Story Originally Started: March 18th, 2014

Story Originally Rewritten: September 9th, 2014

Times Edited: 13

Last Edited: July 8th, 2015

~My Heart Will Go On~

Warning: Death, gore, exposition… your typical first chapter for a shameless SI-OC-into-a-canon-character reincarnation story.

Chapter One: Butterfly Weed

A North American milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) having showy clusters of usually bright orange flowers and a root that was formerly used in medicine. Also known as orange milkweed or pleurisy root.

Meaning: deceit, deception, trickery, and/or fraud.

It isn't like me at all to care about the feelings of others. It definitely isn't like me to show my love for anyone but myself.

The rest of them call it narcissism.

I call it self-care.

I guess that's how I am now. I used to be caring, nice, kind… everything that people like in others, I suppose. I learned the hard way that those traits don't necessarily get you anywhere except for a coffin.

I essentially taught myself that love and stupidity are the same thing, just disguised with different definitions and connotations: love being "an intense feeling of deep affection" and stupidity being "behavior that shows a lack of good sense or judgment". The ghost definitions that lead unsuspecting humans into thinking that these two different ideals are only associated with the idiocy of deciding factors is what screws some of them. I was bested by a combination of both before realizing that they are essentially the same idea.

A surprising amount of others would disagree with me, many of which arguing that I have never experienced anything but false love and that true love is something that can never be passed of as "stupid" or "worthless" because it is "real love"... but what happens when you are a naive child who can't tell the difference?

Tell me; is life staying up night after night and thinking about your own feelings a symptom of love? Is it wondering how on Earth you could be so emotionally attracted to this one person and they seem to complete you? Shortness of breath at the mere thought of the one that you spend most of your time thinking about?

The answer is absolutely not. Regardless of how many would argue that I don't, I know what love is.

Love is instinctual; one shouldn't have to think about their feelings; they should know how they feel already, regardless of their ability to voice those feelings. One person should never be enough to complete the whole of another; human beings are not simply creatures looking for someone to spend their lives with. Their lives should be composed of a circle of both things and people that they care about and in the middle of that circle should be themselves. Human beings start out complete. They are not broken until someone "fixes" them. Hell, they shouldn't be nervous around someone that they love. Love is not nervous. Love is honest and open.

I know too much about the characteristics of love to actually fall into it with someone else. Unlike many, I have seen what happens when love is not meant to be; when the circumstances of destiny interfere with the wishes of humans who fall victim to it. It caused me to become bitter and selfish, which are traits that most tend to shun and shame because they are not considerate of others. However, it was the only way to protect myself from what happened.

I'll settle at showing you how I lost my easygoing life. Rather, how I ended up slowly killing myself; strangled by the idea that I should value someone else's life more than my own.

I anxiously glanced up at the clock, waiting for that minute hand to strike that five so I could get out of school.

I had been dating this man for a while now; it'd been at least three months since I'd met him on an online chat forum. I had no idea what had come over me when I started not being able to wait when I came home from school to speak to him over my shitty computer. It was only last week when he told me he wanted to see me in person. We didn't live too far from each other, only a 15-minute bus ride away from my home, and I couldn't wait to meet him in person.

I hope he's just as charming as he seems like he is.

It wasn't long before the bell finally rung, and my heart soared when I launched myself into the crowded hallway. My high school was considered near-ghetto, but everyone knew how to haul ass after school on a Friday. No one wanted to stick around, and the ones who did were the ones who smoked in the bathrooms and had some real kinky sex anywhere the cameras couldn't catch them.

After the painful five minutes that I spent maneuvering through the crowded hallways and squishing between people of all shapes and sizes, I avoided the stairs where my friends used to hang out at. After all, they wouldn't understand. I'd never told them about my relationship with David, and I knew that I'd be their Joke of the Week if I did.

The warm, spring air floated through my long hair and I took a deep breath. The long, cold winter was finally easing away as the warmer weather drew in. The day of April 20th would not only be the best day of my life, but it also could be the day that I discovered if the feelings that I felt were real.

I caught the city bus just in time, even though I had to chase it for a block and a half. My sneakers (adorned with little stars drawn on by my friends) were a mess from running through puddles from the storm the night before, but the bus driver didn't seem to mind me stepping all over his lunch. All I received was a glare.

Shuffling to the back, I noticed the characters in the bus:

A woman putting on some deep red lipstick with her hair in a neat bun; you could guess that she was either on her way to a hot date or a job interview. Either way, it was something important.

A man with a newspaper in front of his face stopped to glance my way as I shimmied to the seat behind him, making sure to set my bag beside me in case some stranger decided to get way too friendly.

The next stop was mine, however, and I stepped off of the bus on a city street and I proceeded to run through the directions that he gave me.

"Meet me at the park and we'll go over to my place."

I looked both ways; left led to the end of the street toward an apartment complex that looked just a tad under the weather, and the right led toward a grassy area. I trusted my instinct and took the right. My bag swung unhealthily over my shoulder, and I strode down the street self-consciously.

This was a bad part of town and I knew it, but that wasn't about to kill the curiosity that arose within me. It would take a lot more than stories that happened after dark to scare me away.

The park was beginning to bud; it seemed to give back the hope that this part of town seemed to go without. The trees were dappled with green and the grass was beginning to grow back much healthier and fuller.

My heart began to beat out of my chest as I observed every human being in the park, waiting for David to make himself known to me. I had been waiting a long time for this, and I thought that I would be much happier about it than I was. Instead, I was greeted with a feeling that mirrored fear.

I wasn't sure what I had been expecting, and I certainly had seen a picture of him, sure. His most noticeable features were the piercings that he sported on his nose, ears, and lips. The silvery studs were the things that I was waiting to identify. His pale skin and the tight shirts that he seemed like he would wear couldn't be that difficult to find in a park, right?

"Hey!"

A silky, loose voice greeted me and when I turned around, I felt my heart soar happily.

David Wells was definitely a character; tattoos spiraling down both of his arms and percings adorning his face and ears. To some, those are red flags plain and simple. To me, they were nothing of the sort. It wasn't long before I warmed up to him and he to me and we made our way to his house.

David lived alone; his mother was hardly home and his father didn't exist. His home was quite small and cozy, much unlike mine, which in turn was larger than this. I liked his house, though; the furniture was well-taken care of and all surfaces were clean.

His personality was just like I thought it was. Gentle, caring, and lost. He always seemed to be lost in thought; listening to every sound, every car going by, everything. We held intelligent conversations, but I kept noticing how his eyes wandered away. Whether it be toward the door or the windows, I got the feeling that he was nervous. On-edge.

Disappointment welled up in my throat, but I soldiered on, trying to find comfort in the fact that I had finally met the man whom I had convinced myself was worth any pain that I felt in the thought that he had his mind on something other than me.

Was it truly fair that I should value him above all else at this very moment when obviously I was hardly second-best in his own mind?

Soon, our conversation dwindled down to nothing. We ceased speaking to each other and I watched as the sun slowly went down. Every part of me wanted to tell him that I had to go home, but I knew that I didn't have the heart to do so. Relishing in our silence, no matter how uncomfortable it was, was good enough for me.

It was a blur of motion within the next fifteen minutes, but David suddenly told me to go to the back room. Moments later, a loud voice sounded from the front door as David raced to a differing room, emerging with a pistol in his left hand.

"Police search warrant, open the door!"

My mind raced with possibilities to illusion myself out of this one.

It's a prank.

They've hit the wrong house.

They're looking for one of his relatives.

I couldn't even hope to psych myself out when David turned around and told me to hide in the bathroom or something.

"As long as you don't stay out in the open!"

I'd never seen such a personality change before. I'm not sure if it was shock that forced me to stay put or if I wasn't going to leave him after just now getting to know him, but I couldn't bring myself to do what I was told.

You can't shoot at the police unless you expect to get gunned down as well.

That was the only thought that was in my mind at the time, and I couldn't hope to talk David out of this craze that he seemed to be stuck in. His dark chocolate eyes burned into the door as the police screamed at each other and at David to open up.

The pistol in his hand shone as he fiddled with it behind his back, undecided on what to do.

He can't hope to take on the police, could he?

I was scared for him; it was only common sense to comply with the rules given to you by law enforcement, and if you refused, it could get you thrown into jail for a very long time. In David's case, I think the punishment could be much more severe.

We had to get out. Even if we were surrounded.

David didn't seem to listen to me, no matter how much I pleaded to him that he couldn't hope to attack the police. What he must have done to get a search warrant hadn't even crossed my mind in the confusion as I tugged at David's arm, telling him to get out of the house.

I stared at the back door, seeing that only one man was guarding the back. David must have seen it too, as he took one last glance at the shaking front door and dove for the back door, telling me to stick close to him.

I did as I was told this time and tailed it behind him, keeping my eye on the pistol that he refused to let go of. The same pistol that I stared at came off of safety as he pushed the door open and opened fire before streaking across the lawn. I followed closely behind, fueled only by adrenaline.

We ran without looking back and we could hear them on our tails, but neither of us spoke a word as we tailed it down the street. The thought that did come into my mind was this:

How could I have allowed myself to be involved with him? He's a criminal.

We ran until we couldn't run anymore and the sounds of police were off in the near-distance. We dove behind a house and into a drainage alley before stopping to think.

"What did you do?" I asked, gasping for my breath as David looked around, pulling his shirt up to wipe the sweat off of his face.

"Something I'm not proud of. The hell are you running with me for? If you tell them you have nothing to do with it, they'll let you go."

I couldn't answer him; he was right. It was much too late to say I wasn't involved, no matter how much I really wasn't. I had already evaded the law, and now I was fraternizing with the offender.

"You never told me this!" My voice was beginning to rise, but David shoved me forward as the voices and sirens grew nearer.

"It doesn't matter! Get the hell out of here!"

A feeling, one of something mixed with fear and whatever courage I had summoned up, arose in my throat as I groped for the pistol in his hands.

"I can do it! You can escape, and I'll do it."

David looked baffled, but I had caught him off-guard, snagging the pistol from his grasp. He looked down at my hands like he was surprised, but a small smirk curled into his features.

"I'll find you when you make it out. Thanks!"

With that, he sped off.

I was unsure how to feel as I watched the beautiful boy sprint down the drainage alley and disappear from sight. The words that he had said were very encouraging, but the way that his face curled up was… intimidating.

Nonetheless, I froze when an agitated voice told me to do so.

"Freeze!"

I turned to see one of the boys in blue pointing his own gun at me. I was still stuck on my decision and wondering if it was the right one. I was no hero. How did I expect this to end? I'd never even held a gun in my life, and here I was, expecting to face-off with a man who had trained for days on end to be able to use it efficiently.

"Put your hands above your head!"

"Drop the gun!"

I slowly felt the gun in my own hand wiggle as my own hand twitched in shock.

I needed to drop the gun.

Drop the gun.

That's all that it would take.

More police had begun to show up, threateningly pointing their guns and tasers my way. Every single one of them seemed to scream "Drop the gun!" as I waited for my brain to process a response.

David trusted me to hold them off.

I couldn't let him down.

With that, I slowly rose my arm, but the last thing I heard was the horrid sound of bullets flying through the air and the swift, unbearable pain that gripped my entire body. It only took a moment.

Within that one, final moment, the only thing I could imagine in my head was David. Not my family or my friends. Not my pets or my favorite things to do.

David.

How that smirk wasn't a thank you; it was the triumphant smile of a boy who had successfully used someone else.

The last thing that I had managed to do in life was be used by someone who never truly cared about me.

It truly reminds me of that Titanic movie, the way that I died. Sure, what a sad day in history. People from all over the world died from every class on that ship. I'm sure the whole world mourned that day. However, those sister ideals of love and stupidity destroyed Jack and Rose. They also destroyed me in my own life. If I had realized that I should have been caring about myself rather than others, I would have never gotten myself into that mess.

Contrary to their completely fictional story, though, no one mourned me when I passed. I deserved it in their eyes. I was a menace to society to those who did not know the full story.

Regardless, that was the end of that. My life was over. Now, I've never been religious and I'm not saying that's a good or a bad thing, but when I died, I thought it was over. I thought I'd just be dead and it'd be like an eternal slumber that I would never hope to awaken from. It was what I deserved, anyway.

Unfortunately, my journey wasn't over just yet. In fact, it'd only just started.

Reincarnation seems to be life's little sister in that case; it likes to copy its sister and do exactly what it did to me before, but in a much more difficult and sloppier way. It made sure that I was reborn with the fears that lead to my death and it formed a world around me that would prove to lead me down a path that many do not wish to follow.

Sometimes, though, you don't seem to have much of a choice.

"Because of your willingness to sacrifice your life for someone who would not have done the same for you, you have earned yourself another chance to live. In exchange for this second chance, you will gain fears that you never had in your previous life and your current memories will be erased."

"You're absolutely sure there were no complications?"

A man stood at the counter of a hospital, wringing his hands and straightening his outfit. He hadn't been in-town at the time of his faithful wife's labor and he had caught the first plane back to Namimori to visit her. On the way, he had picked out a handful of red roses for her. Plastered to his face was a frown that told a multitude of different stories, but he hadn't meant to seem unhappy. If anything, the reason why he frowned was because he was too afraid to smile. What if something had happened to his beloved wife or their newborn child?

"Yes; it was a textbook birth. You have yourself one healthy child, sir."

The red-headed nurse smiled, tight-lipped and fake, as if she had to do this exact same thing every damn day. By no means was this reassuring to the frowning man, whose anxiety regarding the whole "birth" situation was only beginning to peak. The last thing he needed was a sweetened lie to keep him away from his child and wife. Even when he attempted to think rationally, he knew that they both had the potential to be injured.

"May I–?"

Before he even got the chance to ask, the woman had already begun typing on the computer in front of her, searching the system for the patient in mind.

"Of course. Your wife's name?"

"Kurokawa Akahana."

"And who are you to the patient?"

"Her husband, Kurokawa Masato."

The woman typed at a relatively slow pace and it seemed like eons to Masato before she looked back up and came out from behind the counter, beckoning him only with the sound of her footsteps.

"Follow me."

The walk was relatively short and they came to a room at the end of one of the halls, where the nurse turned to Masato. He smoothed his dark hair back as he smelled the fresh roses in his grasp. The thin plastic that held them together began to feel slippery with sweat and the tenseness of the situation that followed only made him skittish. His hands weaved in and out of each other regardless of the bouquet in his hands.

"Kurokawa Akahana, your husband is here for a visit."

"Thank you." The nervous man dipped his head to the nurse politely and the nurse allowed him inside where his wife was calmly lounging with their newborn child. It's eyes were open, but he could hardly believe how much the child's facial features mirrored the woman who had birthed her: while both parents shared dark hair, Akahana's petite facial structure could be clearly recognized... yet the chiseled appearance of a strong chin was easily Masato's own contribution to the child's genes. Even though the weak eyes that the child attempted to use to glance around the room were of Masato's deep-gray hue, the dainty way they were presented was an obvious trait from Akahana.

"Masato, come greet your daughter," Akahana gave him a polite smile that hardly seemed to reach her eyes. The woman must have just woken up from a short-lived nap of some sorts. "You haven't had the chance yet, with you being late as usual."

Masato tensed immediately, placing the forgotten roses upon the table beside Akahana. The bliss that he floated around in was abruptly cut short as this new information processed. He dared not even approach his wife and the unexpected child.

"Daughter? I thought they said we were having–"

"A son, I know." Akahana still sounded quite weak from her ordeal, but her eyes were regaining their usual spark with every snarky remark. "I'm glad that it turned out this way, though. Now, we can go shopping for frilly things!"

However, Masato couldn't share the woman's joy. Every plan he had had been for a son. Every thought he had about his new child was how the two would spend their quality time together, man-to-man… not for a girl, who would be bound to have womanly issues that they couldn't connect over and an attitude that would make even the snobbiest seem like a doll. This was something Masato hadn't even had the time to mentally prepare for.

"Masato? What's with that look on your face? Aren't you happy? She's a healthy little one, even though she hasn't been crying near as much as she should be, according to the nurses... but I'm grateful; this will be the last of the peaceful times we'll have for awhile! Here's to the endless nights of staying up and listening to her and wondering why the hell she hadn't done it at a more convenient time!"

Akahana laughed again, touching her nose to the child's, before looking up again to see her husband's troubled face once more. Masato hardly looked as if he felt anything now; he didn't even seem amused by her constant joking around.

"You wanted a son, I know… why don't you name her? I'm sure you'll have the same connection regardless, if that's what you're worried about."

Masato glanced at his wife once more and back to his newborn child. He hadn't been able to take his eyes off of her for a reason his wife couldn't seem to understand just from context clues. His thoughtless face morphed into a variation of thoughtfulness.

"She looks a lot you, Akahana… we could name her after you."

Before Akahana could neither agree nor disagree, the child gaped its mouth into what looked like a gigantic yawn.

"She's just as tired as I am! I'm glad you dropped by when you did," Akahana to laugh once again, all worrying thoughts about her unsure husband lost within the jokes. "We both might have been asleep if you had taken your time!"

Masato stared into Akahana's icy-gray eyes before looking back to the child, and he finally reached out toward his wife. "How do you feel about the name 'Hana'? It will remind me of you every time I say her name."

Akahana paused to wipe her own hair out of her face before turning back to her newly-named child, Hana. Her eyes were closed, but her breathing was very steady, as if she was asleep already.

"Kurokawa Hana… it's a beautiful name, Masato. I knew that you would choose something fitting."

Masato only managed to stare back, watching his own ambitions melt before his eyes. What he had hoped to accomplish had just been turned upside-down. However, he only watched his daughter snore softly in silence, reluctant to voice to his own wife exactly what this meant for the both of them.

Author's Notes:

I'm sure you have some questions, but I'll try and answer the ones that seem the most pressing at the end of every chapter so I don't have ten people asking me the same thing! I've seen other authors do this on this site (I'm not sure about this fandom, though…) so hopefully the same works for me.

Q&A:

Why didn't you mention the protagonist's real name?

Believe it or not, that's an important point for later in the story! It'd spoil everything if I revealed it now.

Does she know anything about the KHR world?

Her memories were taken in exchange for another chance at life, remember? So, if she did, she still wouldn't know a thing. Personally, I'm not a fan of the whole "I know what's going to happen so I'm going to do that" and then it causes a whole butterfly effect and then they end up doing a canon-rehash and I just… ack. This is my personal take on the reincarnation idea. I'm not rewriting canon. That's why I chose this path. I wrote my own damn canon.

What's with that backstory?

I thought it was unique compared to what others seem to do with their stories. I mean, think about it; someone who has never experienced "love" before and overestimates their feelings to please someone else… this time going rather extreme… I actually liked it compared to my previous ideas for dying and being reborn and for the "standard" ideas that I have seen many in this fandom have.

Some of this seemed really familiar! Did you mean to do that?

I know! I am keeping some things the same and adding onto them. I also plan on changing a lot of things around, so don't think that everything is going to be the same as my original. Don't worry about it!

Why is Masato all… I don't know, mopey at the end?

Have you ever expected to get something and then ended up getting the exact opposite? He is disappointed.

Weird chapter name, huh?

Yeah, but I've decided that I'm going to have all of my chapter names be named after flowers! As lame as that sounds, I have a plan for it. I have also decided to put descriptions of these flowers and their meanings behind them in the title. I hope it doesn't look too busy at the top!

Author's Notes Cont.:

Expect another update soon. I'm not sure how I felt about the 'backstory' thing in italics because it's long, but…

Thank you for giving me another chance (if you are one of those!) and thank you for trying me out (if you are one of those!).

Please leave a review on my progress thus far: I would love to know what you all think! Looking forward to meeting you all/rekindling with some! Reviews are the driving force of updates; please use that to both of our advantages!

~Teafully~