Disclaimer: I don't own Furuba…
Title: "Just Another Newspaper Headline"
Pairing(s): Kureno/Akito
Rating: Teen
Warning(s): Mention of a kidnap-rape-murder case; SPOILER!Akito
It didn't make sense.
No matter how many times Sohma Kureno looked at the newspaper, no matter how many times passing family members offered their condolences, no matter how many crying Juunishi he saw—it just would never make sense. It was just impossible.
He had been sick one day. That was it. Any other day, he would've been trailing her everywhere, letting her lean on him, feeling her slender arms around his neck. Any other day, he would've been helping her run her affairs, as came with her position in the family, or just simply lying in their bed and watching her rest her weakened body, her eyes gently fluttering open and closed. He might even coax a smile out of her—a true smile, healthy and warm compared to her usual smirk.
So it couldn't have happened. Not in the one day he wasn't there, out of all the time they'd spent together.
Things like this didn't happen because she was alone for the first time for a single day. They just didn't. The entire story was bizarre, absurd, filled with "one-time" occurrences that just wouldn't fit together like this. Not outside one of 'Gure-nii-san's novels, not in the real world.
The policeman told him that they had found her in the woods around the main house, which in itself was hard to believe—sure, the girl had expressed a passing desire to take a walk the day before Kureno got the fever, but to consider going alone into their territory? And then to leave on the one night Kureno wouldn't be there to protect her? It was definitely not like the girl Kureno knew, even if she was often surprising him.
They had found her lying on the ground, her normal robes ripped from her body and lying discarded a few feet away. Though they wouldn't let Kureno come to identify her body—they had chosen Hatori as that because of his medical profession—the man knew exactly what she must have looked like. He had somehow gotten Hatori to give him the records.
When the police had found her, she was covered in purple bruises from her shoulders down, with one blotting her right cheek. She'd been scratched down her back, and they thought it was probably from being hit into one of the trees—the bark was definitely rough enough.
Aside from this, there were marks around her neck, and her head was bleeding where the bastard had pulled a gun.
The police hadn't found a bullet, but the poor girl's fingers had blood under and around the nail, suggesting that she had fought back and possibly done some damage. The police were doing a DNA test on it now.
Kureno shook his head—it just didn't happen! It made no sense. Sure, it happened in real life sometimes. He'd heard about the one girl who had gone missing and found a week later in a river. He had heard about the woman who was raped in her bedroom, then stabbed through the heart.
But this wasn't other girls they were talking about.
This was Akito, the girl he raised, the one he cared for...
...the one he loved...
To Kureno, she was more even than god, she was the world.
But now, to the world, she was just another newspaper headline…
I hope you enjoy this. The idea came to me after lunch, heading towards my Spanish class, and I had to write it. Hope you all enjoyed. Love you.
Heartless