| an_apple | 2007-12-09 18:20 |
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mood: angry Title: At the rainbow’s end Author: [info]ikujinashi & [info]tsukimiso Genre: Drama Rating: R Disclaimer: At profile Main characters: Picture Warnings: Brotherly love. Summary: Ryo is as happy as he thinks he can be. He has everything aguy could want: friends, a cute girlfriend, a hot mother, a rich fatherand a sibling he doesn’t have to care about because nobody else does.Hiroki lacks confidence, doesn’t know how to do anything right, andhasn’t looked anyone in the eye for almost a decade - but he won’t holda grudge against anyone. No matter what happens, he appreciates hisparents, and loves the brother who denies his existence. Japanese in this chapter: Read more about Japanese honorifics here.  At the rainbow’s end Chapter 29 part 4 When Ryo awoke, he was still absolutely exhausted and his eyes stillheavy as he opened them - but, as he noticed but a moment later, thelight of morning that he’d expected wasn’t there. Despite still beingso tired, he felt as though he’d slept forever. It felt as thoughleaving to go to the post office, something that he somehow knew thathe’d never be able to stop regretting, was something that had happenedhundreds of years ago. Staring upward at the ceiling - or more through it, since what he sawbarely registered in his mind - he noticed that the place feltstrangely still. The radio was still on, playing the exact same songthat it had been when he’d fallen asleep. It didn’t even feel as thoughtime was passing, the seconds didn’t seem to slip away but ratherlinger as though they’d much prefer to be hours or days or weeksinstead. Still Ryo lay there, on his back in the bed that was the exactsame as it had been yesterday. It seemed a great effort even to sit up;he didn’t even try. Suddenly an odd thought occurred to him. Maybe none of this washappening at all. Maybe on the way back from the post office he’dgotten hit by a car, or collapsed with a heart attack or something andnever woken up. Maybe time really wasn’t passing, maybe all of this washappening in his mind because he’d died and gone to hell. Some part ofhim almost believed it, indeed all of him -wanted- to believe it.Anything to make this look a little bit better, to paint the day fromblack to at least a dark grey. But he knew that that was grasping atstraws. It was… insane, to start thinking like that. Taking a deepbreath and closing his eyes for a moment, Ryo told himself in thesternest tone he could muster in his mind: this is for real. There isno escaping it. It’s not the end of the world; anything that doesn’tkill you only makes you stronger. Once you’ve read the book, the nextthing is to move on. Dragging himself into a sitting position, Ryo picked up the book andplaced it, closed, on his lap. It was just a book after all. Just abunch of pages with a coloured front and a bit of metal holding ittogether. The fact that it had writing in it didn’t make it anythingmore than a book. Nodding once as though he needed this confirming, since the only one around to do it was himself, Ryo opened it once again. Rain was hitting the window when I watched you. You who were layingnext to me, sleeping. Only I have ever seen you like that, I want totell myself but I know it’d be a lie. A lie that I feel that I can livewith because it makes me happy. Normally I don’t want to lie to myselfbut there’s a lot of things that happens with you that are a bit out ofthe ordinary. Do you really love me like you say you do? Hours andhours pass every day that I’m insecure, that I’m not quite sure of ifyou really do. I imagine myself being left behind by you too and italways makes me cry. Realising that you really are the most importantperson ever to me makes me actually somewhat scared. Over all the yearsthat I’ve been alone I’m suddenly not alone anymore and while it’sreally comforting and it makes me feel good it’s a strange feeling forme. Korea is very far away, I don’t be able to see you as often, Iwon’t be able to talk to you often. I won’t be able to talk and see yousmile at me, I won’t be able to feel you anymore. Feelings like thesewon’t just go away, I’m not experienced when it comes to things likethese but it really doesn’t feel like they will. Or maybe they will andI’ll forget about you, will you forget about me? Roses are my favouriteflower just so you know. Eventually you probably will forget about my,that’s what seems likely to happen I think. Very likely to happen,even. Even if I’ll keep on thinking of you every day it’s okay if youforget about me, you know. Realising that makes me cry though. Even after just reading that short paragraph, the words making theirway from the page to Ryo’s eyes to his mind, it didn’t feel like just abook anymore. In fact it hadn’t since he’d started reading it, it feltlike… like he could almost hear Hiroki’s voice saying the words, likejust by reading this he was getting a look into the younger one’s mindthat he’d never have been able to get otherwise - Hiroki had never beenall that good at saying things, after all. Would you, if you soundedlike that? Even though Ryo had always found it kind of cute, he knewthat he’d never be able to live with not being able to speak fluently.One of the reasons why he hated languages - it was hard even to imaginenot being able to be clear even in your own language. Speaking of language, there was something about this entry that seemedkind of strange. Ryo read it over another three times looking for theabnormality, and couldn’t find it until he realised that all of thefirst letters of the sentences were slightly bolder than the otherletters - like they were meant to stand out? Maybe it meant something?At a glance, since they were spread out over the page, they just lookedlike a smattering of random unrelated letters but… Figuring that thatwas the best guess he had, Ryo went through it. “R…,” he started, aloud since he wasn’t confident in his ability tokeep the letters straight otherwise, and placed a finger on the page tokeep track of where he was. “Y… O…” He stopped there, realisingsomething. Those first three letters, R-Y-O, his name. Surely thatproved his theory? Well the only way to find out was to look at therest. “A,” he started again, his brow furrowing in concentration. “N…D… H… I…” Now, ‘andhi’ didn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense, and hecouldn’t think of any words that began with that either - so he classedthe second word as being ‘and’. Ryo and. Ryo and what? And out of nowhere the rest of the letters seemed to come togetherbefore his eyes, like he’d triggered some spell to have them jump intothe right place on command. The seemingly random letters formed words,which formed a sentence. R-Y-O A-N-D H-I-R-O-K-I F-O-R-E-V-E-R Ryo. And. Hiroki. Forever. Forever. Ever since being just a small boy who ran around and climbed treesand thought he knew everything that there was to possibly know, Ryo hadbeen taught by his father that big boys didn’t cry. There’s nothing alittle boy wants more than to be a big boy, everyone knows that. Andso, since before he could remember, the reflex of crying had beenpushed into the back of his mind until he didn’t use it anymore. Hehadn’t really properly cried for years, had never had any kind ofreason that would be good enough. It had seemed that there wasn’tanything that was even close to worth giving up his dignity like that. But now, after having read that, Ryo was right back to being five yearsold - like the little boy whose puppy died, who was upset and confusedas to why things like that ever had to happen in the first place.Feeling alone, as though he’d do anything to have another day or evenjust another hour with his loved one. He choked, his throat closing ofits own accord, and closed his eyes in an attempt to keep back thetears he could both feel and see in his eyes. It didn’t help, though -his shoulders still shook and he still felt weaker than a newbornkitten, he still couldn’t do anything more than hide his face in hishands and wait for this to end. Because where once there had been Ryo-and-Hiroki, now there was justRyo. And Hiroki. Things were never going to be the same, ever again -and he wasn’t ever going to forget. ——— Click here to see the diary entry from this chapter in image form: Page 1 Chapter 29 part 5: Mother called me by my name today, it always makes me so happy. – Chapter 29 part 5 will be up on the 29th Written by aisoshoko Sawajiri Erika China: http://sawajiri-erika.cn/2007/12/at-the-rainbows-end-chapter-29-part-4.html |
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