Misery by Ina-chan
First Posted Online: June 5, 2002  
History: First Akito Introspective Fic

It was unbearably humid.

 The air hung thickly in the air as prelude to the coming thunderstorm. I hated days like these. The thick humid air made it extremely difficult to breathe. Not being able to breathe freely causes that dull painful throbbing in my head and gives me miserable aches and pains all over my body.  The miserable pain makes it even harder to breathe… creating a vicious cycle of… misery.

Misery.

I should be used to it now. After all, my life revolved around it ever since I could remember. I was told that Okaasama was frail of health by nature. The doctors advised her that having a child would be dangerous. She had me anyway, and she paid with her life. Otousama died soon after her. I overheard one of the servants comment that ‘it was because of a broken heart,’ she said.

Stupid.

He was just being a coward. Killing yourself because you can’t bear living alone. But what do I know. I never really knew him. Or her. Both of them abandoned before I was even old enough to even recognize their faces. So now, I have lived this life alone…

…in misery.

Of course neither of them died without leaving behind my inheritance... the responsibility as Head of the Souma Family from my beloved father, and frail health from my dear mother. Such loving parents I have.

Pondering about such things only intensified the painful throbbing in my head. So I decided to visit you. Hatori was bending over you when I came in. He turned to me in surprise and I saw the lines on his forehead starting to form a frown of disapproval as I walked into your room. Hatori is a good doctor and a kind person. But for all his virtues, his habit of overprotecting me has been nothing but suffocating. I’m sure you felt it too. 

We are one and the same, after all.

I simply ignored Hatori and took the seat by your bedside. Hatori let out an exasperated sigh, letting me know in his own way that my presence was not welcome as he went back to work. Underneath the nebulizer mask he held over your face, you still looked flushed from the effort of your latest spasm. As bad as the humid air was for me, it was worse for you. I can clearly imagine how you feel when these attacks happen. I can imagine it so clearly that I myself can feel your pain.

How that initial intake of breath gets stuck in your throat. Then the tightening of your chest prevents that life-giving air to pass through. The sensation of drowning triggers panic to shoot through your entire being. Desperately, trying to swim and break through an unreachable surface that would allow you to breathe, struggling and fighting to stay alive.

I’ve always loved to watch you struggle. Watching you fight and win against death brought great comfort to my heart.  It was then, I always thought, that you looked most beautiful.

I don’t know if you remember it at all. It was exactly like this, a miserable humid day before a thunderstorm. It was exactly a day like this when I met you for the first time.

Mind you, I knew about you long before that. After all, a Jyuunishi being born is not an everyday occurrence. 

             I remember that momentary distraction that briefly forced me to forget my own misery. I was ill, as usual, at that time when you were born. I remember how distressed Uncle was at the news of that fated premature birth. How he shook his head in the hopelessness of the situation when you came into this world… you were so weak that you immediately transformed. Everyone thought that you were going to die in a span of the next few hours.

            But you didn’t.

            To everyone’s amazement, you survived the next hours… and the next day… and the next night and the next week… Was it luck? Was it a new power? How can something so helpless continue to deny the very will of death? I needed to see it for myself… with my own eyes.

             So that miserable humid day, before a thunderstorm, I came, and finally met you for the first time. You were definitely in worse shape than I was at the time. Though you were strong enough to transform back. You were so tiny… so ugly… covered with tubes and wires stuck all over you inside a protective glass cage. You looked a lot more like a freakish science experiment in a fishbowl. You looked so… so… miserable. It probably would have been more merciful if you died.

              “He has a strong desire to live.”

             That’s what Uncle said out loud while I continued to stare at you in silence. The only explanation to why you survived for so long was because of your sheer will to cling on this life. The strength of your wish… your strong desire… “yu ki”.      

             Why?  Why is it? Why go though all this suffering? Even the simple act of breathing was painful. Why didn’t you just give in? Give up? Why did you continue to endure all of this just to fulfill that desire to live? You were probably not aware of it yet at the time, but being what you are… being cursed as you are… you’re life only had one destiny.

Misery.

Just like me.

It was also then on that humid day, that I realized it for the first time.

I realized that we are one and the same.

I wasn’t alone.

Not anymore. 

So watching you struggle and win had always, brought great comfort in my heart. You were sleeping peacefully, your latest spasm had passed. Hatori was still looking at me with that stern expression. But I still ignored him as I leaned closer and rested my head over your chest, and reached out to lace my fingers in yours. I can’t help but let out a small smile, as I felt your own fingers reflexively tighten around mine. I can’t help but feel content at sensation of your warm breath flowing over the top of my head, and the strong steady rhythm of your heart drumming against my ear. They were the strong testaments that you have succeeded once again from your latest battle with death. That Yuki was still alive.

For as long as Yuki is alive, I know that I will continue to live.

For as long as Yuki is by my side, I will never be alone again.

~FIN~

 AUTHOR’S SQUAWK:  

HOLY $H!T !!! Whaduhumunuh was that? ^_^. I’ve been playing around the idea of Akito “the damaged little boy with an exceptionally huge God Complex” for a while now. Originally, I envisioned this fic as a melodramatic confrontation scene to follow up “Storm Beneath Calm Waters”.  Maybe I’ll write that as a follow up scene when inspiration hits me again… Anywayz, while I was trying to balance that out, I tried to get into Akito’s head to try to find what would be his motivation to continue with this obsession with Yuki. This stream of consciousness piece totally came out unexpectedly with a life of its own. When I re-read it to polish it, I even surprised myself! Kowai! ^_^. I never thought that I would actually feel sorry for the sonofafemalecanine. ^_^.

Ja!
Ina-chan