Remember you promised me?
I'm dying, I'm dying, please...
I want so, I need to be under your skin
-"Dying," Hole

"I'm moving out of the main house."

You leave no room for argument in your tone of voice. I don't know how to hide the fact that to hear you speak like that hurts me. Your words I don't even register, it's just that tone, so cold and businesslike, as if we were never friends or lovers. I don't understand how one can go from a soft, placating tone like, "I need you," to a tone that says, "I'm leaving."

I can't look at you. If I were to look at you I wouldn't be able to retaliate at all. I would probably weep like some little child, curl up in a pitiful ball on the floor the way Yuki loves to do when he knows he's angered me. To show weakness like that . . . I simply cannot do it. I've shown you too much already. There's no way I'm going to let you know that my heart's breaking. No way in hell.

"When did you come to this decision?" I ask cooly, leveling my eyes on the cherry tree outside. The days are growing cooler, the nights growing longer. It's already on the edge of twilight and the cherry tree looks dark and vicious. The birds have already begun to roost, their songs slowly tapering off into silence. I can feel the cold and the long nights and the silence settling inside me like the plague I was born with, robbing my soul of any chance for happiness. Voices whisper to me that I should have cherished my happiness while I had it, that I always knew this day would come. But it seems that any happiness I manage for myself is tainted by the curse no matter what. I will never be happy. I will never be able to live. Do you have any idea how that feels? Do you have any idea how it feels to be so isolated, so alone and so helpless and in so much pain? Do you have any idea at all?

"Recently," you answer vaguely, and you leave it at that. You know that I know when you came to this decision and how you came to it. Your voice is lined with acid, slicing like paper cuts and then burning raw. I have to fight to keep my breathing even, fight to keep my anger in check. Hatori was always more important than me? I don't understand that. I don't understand it at all. Whose bed were you coming to every night? Whose ear were you whispering desperate little pleas into? Whose body were you taking, whose heart were you holding, whose soul did you set afire and never once make a move to put out? Who was it you were showing that secret smile to? It makes me want to hate you, the way I hated him for taking on that stupid woman. But I couldn't hate him. Not for an instant.

I don't suppose I could explain it to you so you'd understand. That woman was never able to love him the way he needed to be loved. Hatori – all those of our family who bear the curse – cannot love like normal people. And normal people cannot possibly understand the burdens of being cursed. Her pretension infuriated me. Marriage? Absolutely unthinkable! He was my Hatori! And she never for an instant had any right to him whatsoever. When they knelt before me that day, I could already feel the fire in my mind, the wont to eradicate that little bitch so she could never come near Hatori again. But I had decided to give them the benefit of a doubt, to give my Hatori a chance. But all it took were those words – those words speaking of marriage! – for the fire to flare up red hot before my eyes, the red all I could see. I didn't know what I was doing. It's often like this. I don't know where my control goes – beyond me, that is for sure. I told them what I thought of it. I didn't even know I was yelling. And suddenly the red focused into a point, and I realized the red I was seeing was Hatori's blood. My dear Hatori, bleeding on the floor. I wanted to embrace him, I wanted to heal his wounds as he had healed mine so many times. I wanted to repay the favor. I wanted to protect him. Can you understand that need? To protect someone? Can you understand the need to repay a debt?

"It seems as though you're dead set," I say quietly, placing a hand along the door fasten as I continue to stare at the cherry tree. I let my eyes sweep over the rest of our property, seeing the yellow lit windows and shadows moving within and feeling the very essence of how trapped we all are. Birds in a cage. Birds don't belong in cages, but it's the only choice we have. It makes sense that you would be the only one who wouldn't understand this. You and your mystery. Your willfulness. I hate how it attracts me. Even as you're killing me. You could have your hands wrapped around my throat, strangling the breath out of me, and I would still look into your eyes and think, How . . . how have I ever lived without you?

I sigh very softly, hoping that you don't catch it.

"I am dead set," you say. "I simply thought I should let you know of my plans."

I hear you turning to go, and it's as if you're taking my heart with you. It rolls in my chest, hitching my breath, pain shooting through me like I've never felt before. It's not just my heart, it's everything I am. I finally found myself! I found it in you! And now you would take it away from me?

"I haven't given you permission to go." I am proud that my voice isn't shaking as bad as my body. I clutch the door fasten till my hands are white and aching, trying to calm my trembling. It only makes my shoulders shake worse. I can't let you go. Why can't you understand me? I thought you did. I thought you knew me, I thought you were the one who'd given me wings. I was your angel! Doesn't it matter now? Have you forgotten? Did it never matter at all? Was Hatori always more important than me? Why can't you forgive me?

Your footsteps pause. Your voice is low and dark, as if the very twilight slipped down your throat and wrapped your voice in its dusky cloak. "I don't need your permission."

My heart shatters. I don't know what could bring me back from the brink of death this time. Not even Hatori's healing hands can save me. But I suppose they never could. I've always been waiting for you to save me. And now you've just ruined me.

"Shigure."

But my voice is gone, your name barely a breath on my lips, and the door is sliding closed, the emptiness filling the room like a black hole. I touch my throat, swallow once, and say your name again – remembering all those times before when I would breathe your name. You loved to hear your name. It was validation for everything you did and everything I felt. Saying your name reminded me you were real, the only real thing I cared about. I could never say Hatori's name and feel reassured. I could never be held by him like you held me. When he holds you . . . do you close your eyes and really sleep?

My hand moves up to my mouth, stifling the sob before it can even reach my throat. I dig my nails into wood, a violent urge to destroy everything coming over me. But what good would it do to destroy when I am already destroyed? My knees give out and I fall to the floor hard, scraping my skin painfully against the floor as my kimono slips apart around my legs. I keep one hand to my mouth as the tears well up and fall free from my eyes, one after the other, over and over, splattering against the floor and reminding me of past stains and past sins. I'm sorry I wanted you. I'm sorry I loved you. I'm sorry I never said it. Maybe if I had, you would've stayed. Maybe if I had, I could be the person you want me to be. Maybe if I had, you would've let me under your skin as deep as I let you under mine. Buried inside me until there was no end to us. Buried so deep that you ripped me apart.

I curl up against the door, huddle into a tiny trembling ball, and bury my face in my knees. I cry until the moon rises, until the nightingale sings, until I realize that I'm not dying. I'm already dead.

---

And now I understand
You'll leave with everything
You'll leave with everything I am
Memories
And now I know that love is dead
You've come to bury me
There's nothing left here to pretend
And it fades
~Dying, Hole