He found telling lies to be easier than admitting the truth. But once he started, he couldn't stop falling.
Birthday gift specially requested by coolzonegurl. Mind, I warned you beforehand that this'll suck. But enjoy whatever you can. Also, thank you, Wrath of Athena for the inspiration. Hehe.
Disclaimer: I do not own Spiral.
. Breeding Lies .
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He couldn't remember when he first told a lie. In fact, he considered lying to be an ordinary occurrence in his life – lies flowed off his tongue like water from a fountain. It was so much easier to lie, to cover up his hurt with a mask of deceit, rather than to reveal truth by painful truth. The truth hurts; the lie does not.
Often he wondered if he was a coward for choosing the lie over the truth. Certainly the former was a lot less cumbersome than its counterpart, and Ayumu was never one for unnecessary trouble if he could help it.
So when she asked him if he was okay, he brushed it off and said he was, even though he was trembling on the inside. The sight of that girl – Kana, was it? – sprawled on the ground with her head split open and her hair slick with thick, red blood made his stomach churn. He would have loved to just stare at the bloodied corpse and let the bile boil in his throat. Really. The rich maroon hue of her blood clashed so horribly with the yellowed pavement, illuminated her like a silent angel of death. A noiseless, horrifying sound reverberated in the air; the death knell.
Secretly though, deep inside his heart, he thought it beautiful. Her blood had bloomed like a pernicious red flower behind her head, welcoming her into its embrace. It never really disappeared from the pavement no matter how hard the cleaners scrubbed. It was divine.
The fact that he harboured such feelings scared him, and he quaked with repulsion.
Nothing happened until Mizue was stabbed. No, not her faked death – he saw through it when he saw the ping pong ball. It was her actual murder that shook him up. And the boy who killed her had looked so relieved; he had smiled with a despondent air and looked at them with mournful eyes, but he looked relieved. Ayumu found the backstabbing act to be fascinating, in a sick, twisted way, without really knowing why.
But rather than let his sister-in-law worry over his dark ruminations, he pretended to be sad for Mizue, looked at her body with a solemn expression. Her blood seeped into the fabric of her uniform, colouring it a mesmerizing red, making the black shine with eerie rhapsody. It was so pretty.
He kept that lie as another façade, another stroke of death's brush on the canvas of his tainted soul.
Rutherford's faux bomb incident was the turning point.
Hiyono had placed her very life at stake at that time. She was so confident; she actually had faith in his abilities, so much that she dared risk her life to prove her point.
The irony was that, while she believed in him to the fullest extent, he himself did not. It was juxtaposition at its worst, really. He had spun so many lies around himself that he could no longer tell a truth from a lie. Which personality was truly his? Was it the carefree, nonchalant, sleepy-eyed boy Hiyono saw? Or was it the cold, dark and twisted persona he kept in his human shell?
Which one was his?
It frustrated him. It frustrated him that he could not untangle the threads of lies he had spun himself; tearing it away from his skin was inhumanly painful. It left him vulnerable, because beneath that nest of lies slept a precious little jewel of truth, one he cradled with utmost care for fear of it shattering.
He didn't exactly know how or when it transpired, but all of a sudden, he realized that it was all he had left - this cherished, fragile, delicate truth. But to unlock the chest that kept it he first had to break its protective cocoon.
He approached the 'bomb' with trembling hands and a shoddy resolve. He would be lying if he said he wasn't scared – but he did lie to Hiyono, if only to cheer her up – and if he said he wasn't half-eager to see the bomb really explode in a brilliant shower of debris and rock. He wondered if his mind could have worked out the code faster had he not been hesitating. Ah, well.
In the end, he detonated the fake bomb, endured Hiyono's incessant chatter and breathed a sigh of relief. On the inside, though, he wanted to stare ruefully at the jack-in-the-box look-alike and wish it had been a real bomb, filled with real explosives set to explode. But he tucked that away in some little niche in the recesses of his mind.
He didn't know when, but slowly, little by little, bit by insignificant bit, his lies made their weight known to him, pressing down on him like a crushing boulder. He felt the strain more with each passing day; he bent under the pressure, but he refused to give completely. He couldn't. How could he when he did not even know who he truly was?
Somewhere deep inside his heart, he knew he had to make a choice and stick with it. He just couldn't bring himself to do it.
Nonchalant lad or cold-blooded villain? He didn't know.
He found himself wondering which personality Hiyono would prefer.
Then he chastised himself, telling himself that she was not what he wanted. He was surprised he even thought about her at all.
But, like his untruths, he couldn't stop once he started.
Hiyono, Hiyono, Hiyono…ah, that troublesome, talkative girl. He couldn't understand what his heart saw in her. In fact, he was suspicious of her movements – oftentimes he sensed something strange about her, in the way she moved, smiled and talked. Like there was something false, something mechanical in them.
Still, a smile was a smile. And who was he to complain when he himself was a fake?
He didn't know when, or how, or even why, but he felt like he had festered enough lies to form a nest of them within himself. There were many, so many that they could breed, nurtured by the fresh lies he told to keep his façade.
Once again, contemplatively, he wondered…would his life be any different if he had chosen instead of sitting on the fence like he did now?
Ah, but it was too late. He had chosen his path of lies, and now he was falling, falling…unable to stop.
Briefly, fleetingly, he even managed to dream: how deep was the ravine of despair?
Would Hiyono know?
But then again, why Hiyono?
…
.Owari. –
Ack. Failed to make it 1600 (it was either this, or 160 or 16000, and there's no way I'd choose those). Sorry.
There is an insane number of 'but's used this time, and here's why: Ayumu in this fic is uncertain, swaying between two choices, and so he often contradicts himself. And yes I made him sound crazy somewhat. Lol you did say 'surprise me'.
Uh. I hope that made sense.
Yea, well, hope you like it and belated happy birthday once again.
To readers, please leave a review if you can. Constructive criticism is very much appreciated.