Disclaimer: I do not own D N Angel
Unrequited
Smile Like You Mean It
"Love is when you shed a tear and still want him, it's when he ignores you and you still love him, it's when he loves another but you still smile and say I'm happy for you, when all you really do is cry."
-Anonymous
It was like a kick in the face.
No, that didn't even come close.
It was like having each and every one of his vital organs painfully torn from his body one by one and shredded, while he could only scream in pure and helpless agony.
But even that didn't come close.
Words failed to express how he felt.
He couldn't help but feel that death was preferable to this…this feeling; that anything Krad or his stepfather could do to him paled in comparison to the pure anguish that filled his heart.
He also knew that his behavior, thoughts, and emotions were wrong. He knew that he shouldn't have felt anything to begin with, but he just couldn't help himself.
He had done everything, everything, he could to stop himself, but it hadn't worked, nothing had worked, and thinking about the pointlessness of it all almost made him cry out.
It took every ounce of the ever so exalted Hikari control that he could muster to keep his torment silent. Because no matter how he felt, all that mattered in the long run was what Daisuke felt, that he was happy.
Wasn't that what love was, after all? Wanting the one you love to be happy, even if the person that made him smile like that, blush like that and sigh like, wasn't you?
Well, wasn't it?
Honestly, he had no idea.
But no matter how much he was hurting inside, he just couldn't find even the smallest part of himself that would rejoice in the red head's pain. It just wasn't in him to be angry with the red-eyed boy. Even now, he would give anything to see the boy smile or laugh, and he would give anything simply to be near him.
He could never hate Daisuke.
He had no such limitations when it came to her.
And he took full advantage of that.
Before…Well, before this, he had been indifferent to her, as he was to most people. He hadn't cared. He hadn't had a reason to.
Now…well, now he did.
And he did care; he cared with all of his body, mind and soul (well maybe only half of that, as he couldn't speak for Krad).
He hated her.
He despised her, loathed her, reviled her, and abhorred her.
All because she did things he could never have done in a million years.
She made him smile and laugh with unfeasible ease.
She was able to make him sigh like that.
But most importantly, that girl, with her stupid short hair and tomboyish ways got to stand close to him and blush furiously at him and clumsily press her lips to his.
And then perhaps more horrible then anything else, he kissed her back.
So now here he was sitting on the cold floor of supply closet watching through a crack in the door as that repugnant girl played a shy version of tonsil hockey with his Daisuke.
Damn, he'd have to work on that.
Thinking of Daisuke as his would only make this harder. It was official now, after all. After months of dancing around each other, it had finally happened.
They had bumped into each other while getting their things from the classroom before heading home, their after-school duties long finished. It had happened unexpectedly, it was awkward and unplanned and neither seemed to have any idea what they were doing. However, it had happened, and in the end, that was what counted.
They had smiled shyly and then somehow it had become a shared love confession, like something out of a poorly scripted soap opera, complete with the jealous boyfriend hiding in the closet. Not that he had originally been hiding. He had been looking for something, which had now completely slipt his mind. He didn't care, he had more important things do right now.
It had been painful. It didn't help that he had know this was going to happen from the moment he had fallen for Daisuke, even though he had known from the beginning that this inevitability would be unbearably painful, but this was not how he had planned to find out. He had hoped to be let gently, not like this.
This was having his hopes for requited love maliciously crushed before his very eyes.
This was worse than dying, worse than torture.
He didn't know how long he watched them for. It felt like an eternity, but logically that was impossible.
He didn't know how long he sat there after they had left, staring off into space, trying to convince himself that it didn't matter, that he didn't care.
The sun was almost set by the time he forced himself to his feet, his Hikari mask firmly in place.
With a sure step that did nothing to betray the turmoil of his mind he walked out of the school. He wasn't sure when, but sometime after leaving the gate he realized that he was no longer walking with pride, but running. Running as though the hounds of hell were nipping at his heels.
If he hadn't been so preoccupied with running he would have laughed, since considering his situation, the hounds of hell would not have been so bad. Those, he could have outrun and even if he couldn't have, what would have happened? They would have caught him, torn him to bits and then left him in peace (pieces). His real problem couldn't be dealt with so easily. Because it did not matter how far or fast he ran, he would never be able to escape his emotions.
Eventually he found himself in front himself in front of his empty apartment. Managing to regain control of himself long enough to analyze the situation, he realized that in his hurry to vacate the scene of his nightmare, he had left his belongings behind at school. Those belongings included his key.
Careless.
He couldn't care less.
All he cared about was the fact that he needed to get inside. He needed to be inside his empty apartment, where the only thing he had ever had to deal with was loneliness. It's not like loneliness hurt, not really, it was numbing and cold, but it didn't hurt and in any case he was used to that. He didn't mind it. What he did mind was the pain that was echoing through his soul, hammering itself into his heart.
He needed to hide.
In a daze, he hastily broke the lock on the door. Also careless, but his charade of actually being in control was falling apart faster than he could put it back together. It's not like the lock mattered much anyway, he could always get a new one, but he doubted he would, there was nothing to steal in the apartment anyway.
As he stumbled through the door, it occurred to him that it was hilarious that he was able to think about things as mundane as locks and the value of his material wealth at a time like this. He was so amused by the thought that he began to chuckle faintly.
He laughed desperately, his hair wild and tangled from the flight, his glasses hanging crooked on his face and his eyes glinting with a hysterical light. He didn't care that he didn't look or sound anything like sane.
His mask was cracking.
But that didn't matter anymore.
Better here than anywhere else.
His mask was cracking; he let it.
In moments he was on the ground, curled up tightly in a ball, no longer laughing, no longer emotionless.
He thought about how screwed up he was, about how he was so isolated from everyone that he couldn't even talk to people without having to script it out in his head before hand. He thought about how no one could possibly love someone as messed up as him. Even his stepfather for all his possessiveness stayed away, and although though he liked it that way, this fact simply instilled the idea of his worthlessness deeper into his mind.
Some deranged part of him wanted his stepfather around. His sanity really must be slipping.
He thought of today.
Of Daisuke and of her.
He thought of them holding hands, kissing, confessing their undying love for each other. He thought of the future, of them one day getting married and living in a white house with a picket fence and children running around the yard…
Any fragments of the command he had over his expressions seemed to vanish.
For the first time, since he was very small Satoshi Hiwatari broke down into tears.
He sobbed loudly, pitifully, and urgently as though begging someone to come and save him, to take him away from the pain and loneliness and protect him from everything. But that was something Krad and even perhaps Daisuke could never do. And so he cried.
He cried for the aching loneliness of an empty life.
He cried for the unending pain of unrequited love.
And most of all, he cried for himself, for the emotions that he would never allow himself to feel again.
Because tomorrow he would get up, put his mask back firmly in its place and tell Daisuke how happy he was for him, because he wanted him to be happy. He really did.
Because tomorrow it wouldn't matter what he felt.
Because he would get over it, this whole emotional thing was probably just a phase anyway…right?
But for now, none of that mattered, because for just this one moment he could allow him the luxury of feeling, even if all he felt was pain. For this one night he could allow himself a form an expression most people took for granted. Tonight he could cry. He could bawl and howl and scream and whimper. He could lay here and cry in his lifeless apartment and wonder if anyone would care if one day he simply faded away.
He wondered if his only friend would notice. Wondered if he would care.
Because that was really all he wanted, that would be enough for him, to know that Daisuke cared for him. Even if that care would never be love.
Tomorrow, he would get up and live his life, he had no other choice, but tonight he would be selfish and cherish his sorrow. Tonight he would cry and mourn his eternally unrequited love of Niwa Daisuke.
The following morning found Hiwatari Satoshi in his first period classroom, sitting in his appointed desk with his indifferent mask in securely place.
He was early, but that was normal. He spent his time till the beginning of the school day working on his latest plan to catch Dark and ignoring Krad's periodic comments. That was normal too.
There was absolutely nothing about the teen to suggest any of the happenings of the past night, and he knew it. And a part of him couldn't help but be proud of the fact that he was such a great actor. The rest of him just wanted to cry.
He wouldn't though. He couldn't, because all that mattered was Daisuke.
He had been staring off into space for what seemed to be only minutes when he was rudely jarred from his musings by the resounding bell that signified the starting of the school day. He was so startled by the sudden noise that, had he been any other person, he would have fallen out of his chair. However, Satoshi, being Satoshi, showed none of the surprise he actually felt in his expression, posture or in fact, any way. The Hikari mask did have some uses, after all.
He was about to go back to his thoughts when he was distracted once more. This time by a blur of red that flew into the room at impossible speeds, flung itself straight at the blue haired teen, and somehow managed to stop itself only seconds before running headlong in the blue-eyed boy.
Before Satoshi could even fully grasp the situation, the red blur, more commonly known as Niwa Daisuke had already begun talking at an impossibly rapid pace. Of course the taller of the two, even while seated wasn't really listening.
He was far to busy looking.
His eyes took in the untamed, wind mussed hair, sparking eyes and smile that out shown the sun.
He couldn't force himself to look away; he was a masochist, after all.
That is he couldn't look away, until the words that were spilling from Daisuke's lips finally hit his brain.
"…Oh, Hiwatari-kun! You won't believe it! I still can't believe it! I mean I never thought that this could happen to me, I mean because of well… you know, but it did and I can't believe it! Can you?"
Satoshi had a sinking feeling, but ignored it; he had to pull off his act just right, after all this was for Daisuke. With his standard coldness, the blue haired boy grabbed onto the shorter teen's arm, effectively calming him down enough to get a word in.
"Niwa-kun, please clam down," the red head nodded, but still looked excited, "Now what exactly…" He trailed of expectantly.
Understanding that he was supposed to fill in the blanks, Daisuke smiled that breathtaking smile of his that only he could pull off so brilliantly. It was the one that caused Satoshi's heart to stop for a moment, and then once it started again, made it go racing. Today, it took all of his mental strength to force his heart into submission and still listen to his friend, without said friend ever noticing that anything had changed.
"Hiwatari-kun, it's Riku! Riku, she and I," he broke off here for a moment, blushing wildly, but quickly started speaking again, softer this time, "I mean well, she likes me, Hiwatari-kun, really does, and we're, well we're, going out now."
"Going out now?" Damn it, he was a masochist.
The ruby-eyed boy blushed furiously, "Err… well you know…"
Despite the situation, Satoshi couldn't help but smile faintly at the younger teen's cuteness, "I do?"
Looking defeated and yet still excited, the teen conceded to defeat by spitting out what he'd been trying to say all along. "Riku and I, well, she's my girlfriend, isn't that wonderful?" Daisuke continued talking with the animated happiness of a love-infatuated fool, but Satoshi didn't hear any of it.
None of mental preparations had been enough.
He could almost hear his insides shattering at those words; he could almost see his world collapsing around him.
It didn't matter that he'd already known about it, simply because it could always have been some sort of fucked up mistake, or something that his deranged mind had imagined (Shut up Krad, I don't need this right now.) But now there was no denying it, no room left for delusions of any sort. Daisuke loved Riku and she loved him back. They were boyfriend and girlfriend now…
It brought back all of the pain from the other day, only it was worse now, he could feel it surrounding him, suffocating him, tearing him apart piece by piece. He just wanted to scream out loud and pull out his hair and gouge out his own eyes. Anything would be better than this, anything…
He mentally shook himself, now wasn't the time to let his heartache consume him, he could do that later, at the apartment, where he could scream and cry and no one would hear; where no one but Krad could see his weakness. For now though, all he could do was endure, play his part and do what he could to make his friend as happy as possible. Because he knew deep in his heart that wanted Daisuke to be happy, even if the person that makes him happy wasn't him.
Pushing aside his pain, Satoshi gave the other teen a wide smile (wide for him) and murmured in his own distinctive way, "It's about time Niwa-kun, I'm happy for you."
Daisuke smiled, "Thank you Hiwatari-kun! I…"
Before the red head could even finish his sentence, he was cut off by an exuberant cry of "Niwa-kun!"
That was all the warning the two got before Riku Harada appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, gave Satoshi an offhand greeting, and grabbed hold of an unsuspecting Daisuke. All the small teen had time to do was give Satoshi a small wave before the red head's new girlfriend dragged him away.
Satoshi smiled in response and returned the wave, still maintaining his calm façade. He could do this, he had to, because Riku made Daisuke happy, and that was going to have to be enough. Even though it wouldn't.
Well? How was that? Did I keep Satoshi in character? I was kind of worried about that. Oh, and by the way, I have nothing against Riku, Satoshi's the one that hates her guts, at least in this story.
I think it stands alone rather nicely, but if anyone's interested I might think about making this into a full-length fic. Of course it wouldn't be a long one, only ten chapters at most. Either way I would really like some feedback on this, as it is my first D N Angel fic, and I want to know if I screwed up on anything and whether or not I should keep this fic
Anywho, please review and tell me what you think, (as long as it's not a flame) I am anxious to hear some feedback.
R&R