If anyone asks,I'll tell them we both just moved on,
When people all stare, I'll pretend that I don't hear them talk,
Whenever I see you,I'll swallow my pride and bite my tongue,
Pretend I'm okay with it all, act like there's nothing wrong...

Is it over yet? Can I open my eyes?
Is this as hard as it gets? Is this what it feels like to really cry?

-Kelly Clarkson - Cry

Morning never came early enough and the night always seemed to linger at the fringe of a respite from the nightmares that haunted his thoughts every time he closed his eyes, the jostle of being jerked from restful slumber was emphasized by the sudden ache within his chest that kept breath from filling his lungs, the tight pain of a wrenched grip at his throat caused him to gasp and gag for air, a thick sob escaping his lips as he gripped either side of his head in frustration, hands taking gripped fistfuls of long hair that framed a tormented face… the high rise of the Korean backdrop was met with the beauty of a long-legged actress rousing from the bed beside him and looking to him worriedly, in words that were heavily accented by a Seoul dialect, she spoke in perfect Japanese.

“Are you ok?”

The sound of her voice was garbled in his mind, and for a moment the vision of another was in her place, long, red hair… familiar features, tapered ears that ended in vulpine blue eyes, and for an instant he jumped, scrambling from the bed and standing in tight fitting pants that hugged at his hips, low and kept closed by the button-snap and zipper, he’d always slept with her at his side, but they never held relations with one another, she had become a friend… and nothing more.

“Get out.” It was the only thing he said, and she knew immediately the reason for his gruff and remorseless demand, another nightmare, and likely about the one whom haunted him so possessively, like a hungry ghost that could never be appeased… she rose from the bed quietly and without question, drawing a robe over the thin chemise she wore to bed the night prior, she wrapped herself in it and sighed, moving to his left flank.

“It will not get any better if you continue like this, you cannot move on, and you cannot force it to let go, you should see a priest… perhaps they might be able to exorcise the ghost from your mind.” Her slim fingers reached to caress his face and he reached to stop her, looking at her with stern, almost unfeeling but tired eyes.

“It’s not that simple.” He replied, and released her carefully, being certain he had not caused her harm, as his head turned off and away, he found himself shivering, the cold sweat of a sudden wakefulness left his body trying to replace heat that had been lost with the sudden movement, and as she leaned in to kiss his cheek, he leaned back and placed a hand between them.

“Don’t.” was all he stated, hurt and dejected, Mei stepped back and gave him an upset look before replying, “When will you try to become part of the living again? Chasing the past and a ghost will only end in sorrow for you…” and left the statement open… exiting to gather her clothing and leave him to dwell on his shadows…

It was never the same nightmare, there were questions he was often left with in the morning afterwards, around his neck dangled the ring he had once thought to give the ghost that haunted his thoughts before such betrayals had happened enough to make him second-guess his own heart, it was a reminder now of his own stupidity… he had trusted too much, and given more than he should have with little return, the memory of offering up his own life to protect that of the ones he loved made him feel even more the fool… when he had been called an idiot… and reminded that he was simply throwing his life away for no reason, that his sacrifice wasn’t wanted… his honor… not respected.

He left behind the apartment, a t-shirt with the same jeans he’d slept in the night prior left on, he picked up a jacket and exited the apartment complex into the city streets of Seoul, waiting for him, a Suzuki Hayabusa in midnight purple with a blue pearl inlay… his one comfort when awake was speed… the faster he went, the further he felt he could run from the ache that constantly followed him, he could forget the world as it was and continue through his own thoughts that created a vice he couldn’t break himself of.

He was often told he would end up killing himself someday, and in that regard he often visited a shrine in hopes of doing just that, death was a change… a grand adventure that he had yet to undertake, being risen from what could technically be called ‘dead’ had not been a pleasant undertaking, and while he appreciated what the return to the land of the living had brought him… a family, friends, and the chance of starting anew, it was the bastard whom he had found his heart claimed by that made living unbearable.

It was a routine, sleep with someone, or rather, sleep beside them, hold them since what he wanted to wrap his arms around wasn’t there, and stare at the wall across from his position until his mind had wound down enough to sleep… there was never a full night’s rest in the cards… four a.m., five, sometimes dawn had long since risen and it wasn’t until nightfall the next evening that he had often found solace in sleep… only to wake one, two, or four hours later on a good night, to the same effect, shaking… nightmare-induced panic that never ceased.

That touch, the taste of vanilla cigarettes on his lips, the voice echoing in his ears and the warmth of a presence no longer there left him working himself to the bone, wanting something, anything to take the memory away, and it only got worse… as if fate played a sick game of entertaining herself with his misery, it was back to the routine… speed… racing in and out of the crowded streets of Seoul at speeds only a maniac would attempt…

At times he wondered if he wasn’t insane… that something as simple as a rejection would haunt him so much, but it wasn’t the rejection that hurt the most, it was the fact that he had given up everything… that Christmas night that he’d said those fateful words… “What do you want from me?!” sang in his ears like a broken record, and the hurt he felt trying to understand only drew more bitterness from his heart.

“I gave you… everything.” He muttered to himself as he held in his hands, the hard plastic and silicone mesh of a helmet in his hands, and felt the heat of wayward tears fall from his hardened gaze, he brusquely wiped them away from his face and mounted, the helmet yanked over his temples, and fastened securely beneath his chin, he pulled gloves over his fingers and revved the engine.

Three, two, one, go.

The roar that sailed across the open air was a scream of metal and stone, the crash garnered international attention, but no one was actually there to see it, the truck had been relatively unharmed, but the bike had been totaled, sailed over the railing leading to a rocky outcropping and dumped its rider onto the pavement at 75 miles an hour… he’d rolled, tumbled, and like a rag-doll, bounced across the street as if he held not a bone in his body, blood had flowed and left a trail of information to where he lay, for several minutes, he had been declared dead, no one could have survived an impact like that, and yet, he had breathed…

It was a painful feeling, the searing ache that came from his lungs gaining that breath he’d been unable to gasp in the morning earlier now filled his lungs with burning sensation that reminded him that despite the relatively reckless attempt at unintentional suicide, had failed… he was alive… and he hated that fact.

Doctors pieced together the fragmented bones of his arm, set his leg in a cast and bandaged his head in fear of a concussion, and yet days after the incident, he had not a scratch… try as he might there was nothing to deny the fact that he was, for all intents and purposes, immortal, an anomaly that heaven didn’t want, and hell didn’t dare to take, and it left him frustrated… in the time it took for him to heal he had suffered mental breakdowns that earned him several bouts of therapy and medications that did little to ease the suffering being haunted by that ghost had caused.

In his fingers he held the tiny cellphone-generated picture of a family he’d left behind, in its center were the two whom had become his duty, at their left, a rival whom he’d often wanted to beat the face of… for taking that ghost from him in the first place… to the right… the strange, half-mechanical hybrid that had set the picture up in the first place, behind them, the tall, masculine structured and gruff looking, angel-winged male whom sired his rival, and beside him, the ever-smiling and forgiving face of the man whom had become like a father to him… lying behind them in the background was a pair of large… (Relatively speaking), wolves that seemed as if they could tower over the gathering, the god wolves, and to the right of the ever-smiling… his ghost.

He stared at the photo in his fingers and he felt his chest wrench, he jittered with the stumbled breaths of a crumbling resolve, and cried…

For all he had done, to live a life worth remembering, it felt as if he had accomplished nothing… he had left everything he once knew and loved behind in an attempt at setting himself free, and found it had only shackled him more tightly to the pain, and the memories.

In retrospect, he wondered, would he have been any better staying? The city of Tokyo left just as much hurt and scars behind as being away from it did, and nothing had ever made it feel any better… he wept… and heard the tiny whistle of a familiar tune, the sound drew his attention from his own misery… and he reached with fumbling features to pick up the phone…

What he heard on the other line… caused his heart to stop instantly.

“T…Touya…”

He knew that voice, it was the dark haired twin in the photo, Yuuhi, but it didn’t sound like the stubborn, hot-headed, temperamental boy he remembered from before, this voice sounded small, broken, and scared.

“Yuu?” he questioned, his own voice shaken and tight, he tried to clear his throat to sound more himself and moved to speak, but was cut off, Yuuhi’s own voice sobbing in a fitful state that made Touya’s heart wrench.

“I want to come home.” He hadn’t known that Yuuhi had been away from the family compound or the family itself in his absence, but the statement of ‘coming home’ indicated to Touya he was a long way from it…

“Where are you?” Touya asked, hobbling a bit he brushed aside the tears he held in his own features and tried to gather a piece of paper and a pencil, to write down an address, to his dismay he was returned with.

“I don’t know… Kiyoshi took me someplace, it’s a beach somewhere, I don’t know, he kicked me out, he’s with some… some person… and I… I… I want to go home.” The sobbed voice came out again, filling Touya with a touch of anger; the rage equivalent of an over-protective brother’s instinct as he replied.

“Ok kitling, don’t worry about it, just stay put, I’ll find you.” He tried to reassure the boy as if he were a lifeline, easing him through a storm.

“But I don’t know where I am! I want to go home…” he sobbed again, the sound of sea crashing in the background, Touya took in a long breath and he replied.

“I know kitling, just, wait for me ok? I’ll find you… I always find you… remember? I’ll always find you.”

A promise of hearts bound by fate, the comfort of family and spirits whom were meant to be left him stubbornly muscling his way into checking himself out from the hospital, his bike was gone, but he still had a car, it might take a flight, but he could still drive, and it wasn’t that much of a hindrance to be in a leg-brace…

The cast on his arm was another story…

Despite Doctor’s suggestions, he’d spent weeks recovering and wanted out, with a family member in distress, pain or not, Touya had a promise, an obligation, and a family to get back to… it took the aid of the cast and crew of the show he had been working on, with Mei, to finally ‘get back to work’, and even at that, he took a hiatus… an undetermined length of time as well.

The drive through the beach-town country side seemed long, storms rocked the coast and left him worrying, it seemed like ages before he came to the place the phone’s signal was last found, and, as he had said, in the rain was the dark-haired twin hugging himself and hiding from the thunder, crying and terrified, the sound had struck Yuuhi with fear-induced paralysis that had Touya rushing through wet sand to get to him.

“Yuu!” his voice strained, the sound of it startled him, he felt… genuinely concerned, for anyone else he could have cared less, but the tiny, prone, and frightened form of the fox that lifted his head only long enough for a crack of thunder to rock the world overhead, he screamed and grabbed his ears, huddling into a ball and unable to move…

The pace his legs held before quickened, he was reaching to remove his jacket and swept, not unlike a soldier in the battleground of a war-torn village, to shelter and wrap up a child to spare them the horrors that surrounded them, a breath, and he lifted the boy’s frame up with a slight flinch of complaint from his injured arm, he continued to hold him and murmured. “I’m here kitling… you’re ok now.”

The trek back to the car was short, the trip to Tokyo, long, but throughout the entirety of it all it was the dark-haired and shivering boy that clung to him as best he could that drew his attention from the world of his misery and self-detriment, and into an attentive state that had him sheltering Yuuhi as best he could.

His arrival at the compound was held without much fanfare, it was empty… quiet… abandoned for all intents and purposes, only Satoshi and Itsuki seemed to be present there, and though they both wished to question the reasons behind Touya looking as if he had been in an accident, and Yuuhi was shaken to the core…

He offered nothing to them, taking Yuuhi into the familiar apartment in the compound that belonged to the Dark haired one, and had been his once before, once there, he drew a hot bath, let the fox cling to him and got him warm, he drew blankets and towels, he pulled pillows and futon mattresses and created a nest where they could hide from the world.

It was instinct, he had forgotten what it was that haunted him, when another had suddenly been in need of him, as night fell, he found he couldn’t think of anything, but the shivering, and frightened Kitsune he held in his arms.

“I’m sorry…” Yuuhi replied the onset of tears welling in his already bloodshot eyes, Touya offered the fox a soft tap on the nose, and curled up with him more comfortably, as they held one another in the dark warmth of the apartment’s empty bedroom, he hummed a bit and murmured.

“I told you, I would find you.”

For a night, or two… the memories were forgotten.
For a night, or two… someone needed him.
For a night, or two… he found he needed them…
For a night or two…