I would also like to add that what you're about to read is not your typical, run-of-the-mill character death fic. In fact, I'd like to think that I've twisted the archetype just enough to render it 'original' and/or 'entertaining'. But I'll let you decide. I hope you enjoy "Hitori", and feedback is muchly appreciated.
Hitori
By Katsumi
Prologue: Prisonic Fairytale
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Pacing. That's all that kept him occupied anymore, all that kept his mind busy. One step, two steps, right foot, left. Rearranging random articles, never pictures though. When he came close to a frame, he would look the other way, he would turn around and go back into the other room to see if everything was still in its place.
The pictures were fine, he would tell himself. They were okay the way they were, off-center, crooked... turned over to lay on their faces. They didn't need to be fixed, they were fine.
He was fine.
Touma was wrong. Tatsuha and Mika and the rest of them were wrong.
He was fine.
For six years, he lived alone, shied away from normal human contact. For six years he was able to live a perfectly normal life and make a perfectly normal living writing his perfectly normal books in his perfectly normal apartment.
Obviously Shuuichi had interrupted all of that. //A brief interlude, that's what it was. It was nice, even if nothing seemed to go right... but when everything settled down... //
They were wrong.
He was fine.
~*~
When night fell, there wasn't enough noise. He'd gone out and purchased a CD Walkman //can't use Shuuichi's// in order to fill his head with noise late into the night without worrying whether or not he'd have to fight with his neighbors.
Random CDs.
Never Shuuichi's.
Never any of Bad Luck's albums, even though all of them were stored safely in the back of a CD wallet, tucked securely in a box under his bed. The box that also held photographs, letters, a silly stuffed pink rabbit he'd never quite gotten used to or understood the purpose of...
The box hadn't been touched since it had been shoved under the bed three weeks ago.
The bed that hadn't been slept in for just as long.
The couch was just as comfortable, even though he hadn't slept on it in over a month.
Yuki Eiri didn't sleep. Yuki Eiri paced.
And now, coming to a stop in front of the glowing screen of his laptop, he saw that a document was open. A text document, hiding the simple green desktop peeking out from behind. For a moment, he could only glare at it, as if the square of white and black was the reason for his listlessness, wondering why the damn thing was even open to begin with.
Scowling, he skimmed over the lines of text...
o/~Two sides one might see
He is but a wandering thought
The callous reflecting compassion
Or the compassion showing the need
A lonely cloud that fashions
A silver lining if need be
Wondering if he is so much more
Unknowing his purpose makes him harsh
Cutting up the hearts of those he adores
Love will never see him bought~\o
He blinked, disbelieving.
Lyrics. They were lyrics. Poorly written, awkwardly structured...
//Determined, passionately conceived, wondering... //
"Lyrics," he breathed. Lyrics he'd never seen before, lyrics he'd never heard.
New. They were new, and they were waiting for him.
//He... left them here?//
He found himself leaning towards the screen, pushing the office chair away from the desk in order to get better access. Again and again and again he read those lines until he knew he would be able to recite them in his sleep.
"Shuuichi," he whispered, reaching out as if to touch the words glowing up at him. They were new, they had to be. It was an untitled document, he never used untitled documents. Even in his most frantic writing binges, he always managed to at least _number_ the document he was working in. //He did this, it has to be him...//
His normally logical, calculating mind was breaking, hairline fractures in his resolve, carved by the loss of his lover. The desperation to _know_ what had happened, why everything before that very moment seemed like a black hole in his memory.
//But... but these... //
"You're still here, aren't you," he murmured, his voice rough from lack of use, his tone bordering on accusatory. "You're still here..."
Yuki Eiri stood alone in the silent darkness as the lyrics blinked, and disappeared.