āWhat is promisedā¦ am I even strong enough to keep them?ā
He saw her married, with children, or a careerāmedicine, like her parents, or literature, since sheād always loved reading. He saw her grow old and happy, with a smile still on her face, surrounded by the people who loved her most, in the life sheād built. Sometimes, he was even tormented by what might have become of her had he changed her. A life almost as long as forever, with him, with them all. Heād never thought it a fitting option, at the time, but nowā¦ he came to understand how vastly preferable it would have been, to this. She could have lived, she could have laughed and smiled and cried as only the living do. She could have loved, and sang, and read to her heartās content. She could have stood beside them, beside him still.
He held onto none of these possibilities, nor the memories that interwove with them. But nor did he make any effort to chase them from his mind. He simply let them subsume him, draw out everything that was left in him and carry it off as they disappeared, leaving a hollow shell behind. Sachiko had come to him, he knew, but he had barely noticed her, and he could not make his tongue move to speak with her. Everything just hurt too muchāthe lingering ache of emptiness.
And all that echoed in him was violin music and a childās voice.
He knew it, when she appeared, but the eyes that met the jade ones were dull, fathomless black, deep and unfeeling as the Void. His grief was numb, like nothing heād ever experienced, and not even the sound of her sweet voice could stir him. It was all he could do to make eye contact, but that connection, that magnetism that drew them always toward one another from the very beginning, that sparkāit was gone, vanished as though it had never existed at all. He was the Null again, the Nothing, the Empty.
Perhaps that was what heād really been all along.
Something cracked in the back of Asuka's mind as her eyes met Sora's. His eyes, they were empty. Though his eyes had always been dark, lifeless at times, there was always some sort of light behind them. It took her a while to see it, but there was always a small glimmer of light, a glimmer of something behind his eyes. And now, there was nothing. Asuka tried to keep her breathing even, but it was hard. It was so very hard seeing him like this, and it was slowly causing her to feel suffocated. He regarded her with those eyes, those empty eyes. Did she truly mean nothing to him if he wouldn't so much as speak to her? What he told her, was it all a lie? To get her to admit to her feelings that had grown, was it all a game for him?
That thought caused her face to contort into something different. It wasn't disgust, it wasn't anger. It was just...blank. She wouldn't allow that to be true. She loved him. She wouldn't love another, couldn't love another. Losing someone was never easy, and she could only imagine how many people he lost that he cared about. Though from his memories, there was only a handful: Kaede, Yusuke, and Sakura. Then there was his cousin, Sachiko. They were his family, his friends. But what was she to him? Asuka lost her friend, her brother, her father. She had lost family as well. With that thought in mind, Asuka allowed her hands to finally ball into fists as she stood in front of Sora.
"You're not the only one, Sora," she spoke, her voice calm, soft like a whisper, with a hint of something dark. "You're not the only one who has lost someone important to you. I cannot claim to know how you feel about Kaede, but I do know how it feels to have someone you love stolen from you. You promised you'd let me help you, you're breaking that promise Sora. You..." she continued, her voice cracking subtle. She held her breath, gauging him for any reaction, but his face was still blank. There was nothing there. There wasn't anything behind his eyes, and it was breaking her heart even more. If there was anything left of her heart, and it broke further, she felt as if she would die.
"Do...do I even mean anything to you any more? You look at me with those eyes, and I feel like I never meant anything to you. Was I wrong to say that I loved you? Was I wrong to believe that you even loved me? Was it foolish...to think that," she finally questioned. He wasn't speaking to her, and she wanted to know if she made a mistake. She wanted to know if she made the mistake of loving him, of telling him that she loved him. "Tell me that it's true, and I will leave. I won't...I'll leave you. Just...just tell me," she finally felt her voice crack further as her eyes burned, the warmth sliding down her face as she fell to her knee's in front of him, grabbing his hand in hers and holding it to her cheek in the process.
He recognized her, but for a long moment, the recognition did not truly click. It was so hard, to make anything mean something to him. Her words felt like physical blows striking him, but he was so numb to pain that they produced no visible reaction whatsoever. Breaking a promiseā¦ heād done that twice now, it seemed. Heād promised Sakura and Yusuke that he would protect their precious child, and now she was gone. She was gone because he was not strong enough, vigilant enough, to save her. In the end, it didnāt matter who had made her bleed, because it was he who had killed her. It was his fault she had died. Because he was not stronger, or fast enough to save her. And if heād broken a promise to her as well, thenā¦ he was simply damned again, wasnāt he? Didnāt she see? She should just leave, hate him like he loathed himself. Because he was an oathbreaker, a protector who failed, and weak. Too weak.
The saline liquid of her tears dripped onto the hand she held to her face, and he could feel their warmth. It was more than heād felt in days, and he did not quite know what to make of it. Her skin, too, was flushed and warm, with her anger or her sadness, he did not know. She should not be angry or sad because of him. All heād ever wanted for her was to see her smile, to see her happy. It had astounded and confused him to realize that he was actually capable of that, of making her smile. He was pretty sure heād never been the source of anyoneās happiness before. Heād protected it, until he failed to, but theyād always made it on their own, and heād just been nearby. To be the reasonā¦ it made no sense.
But he was used to being the cause of misery. Something in his chest tightened, just a little bit, and his heart made an irregular thump in his chest. The sensation was uncomfortable, like he was being squeezed from the inside, and it took him a long time to recognize it. He hurt. His heart was aching, because she was crying, and he was the source of her misery. He should let her go, let her walk out of here and be free of him, so that she never had to cry because of him again. It would be the right thing to do.
Sora found that, as seemed to be the case too often lately, he was too weak to do the right thing. He could only be selfish. āDonāt,ā he said, his voice raspy and harsh from disuse rather than intent. āDonāt leave. You promised, tooā¦ā He was too weak to let her go, too pathetic to let her have what she deserved. And she deserved so much better than him, who could not even keep his promises to the dying. Who could not even protect a child. His thumb moved where it was against her face, brushing a tear away, but he allowed himself no more than that. He could manage no more than that.
Asuka leaned further into the brush of his hand, her tears falling harder as he spoke. She did promise. She promised she would never leave him, but if that was what he had wanted, she would do it. No matter how much pain it would cause her, she would leave him if that was what he desired. She was only happy with him around. She only ever truly smiled with him around, and if she meant nothing to him, she would leave him be. She would leave him to his own accord and she would disappear. She would disappear from his life as if she never existed in the first place. If that was what he wanted, she would do it. Her happiness be damned. The only thing she ever wanted was to make him happy. He deserved that much.
But then, he told her not to leave, and her fingers coiled a bit tighter around his hand. There was a slight hiccup in her heart beat when he spoke. He told her not to leave, but he still didn't answer the question she asked. Did she mean anything to him at all? Or was she simply just something there? She wanted to believe that the latter wasn't true. She wanted to believe she truly meant something to him, but all he spoke was for her to not leave, that she had promised too. She moved herself so that she was closer to him, removing her hands from his and sliding her arms underneath his. She rested her hands on top of his shoulders as she embraced him. It was always something she found comfort in, and she was trying to do the same now.
"I promised I would never leave you. I promised, and I don't break my promises," she spoke, her voice stilled and soft. She didn't break her promises, only when they were unexpectedly removed from her. "I won't leave you, but tell me. Please, talk to me. Don't shut yourself away from me. I...I can't," she continued, her arms tightening around him. She wouldn't be able to take it if he closed himself from her. And that was what he was doing earlier. Not only to her, but to his cousin, to the two people who he mattered to. He mattered to Asuka because she loved him, he mattered to Sachiko because she loved him as her cousin.
"I couldn't take it if you did. I told you my world would end without you, and I meant it. I meant every word I've ever said. So please...don't...don't hide from me. Don't close yourself off from me. I want to help you Sora, in anyway I can, even if I have to give you my life," she finally concluded, burying her face into his chest, her tears still falling. She wanted to stop them, but they continued to fall, soaking through everything they touched, including his shirt.