in a tight hug. Seishirou blinked. One minute the girl had been trying to strangle him, the next she was hugging him as a long lost friend. Which he supposed he was.

"Erm…Hokuto?"

"I've missed you so much!" Hokuto said, emphasizing this with a squeeze. "I mean, I've kept my eyes on you two for nine years, but never got to talk to you. But you were doing okay those few times when you got Subaru-chan to stop trying to kill you and actually got him in bed…"

"You saw that?!" Seishirou asked, choking.

"Of course, though I didn't stay to watch. I'm not a voyeur. I do have a life outside of you two, er, sorta. I've been trying to get Kakyou out of that coma off and on for nine years. And I almost succeeded once, if that one guy with the spiky hair hadn't interrupted and taken Kakyou away…"

She paused. "So. Why'd you do it?"

"What?"

Hokuto thwacked Seishirou's head and frowned at him. "What do you think? Leaving Subaru like that! He's so screwed up now because of what you told him! And using him as a suicide weapon?! I oughta boot you in the head just for that!"

"As if I had a choice," Seishirou replied, rubbing his head. "I knew I had to invoke that little spell of yours. Subaru-kun would never have killed me of his own will. He loves me too much."

"Then why didn't you just stay with him instead of leaving him broken like that? You could have been happy!"

"Hokuto, he may love me, but he hates me just as much as he loves me. Or did you not notice that little detail? Every time he realized that he loved me, he felt guilty."

"Sei-chan," Hokuto said, her voice calm, "Subaru is unstable. And he's even more so now because you're gone. He loved no one but you!"

"And because of me, he'll never be happy. I only caused him pain."

"So my brother is a masochist," Hokuto shrugged. "He was happy at times, Sei-chan. Do you know how much this hurt him?"

"He'll be better off without me."

Hokuto smacked Seishirou across the face. The former Sakurazukamori put a hand to the welt, surprised, not only at how much being dead hurt, but at the Sumeragi girl's temper.

"Seishirou! He won't be better off without you! He's already worse and it's barely been two weeks! He's hardly slept and the only time he ever eats is when the Tree tells him to."

Hokuto put her hands on her hips and waited for Seishirou to say something. When he didn't, she sighed.

"Have you even looked at him since you died?" she asked. "Have you seen how much this hurt him? He's so hurt; he can't even leave his apartment!"

Seishirou said nothing. He stood there, looking at the ground as Hokuto looked at him, waiting for an answer. Finally, Seishirou looked at her.

"I thought it would be best for him. He's always been miserable when I see him. He needs to forget about me."

"He CAN'T forget about you," Hokuto said. "That's why he's so upset. He loved you, Seishirou-chan. He loved none but you."

"I can't help that Hokuto," Seishirou replied. "Subaru-kun…Subaru…needs to let me go."

Hokuto threw her hands into the air, then grabbed Seishirou and began to pull him in the direction of a small pond. It was then that Seishirou realized that the afterworld was a mirror image of the real world and that they seemed to be in Ueno Park. Hokuto kneeled at the edge of the pond, pulling the former Sakurazukamori down with her. She poked a finger into the still waters.

The surface of the water became distorted as the ripples spread. Soon, the image of a sparsely decorated apartment came into view. Seishirou looked and saw the form of a young man, resting on a couch, tears falling onto a pillow from closed eyes. The young man's jet-black bangs fell into his face.

"Subaru-kun..." Seishirou whispered.

Through the image on the pond's surface, Seishirou watched as Subaru's eyes snapped open. The younger man bolted upright, knocking the pillow to the floor.

"Seishirou-san?"

Seishirou looked at Hokuto.

"He can feel our presence," Hokuto explained. "However, he can only hear us if his mind is clear. Since he was kinda asleep, he heard your voice and woke up, thinking, and probably hoping, that you were there."

"Is there some way I can get to him?" Seishirou asked.

"Well," Hokuto said thoughtfully, putting her fist under her chin, "you could wait til his mind is clear again. Though, that could take hours and even then, he'll probably only think it's a hallucination."

Seishirou looked down at Subaru's image, seeing that the younger man had slumped back onto the couch.

"Or," Hokuto continued, "we could contact him through Kakyou."

*****

Subaru slumped back onto the couch. He pulled his knees up to his chest, buried his face in his arms and started crying. Losing Seishirou a second time was the worst thing that could ever happen to him. The pain was almost unbearable. He just cried, letting all the pain slip away, if only for a few minutes. It would be back, but for now, a few minutes' peace would be great.

When Subaru finished crying, he picked up his keys, grabbed his jacket and left the apartment. He didn't bother calling a taxi, he would walk. As he walked along in the direction of Ueno Park, he pulled his keys out and absent-mindedly ran his finger over the teeth of the key to Seishirou's apartment.

Subaru stopped and turned around; heading to the apartment that Seishirou had left him.

Author's Note: Okay, I know there's not much right now, but hey, this is only the first chapter. Now excuse me while I go cry.