I was sitting at home speaking on the phone to Haruhi. We were laughing and having a good time. Talking about old times, then about the little crush she had on me before I had met Kasumi. I had thought of using her but I didn't want to ruin our friendship. Jealousy always was a sweet treat to my hunger of pain. So I had made her chase me, only to find me quitting when she finally had her chance to get me. Pain.... Didn't matter what type of pain, if it was mine or someone else’s, physical or mental. It didn't change the fact it felt good to me. I quit physically self harming though, my sister and friends had begged me to stop. But the mental hurting and hurting of others was more often. Haruhi and I continued speaking. She pretended to be British and I pretended to be Indian. We both erupted in laughter from this. We were completely terrible. Eventually after an hour of joking around she disconnected randomly. I called her back only getting voice mail. Phone must have died. I switched on the television and watched some children shows. My eyes closed and I fell to sleep ignoring the strange feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Kumi was screaming at me, I awoke startled. She slapped my face, using her nails to scratch it at as her hand burned my cheek. Something in my gut felt terribly wrong. She was in tears and laughing hysterically. I told her to calm down and took her by the arms, stopping anymore slaps. She looked at me like I was off my head and had no idea what she was talking about. I didn't. For 1, I couldn't understand what she was saying and 2, she hadn't told me. I finally got her to spit something out that wasn't a complete jumble of words "Did you break up with Kasumi?!?!" She screamed at me. I shook my head, in answer to her question and disbelief she'd asked it. "What the hell did you do to him then?" I looked at her. It looked as if someone had taken part of her away. She was so pale, like someone had died. My mind snapped. "Kasumi! Is he okay?!?!" I was on my feet. I was screaming and crying like she was. I was afraid. She whispered the one thing I feared above all other "He's dead..." I collapsed to the floor, shouting "No! I don't believe you. You're lying to me!" She soon joined me on the floor. "It's true... I'm so sorry" Her tears had stopped but her eyes were hollow and she was still pale. "Where is he?" I asked in desperation of seeing him one last time. This couldn't be goodbye.
I raced up the hill, counting each step I took. It seemed to of taken forever. My eyes and mind were as clouded as the sky above me. I saw a small body lying in a heap under our tree surrounded by a pool of blood. There was a knife soaked in blood by his hand. I ran to him and fell to the floor next to him clinging to him, saying how much I loved him and that he promised he'd be with me forever. I felt small movement from his chest. He was still breathing. It was weak and harsh. Blood was still spilling from his neck. My tears fell heavy onto his body. There was nothing I could do. My mind was numb; I didn't want to believe such a thing could happen. I looked at our weeping willow to find answers or something. Our mark we had was scribbled over. It wasn't done by a knife it looked like it had been done by someone’s finger nails. There was a bloody hand print right next to it about the size of his. I looked down at Kasumi's hands; they were both covered heavily in blood. I took one of his hands and put it on the left side of my chest, so he'd know I was with him. It didn't fall instantly as I let it go. It held there for a few seconds but slowly fell to the floor. "Ara.." He was choking on blood as he tried to say my name. I wanted answers but he wouldn't be able to get them out. I took his body in my arms and held onto him. I cried and tried to speak. "I love you Kasumi. And I made a promise to myself, that if you were to die in my arms I'd die with you." Kasumi was my life, without him I wouldn't be able to go on. I was worthless and nothing without him. I kissed him; he put as much effort as he could in kissing me back. While we kissed I took the knife in my hands and I lunged it deep into my heart. Feeling the cold blade pierce threw my skin. It felt like nothing I'd ever felt before. It was amazing. Blood spilled from my wound and my mouth. Along with the words "I love you." This was the end. The end of my misery, I was finally going to be resting in peace.
It felt as if I was lighter and rising from the ground. Soon I could see my body holding onto Kasumi. We were both dead. Maybe just I was. I wasn't sure. That's when I saw him rise from his body. But he didn't stop. He just kept rising and rising. His neck was healed and his clothes were free of blood. I looked down at my chest. There was a gaping puncture wound and blood was staining my clothes. I heard Kasumi's voice trail behind him "I love you" His voice was soft and beautiful. Why wasn't I being sucked into the underworld? Was I so bad I didn't even deserve to go there? I was Earth bound and stuck suffering along with my family and friends. I watched our bodies. The pool of blood surrounding us had stop growing and our wounds had stopped gushing blood. Hours past, I just sat there and watched our still bodies. Police and Ambos' finally turned up. Kumi and Rin had run out of the cop car in a mess of tears and screams. They both separated our bodies and held onto us. When our bodies parted it felt as if another knife went through my chest, just to make sure I was dead. Kumi was holding Kasumi and Rin were holding me. I felt my chest getting wetter and hotter as they pulled our bodies further apart. My chest was still dripping wet with blood. What was I reduced to? A numb body stuck on Earth to be tortured. Not wanted by heaven or hell? Great. I was an outcast. Kumi's face suddenly looked puzzled. She guided Kasumi's body to the ground. Rin watched on, still with my body in her arms. My eyes followed Kumi's hand. It reached into his jacket pocket. She retrieved a blood soaked piece of folded paper.
Kumi's voice was clear, but vacant. She recited each word as if they were written for the president. Each word made my chest wetter and redder. I put no effort into trying to stop the bleeding. I just wanted to try to listen. The wail of the ambulance and coppers was drowning in the background. A small crowd had gathered to see what was happening but the police had ushered them away. Kasumi's note consisted of goodbyes to family and friends, a poem about lies, guilt of his past, memories we shared together and ending that was signed with "I'll love you always and forever." Silent tears streamed down Rin's and Kumi's faces. I couldn't cry. My eyes were like stone. The police had to pull Rin away from my body; I was the second brother to leave her. Kumi said goodbye to Kasumi with a small peck on his forehead. Times passed as quickly as I watched the ambos’ cover up our bodies and take them away.
I was very much so alone. Even if I stood in the main street of a city, I'd still be alone. Without Kasumi life was meaningless. So all I could do was stand around watching innocent people being tortured. Rin, Kyo, Ryuusei, Mum and Dad were all grieving the loss of me. Not that I was much of a loss. They had prepared for it years before when Mika had broken my heart. Kumi, the rest of Kasumi's family and I was grieving over him. Both our parents had hatred towards each other. Blaming each other’s son for killing their own. Kumi and Rin suffered the worse though. Not only losing their brother but their best friends. But they both kept smiling, because they knew we wanted to both die together.
I watched my funeral happen. Not many people attended. Just family and a few close friends. Rin, Kumi and Fuyu all cried silently as the guys held straight faces with small twitches in their lips. Miyuki was the first to shed a tear, and then came Sora, and then Osore. I sat in the back row of the church away from their pointless tears. They weren't going to bring me back and I didn't need sympathy. I was better off dead if his heart wasn't beating. They showed a few of my drawings at my viewing and a few people made speeches. Saying how amazing I was, what pitiful lies. Rin talked about how much I was like a hero. Surviving the most hardest of things. Always putting a smile on just to make people happy even if I wasn't. And then she quoted my poem “Here I scream alone in my head. My shirt stained with shades of red, shaking with every touch. Glowing red within the cut. Lying now on the cold floor. But craving my blood and wanting more. Evil thoughts of suicide. Telling you all I'm sorry I lied. Now my eyes fade into gray. I took my life tonight what more could I say.” I had written that poem during therapy when I was 13. One of my favourite piano tunes flooded threw the church. Yume was playing it and everyone was silent. I hummed the piece and ended in a breakdown of tears. My chest still held a huge gaping hole where the knife had entered and somehow removed my heart. "So beautiful" A voice sang out softly from next to me. It was Arisa; she was so young when she lost herself. Her body was deeply scarred from the fire. There was still also a neat bullet hole in her right temple. It was clean, but it looked like it went on forever. Aoyagi Arisa had killed herself because she had no one left in the world. It was Christmas time and her whole family was over. Aunts, uncles and cousins, nephews and nieces, brothers and sisters, her mum and dad and both of her grandparents. The entire family. The house had caught lit and went up in flame. She was the only one to survive. She went mute until the day of her death, her last words were "I can’t take these memories that haunt me anymore” and she pulled the trigger. "I wish my funeral was as peaceful as yours" She said in a dreamy voice. The entire class had attended her funeral and so did most the town. "Arisa, why are we still here. Why didn't we go up or down?" I asked. Her face was soft as she thought. She got up onto her feet and extender her hand out to me. I took it and stood myself up "Well, I think it's because we died because the people who were our life died." She answered me back again in her dreamy voice. "You aren't the only one like you I have met in this second life" She giggled and we left the funeral home.
Days wore on, taking forever but going so fast. Soon it was the date of his funeral. I got Arisa to clean me up. There was still a huge hole in my chest where my heart should have been but I didn't care. If I looked into the hole, I could see my future at the end, if there was an end. Well that is what Arisa said anyway. She carried on about the weird spirits of other people she had met. How they all had died either in place of someone they loved, like stopping a bullet for them or because of someone they loved, like killing themselves over loss or because the one they loved had died too like what happened to us. We stood glancing over his coffin. I took one look at his face and fell to the floor next to it. It had been a month since the last time I had seen Kasumi, which was one of the loneliest and worst time of my ‘life‘. The church soon was over crowding with people. Other spirits had drifted in to see what all the commotion was about. But they left after a few glances around. I listened to the speeches people made about Kasumi. They were all so honest and true. Kumi recited the same poem that was in the note. Her eyes were empty when she had finished. She must have spent nights reading the poem, because she knew it off by heart. Rin eventually stood up to make a speech. She clearly hadn't planned on making one. Her opening line was her motto "Everything happens for a reason." Her voice cracked at the end of her opening line. She was strong and didn't usually show her emotions. But she continued on looking at the crowd. "Kasumi saved my little brother. From depression, killing himself for her and dying alone." She had said her like she had venom in her mouth "On that tragic day, my brother and best friend died too. Before that he had made a promise that he and Kasumi would die together." Her speech was full of pauses. Finally it came to the end. "Everything happens for a reason. No matter how stupid it seems, it meant something to someone. Also good will come from it, but also will bad. Thank you “Arisa sniffled next to me and whispered "Well, wasn't that inspiring?"
No comments:
Post a Comment