Broken: Part 16 “Regression”

7/26/00

By: Hikari

Notes: This is NOT the end… I still have an ‘Epilogue’ (actually it’s more like a resolution chapter ^^) with LOTS and LOTS of surprises for you all! I hope you enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed writing the Broken series. A great thank-you from me to all my readers.

~*~*~*~

Little girl’s voice: “NO!!! It can’t be that way!!! There must be hope!”

Man’s voice: “…Don’t cry… little one…”

“Hope… Always there’s hope… It will never die… Will it…?”

“No… never. Not so long as we exist.”

~*~*~*~

I clutch onto my shoulders, crouched on the cold floor and shaking profusely. I’m no longer in that place… That place of all my horrors and nightmares. Still, even having been released from there- fear and anguish remained. It was so dark, and it ranked with the smell of rotting bodies and vomit. The experiences there outranked the atmosphere. There was no mercy, no pity, and no heed to tears- no, of course not. There is no such thing as the shedding of tears in hell. If so, the tears were ‘returned’ to the owner. They were ‘returned’ in such a way that it would be impossible for them to come back- impossible for them to come out again. However, should new tears come- if new tears were made, those devils would find another way to ‘give’ them back to you… You can’t cry in hell…

“For how long…” I ask. “For how long was I there…? Were WE there…?”

My other self stands over me, eyes closed and arms crossed. “Fifteen minutes. No more… no less…”

“But… how can that be? It seemed like years…”

“As you have said: ‘time is invalid because it comes in two forms. One by feeling, the other by ordered increments.’ If we couldn’t tolerate that degree of torture in hell for even the smallest amount of time- could we possibly imagine the intensity of pain for all of eternity? In the end… I’ve come to the conclusion that every little thing is justified… sin will always come back at you… Only we can keep ourselves from being damned…”

“What?! You’re saying someone as worthless as ourselves could be ‘saved’?”

“Not if you keep on saying that… WORTHLESS… What does death mean to us anyhow? After seeing… feeling… all of that… Don’t you find it strange that we wanted it so badly? What’s more, we could have taken our own life a long time ago… ‘Mukuro will resurrect me, until she herself dies…’ That’s a half lie- a poor excuse to shelter our pride, and no one knows that better than me… Why haven’t we taken our lives yet? Somehow… did we become attached to those who still have their lives ahead of them? We may think that there is nothing left for us to pursue… so leaving this world seemed the perfect way to end everything. And yet, we found that we just couldn’t let go… There were too many people who meant so much to us that we couldn’t bring ourselves to the end. At the same time, we also felt that no one could possibly love us… understand us… Therefore, we found emptiness… We wanted happiness… for once… TRUE happiness. It started out as a very simple wish… No one knew of it, but ourselves… Then, seeing as our friends found what they wanted out of life- we grew jealous… more jealous than we ever had been.”

“I don’t understand myself anymore…”

“Did we ever?”

“These emotions… I don’t know how to comprehend them… Nothing in the world seems to make sense… There are straightforward answers, but they have little or no value… ‘We live because we are’…” I pull my legs into the trunk of my body- red spraying slightly as I spoke. “… Why am I still here…? Because of my friends? If so it hurts so much…”

Bending down to my level- he looks at me in the eye. His wine colored orbs flashed dangerously… threatening. It was a bright and immense contrast to his pale skin… Do I really look this way? So worn and drained? Cool palms move to my shoulders, gripping onto them as a sign of comfort. “It hurts because we’re so blind…”

“Blind?”

“That’s how I perceive it. Looking back, I realize that those we cared about returned the gesture themselves. In spite of having three eyes, we couldn’t see how much they cared about us. On the other hand, we also saw how much we were wearing Kurama out. As a result, we placed blame over his weakening stamina. We attacked ourselves from both ends… ‘No one needs me…’ ‘I’m just a burden to them…’ When they cared, we hated ourselves… When we thought they didn’t care, we hated ourselves even more. From the way we saw things… and from the way our mind was heading- there’s no way we could have lasted in preserving our sanity. All those tears… those self-inflicted wounds… drinking binges… all selfish. This is why I separated from you… before anyone may help us- we must first help ourselves…”

My mind is running in circles, and from all that I have went through- I can’t help being overwhelmed. “How…?”

“I don’t know… As far as my half goes- I have been through every incident within you, until now. As I remember and hold all of the compassion- you remember all of the past. When I found nothing to live for, we further delved into our evil childhood. Hate escalated. Since we caused misery to the extremes… We disregarded all the changes we went through as we learned from our friends.” Moving closer, his nose touches mine- lips barely stroking my chilled skin and breath running over my face with warmth… “Did we ever think we could love so much? It was so subtle that we didn’t even notice this feeling…”

In reaction, I blink rapidly. “You’re completely different from me… I find it hard to believe that you and I are one in the same…”

“Hn… That’s because you always hide me… showing off our colder side… There’s a bit of me in you, and likewise with myself…”

“A yin and yang relationship?”

“Something like that… It’s a belief… and belief is what’s keeping us alive… That’s why there’s religion… to believe in something even though you’re not completely sure about what you’re believing in…”

“I don’t deem that concept… there are too many answers.”

“All the same… you KNOW there is a Hell, a Heaven, and a Power. All of which no one can come close to fully grasp. Enma and Koenma… who are they really?”

“ A brat and an ogre…”

“Couldn’t agree more…”

“Hn.”

As we are in this huddled position, I notice that my half closes his eyes- lashes pressing together thickly. “Kurama… we hurt him so badly…”

In an instant, I remember slashes, scars, and blemishes bedecking almost all of Kurama’s arms and hands. I have no doubt that his wounds were mine. “When we hurt ourselves… and the one closest to us is aware of it… they undergo the pain too… Don’t they?”

Nodding in another agreement, he smirks. “Nice to know you haven’t completely fallen into apathy.”

“Shut up.”

“Well, you answered your own question without actually stating it… It appears we are going back to our better self…” He opens his eyes, presenting me with his own inquiry. “Do we want to go back…?… Second chances are hard to come by…”

“What do you mean?”

“To where we belong…”

“How?”

He kisses me.

*****

Gasping, it feels as though I had just emerged from deep water. Shards of glass from the mirror slipped from my back as I slowly tried to rise from the carpeting. I coughed and coughed… my head throbbing sharply and my stomach tightening. Where am I? I focus my eyes, only to be shocked later to find that I’m in Kurama’s bedroom. Glancing out the window- it’s still raining, as for me… I was nude, but drenched in dried up blood; which chipped and cracked to my movements. The stains… were they disappearing?

The door suddenly creaks open, and I hear an all too familiar gasp of concern. So I’m back here… “What happened to YOU?!?!” He rushes towards me, then slows down to avoid the pieces of glass. “You’re covered in blood! You’re even bleeding from your jagan…”

“Unh…” I don’t feel good… My stomach… oh… crap… Standing up in a wobbly manner, I run past my friend and head for the bathroom. Much to my annoyance, I came too late- so I vomited all over the tiling. Green mingling with red clumped on the floor, and the acidic smell it had radiated- made me want to keel over again. Instead of doing that, however, I slump against the pane of the doorway. In the mean time, my friend comes to my side. His expression told of disgust, but he did a good job at trying not to offend me. From the look of it, Kurama was doing his best not to squint or scrunch his nose at my mess. Considerate as always…

“I’ll go get some paper towels to clean this up…”

He turns on his heel and heads in the direction of the kitchen, coming back later with a bucket filled with water and disinfectant, gloves on his hands, and a white towel to cover me bareness. Wrapping the cloth he offered around myself, I sit on the edge of the tub, leaning against the glass door to keep from falling forward. Silence filled the small room, and I have a difficult time articulating words. Subsequently, I watched him take care of the task at hand.

My friend… he didn’t look angry… He just put up with me as he usually does. He didn’t complain or yell… He holds no grudges and works only to help… That’s the way you always are… Kurama… You CAN get angry, but that’s always your last resort. I made you angry many times… but you only showed it once. I deserved it and I still need to find a way to make it up to you. The least I can do… is say something…

“Kurama…”

The redhead stops in the middle of scrubbing at the marble tiles and shifts his attention towards me. Before I say anything… I first want to ask him something… “Why do you care about me so much…?”

Throwing the paper towels against the floor, he crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow in semi-disbelief. “What kind of question is that?”

“Huh...?”

A small grin marks his face, light sparkling off of his eyes. “You’re my friend… That’s the answer…” He chuckles in between his sentence. “… I don’t think it can get much more simpler than that…”

“…Friend…”

“Listen…” Retrieving the towels, he bows to continue with his cleaning. “I still don’t understand how you can be coated with all that blood and not have any wounds… save for those grazes on your fore arm from the mirror… but…”

You don’t have to know… “Don’t… worry about it… I promise I won’t do it again…”

“Hmm…” Rubbing at the floor, something screeches. He blinks in surprise and rubs the towel again. Another screech. “What was that…?” Flipping over the paper cloth, his eyes narrow at scrutinizing over what was it that was making such a noise. His eyes wander the ground, until he reaches for something with the rag.

“What is it?”

He holds the diminutive object up to the light. “It’s a diamond… a… tear gem…”

A tear gem?! Moving his stare to the floor, he squints and notices thousands of little sparkles dispersed throughout the marble. Since the gems were clear, they were almost impossible to see. Either way, they were there.

"Hiei…” Looking up to me, his deep emerald eyes bore into mine- almost sucking me in. How will I explain…? “…What are you doing to yourself…?”

I clench onto a corner of my towel, squeezing it and wringing it nervously. As I do so, the other is waiting expectantly for an honest answer. Shit… I’m screwed. “ I was…” What should I say? “…Just being stupid…”

Actually, that wasn’t a lie… I WAS stupid for granting myself such a punishment.

Kurama let out a sigh, and nodded to my claim as a sign of acceptance. Lucky for me, my friend gives an air of trust, even though that deep down- he had a fully aware state which could analyze and decode anyone. Be that as it may, I don’t think that even Kurama would be able to touch the truth. It’s better this way, he doesn’t have to acknowledge everything I’ve ever been through… He shouldn’t…

“Well…” The redhead asked. “What should I do with these? Do you want them? They’re worth quite a few in the Makai…”

I shake my head. “Why don’t you keep them…?”

A certain look or face arises at that. I can read it… it says: ‘Exactly… how much did you drink…?’

“I don’t think I’ll have much use for them…” He gathers the translucent spheres into a clean cloth, and I follow him out the room to the kitchen where he dumped the jewels into a glass filled with hot water so that they may clean. As he carefully poured them into the cup, the last gem that fell was a pure white pearl. MY pearl…

“That one’s mine…”

Worry and…. possibly revolted fear clouds over Kurama’s head- he shook it off. “Oh…?” It’s sad, but at the tone of his voice- I almost feel like laughing. A witness to something so bizarre… From the way a smile is hounding to break my tight lips… I must be so glad to be home… I can start over… “Is it the one Yukina-chan gave you…?”

“No…” My eyes gaze at the pearl set atop the diamonds- apart from the rest. “It’s the one from when…” I don’t really want to fuse the words ‘moron’ and ‘proposed’ together so… “we ate at a fancy restaurant… several nights back…”

“You mean when Kuwabara proposed to Yukina?”

Of course, you can always say it for me… Now I remember. I have to tell Kurama before we get sidetracked again… I try to open my mouth, but my jaw trembled. Hiei! Get it out before you wind up regretting it! Why is this so hard?! “…I’m sorry…”

“Huh? For what?”

Everything. “…Everything… For being an asshole in short…”

He smiled. A gentle smile- brotherly. It’s been so long since I’ve seen it. “It’s okay… Life’s hard sometimes… I understand…” Shoving the glass into a safe corner of the counter, Kurama revolves around to rest on it. “I guess…” He begins. “We should go fix that mirror…”

“Fix it?” I sense my brows furrowing together.

“Come with me and see for yourself.”

When we returned to the room where everything had started- my friend walks up to the once full-length mirror on his wall to explain. “Look here…” He points to his reflection. “I can still see my face… you only ruined to LOWER half…”

Alright, I deserved that one too. He just HAD to emphasize the ‘LOWER’ half. “And how- prêt ell- are you going to fix it?”

“Just cut off the jagged end where the mirror broke and keep the good half… no sense in throwing away something that’s still useful. Besides, I still have sentimental value for this mirror…”

“In other words, you don’t want to waste your money on another one…”

“That works too…” He laughed.

I inspect my whole form over and finally concluded that I wanted and needed a shower.

“Another one? You’re killing my water bill…”

Glimpsing at the fragments on the carpet, flashbacks start to overflow my memory. I just returned from Makai and I wanted to use Kurama’s shower… When I was through- I went to pick up my clothes from his bed… That’s when I came across the mirror… the composition which reflected all that I saw within myself… And so… I broke it… I broke myself… But Kurama… he still kept me for everything I was…

“Maybe you can pay up with my gems…”

With his fingertips, the redhead rubs the bottom of his chin. “Actually, there’s a jeweler down Main… Hiei… why don’t we finance your sister’s wedding…?” Taking a peek at me, he attempts to rephrase. “Or we could…”

“We’ll finance it.”

“Really?” Another surprise… I might send this guy to cardiac arrest.

“If she’s going to end up with that idiot for the rest of her life… I guess her wedding should be something she should remember…”

“Hiei…”

“Hn?”

“You’re scaring me… are you sure you’re alright?”

“I’m fine.”

Kurama decides not to interrogate me any further- out of fear that I will suddenly change my mind. “The rain stopped…”

I turn to the window. “It did…”

“You better wash off before we go to Atsuko’s house. We’re leaving in thirty minutes…”

“Hn.”

Striding into the now clean bathroom- I lock up the door and look at myself. No monster. No evil. The killer was gone. I made up for everything from my undertaking… I don’t see anything in my reflection, but myself. Me. Just me… Nothing to hate… I can find my new reasons for living… I wasn’t meant to die… Not now at least- I still have something to look forward to… and no one can make it happen, but me… ME…