Dancing On Glass and Other Stories

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Lengthy A/N: I love you Harou. I wish you would have gotten help. Please do, if you feel like Harou. Talking to a therapist is a wonderful start. I struggle with depression daily, and as far as romance goes, my story is like Harou…except…I highly doubt I'll find Mr Right, and I'm just fine with that. There are some people in this world who don't, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Thanks Mr Doug Stone for the song inspiration in the first place. P.S…I'm sure this will read as a dribble, but I hope there's something in it that's good. I think this was the only piece that endured a massive re-write.

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10. Dancing On Glass

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He always knew he'd be alone.

He had no interest in women. He had no interest in men, either. So he always accepted the solitary existence without a second thought, even at a young age. It was just another unique mark chiseled on his stone, setting him apart from his compatriots. Harou did not mind. Harou did many things they did not—he never drank, he never haunted bars; he never spent time thinking of the future. Because, being suicidal all his life at least taught him never to count on tomorrow. There might not be one.

Harou walked. He walked in the present. Completing missions. Following orders. Mourning Monkey. Mourning Karada. Harou's past walked with him—he never considered himself truly alone, not when you have ghosts haunting your head, whispering reasons and repeating old conversations. But as far as physical companionship, well…Harou enjoyed the solitude. Healways knew he would be alone.

And for forty-five years, he was.

Then one strange day, towards the close of the second war, he met her.

And for the days afterwards, Harou was seldom able to get her out of his mind.

Perhaps it was because she reminded him…of Monkey.

For people like Saru-Shin were always quick to point you in the opposite direction after traveling in one mood for such a long time. Often, they began walking beside you. Never leaving you alone. Never wanting anything but a smile and a story. Harou jogged. She would follow. Harou would negate. She would reflect. Harou could close his mind. She could enter inside of it. Harou could disclose. She could listen.

Harou Nekai didn't know what to do.

He didn't consider himself socially qualified to handle all this, but as the story goes, the story goes.

And it often felt as if…he were dancing on glass.

He was extraordinarily careful, at all times. For sometimes, her moods were uneven. And sometimes, he was silent on end. Sometimes, when he looked up, her eyes were the most brilliant shade of sky blue he'd ever seen. She commanded the presence of a woman, and the feel of one. She had been married before, but had her heart broken. But she picked herself up and walked on, as he knew so well to do. And now, she was standing before him, knowing, grinning at the feeling she felt when she was near him. It was a truer sort of emotion. One she knew could bind them all the way into the next life, and sustain them forevermore. Meanwhile, his self-control continued reveling in his past, like a curtain, closed, in troubling shades of green.

He could see it all below, murky and dark, and something like a future, above, shrouded in light and mottled sunshine. Careful not to step too hard, she guided him across the strange, smooth surface delicately, lightly, until he stopped, looking down at everything he was, and all he thought he ever would be. The small tap sound faded in his hears and the familiar hum of silence shrouded her figure as he watched the scene below, looking for cracks to appear like flashes of lightning and thunder to give way. The woman held his hands, looking at him. The woman, Arisu, smiled.

"So you say you'll never marry…" Young Nekai stiffened his neck, raising his chin indignantly. "But you would do it too, even for love," Monkey had said, wisely.

"Love…"

Hate.

"Harou?"

Monkey.

The scene melted back at once to the grey and dirty pavement underneath the arbor of the restaurant. Harou's feet still felt light but balanced, as he breathed in the sharp, brisk air of the evening. Under a canopy of so many trees, the air often felt the same color as the indigo sky above. Cold. Stars twinkled through the dark canopy, lighting the wood and their clothes, shining on the icy metal of the table and chairs they had just vacated.

"Harou? she said again.

Karada.

Then after another wandering moment staring at the cement, he broke from her warm, gentle grasp and turned.

He was a runaway, by nature. It explained his shinobi work as a currier. "Harou?"

"Harou…will you not look at me today?" Karada folded his arms under a small and simple smile.

Harou maintained his sullen stare upon the ground. The woman stepped forward, flashing the glass, but it did not break. There was no lightning in this realm, no subsequent sound of thunder. She had learned it's testing points at far earlier an age. The woman made him turn again. Harou glanced at her smiling face, swift and clear. He could fall through at any given moment. "…This may not end well," he would say.

But she smiled comfortably with the knowledge, standing on their plane easily, carefully. "I know."

"But I don't. Do you know who I am?"

"Yes, I think I do," she smiled. "As you have so endeavored to tell me."

Harou stared.

The woman smiled back. "And so what. You know who I am by now. Harou…Look up at the stars. Each one is different…Harou…please…please look at me."

If only he could see through this damned mist.

She touched his hand.

He could see her, at least.

He could feel her, at least.

And she smiled.

There was a beautiful, grand portrait behind him, like an open window. One showing water, and trees; kindness, love, and hope. It was a wide stretch, with several points of interest, in every infinite possibility. She could touch one tree and find a story, a tree house of thought and laughter. The dark places sealed his past, and the light showed him smiling with a child and all their happy tomorrows. And then she saw the hazel glaze in his charming eyes on his handsome face and she smiled. "I love you." It summed up the canvas, and all the tomorrows.

Harou glanced about nervously at the public scene, but there was no one around. Cicadas with their shrill cries rolled on one after another, hiding high in the trees over the pavement and the lawn. "I…love you, as well," he reciprocated. It was a very large admission. One he felt strange uttering, and one he did not wish to say. Yet it was true. He could feel it buried beneath all this evasion and confusion. Fluttering and warm. Both high and grounded. And for a brief moment, he considered the future before dropping his eyes back down to the past. Suddenly her grip in his steadied his center from floating and falling through. This plane they inhabited was truly a precarious one, if anything…

Then all of a sudden, Harou smiled. It was like a flash of lightning:

How foolish.

How stupid.

How crazy.

How sane.

"…I should go now."

She nodded slowly. "Till next time?"

After a moment, he nodded.

"Good."

Great.

Grand.

It happened so fast.

And when he was forty-six, he married her.

And perhaps, it was all right, as she had said. Every story's different, and writes out different, in the end.

So how lovely, at last.

And how glad.

To be

Dancing,

On glass…

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by Kariko Emma, Caliko