Do dates normally last this long? I don't think they do, although considering I've never been on one I could be wrong. I blow softly on the window and watch as the glass fogs up. I look through it to the empty street, and even though I can't really see anything I'm more content then when I could see it all. The fog starts to slip away and I blow again, desperate to keep it there.

I wonder if this is how my life will always be, with me creating illusions and seeing only what I want to see. I suppose that isn't a good thing, though at the moment I couldn't tell you why not. I glance at the clock as its chimes echo through our house.

It's twelve o'clock.
It's been five hours since you left to go with her on the date. You've been planning this for months. When you told me she accepted I couldn't help but answer your smile; I had never seen you look so alive.

I thought I could manage. A movie could only last for so long, right? I clutch the blanket closer to my body. After the first three hours I had succumbed to the chills and went to get it before I continued waiting. I laugh and then flinch as I realize the sound is bitter, though I can't help myself. Have I always fallen under pressure, only to wrap myself in false security and continue on?

I don't want to think anymore. I don't want to see where they take me.

It's two o'clock.
Seven hours now have passed. Are you enjoying yourself? Surely you must be. I wonder what's taking so long. Did you finish the movie and then take her for coffee? Did that lead to going to her place?

Are you now wrapped in her arms, her breath coming in gasps against your sweaty skin? Is she- But I can't think about those thoughts. I'm the good one, the one who doesn't know about hatred and revenge and jealous rages.

So I can't think about that, because if I do then I don't know what would happen. These emotions are unfamiliar to me, and for once you aren't here to soothe my fears. When did you step away, and where was I when it happened?

It's four o'clock.
I gave up counting the hours. My head is against the glass so every time I take a breath the fog returns and I see the outside world the way I want -blurry- and I can decipher the unrecognizable shapes the way I will.

In less than four hours time I will have had a shower, maybe choked down breakfast and be at school. Maybe you will be there, an apologetic look in your eye. Maybe you will try to explain how the time slipped away. Maybe for once you won't watch her, and will have eyes for me once again. Maybe wishes are better left to the fairytales.

It's six o'clock.
I bathe mechanically, the water cooler than usual to accommodate my chilled body. I call myself a fool for waiting up all night for you; you would think I'd know you better by now. The breakfast that greets me is wonderful as usual.

The aromas tickle my nose, inviting me to come and taste. I don't think I have ever felt so sick in my life, and I beeline outside and to the waiting car. I am early to school today. I feel like I'm going to be sick. It takes a great deal of effort for me to move my body, yet when I see you I immediately smile.

You smile back and I open my mouth to call to you when someone runs past me and into your arms. You laugh and swing her around. I take it things went well for you last night. For some reason I can't find the strength to care. I walk past you, and neither of us acknowledges the other.

Everyone has noticed something isn't right. Everyone except you. Even she came to me, brown eyes concerned and then hurt at my venomous response. That was the first time you had ever yelled at me and truly meant it.

That was the day everyone else understood. That was the day she defended me against you, something I could have never in my worst nightmare thought would happen. That was the day it was driven home to me.

We were no longer 'we' or 'us' and it wasn't 'them' or 'they'. It was 'you' and 'him'; 'me' and 'her'. I don't think you ever noticed how the blanket never left the window, or how the bed was always made and un-slept in. You didn't notice. And that hurt me more than anything else, Hikaru.

It's been four months and three days.
I think it's amusing how despair and pain are better than coffee and caffeine when it comes to keeping somebody awake, and I honestly can't remember the last time I slept for longer than an hour.

Maybe that's why my thoughts have taken a turn for the worse. The lack of sleep and little food must be getting to me finally. Surely that would explain why my mind is thinking these irrational thoughts to be perfectly normal and even enticing. When the first mark appears there is relief I haven't felt in a long time. There are feelings that I've forgotten existed.

Feelings I haven't felt for exactly four months, four days, and twelve hours.I purposely wear short sleeves in hopes you'll see the lines marking my skin. I tell myself I'm not disappointed because it hasn't been enough time and not because I was never expecting you to see.

Hunny cried today. As soon as I walked into the Host Club he took a single look at me and began sobbing. I stared at him blankly as the other members looked on with different expressions.

I reached out hesitantly and placed a hand on his, offering a weak smile when he looked at me through tear-stained eyes. "What is it?" He took a shuddering breath and leaned forward, placing his rabbit in my arms and himself in my lap.

"When did it happen?" His voice is so soft even though I am holding him I have to strain to hear it. "When did it become so bad?" He looks up at me, all tears now gone. I blink at him. I had forgotten he was older, but in moments like these it's hard to forget. I say nothing and he clutches his bunny closer and slides off my lap, a thoughtful expression crossing his face before he unexplainably brightens. "

This is a cause for cake. You can even have the strawberry. But I want the strawberry too, so maybe we can split it.? Unless you don't want it, then I can have it!" I offer him another slight smile at his own way of comforting me and proceed to choke down the sugary sweet. It appeases him, and nobody notices when I leave earlier than usual. I wonder how long that has been going on.

Denial is a wonderful thing. It clouds your vision and keeps you safe in your web of illusions and lies. But slowly the truth will sink in and your web will start to fall apart. You will catch glimpses of how your life really is and you will fight to keep it the way you want it to be. But your perfect world will fall apart around you, and you will fall with it.

Because how can you survive when nothing is what you thought it was? How can you walk that fine line between acceptance and realization? How can you keep your balance and not fall into this sudden void you yourself created, however unintentional?

You cannot, or so I've found. Because eventually you will tip over and fall. And all your delusions, illusions and lies won't be there to catch you from the cold truth. I wish somebody had told me that. As it was, I was unprepared for what happened when I took that fateful fall into the reality that had always been, this time unaltered. The truth stares me dead in the face, mocking me because it knows now that I can't turn away or hide.

Not this time. But I can't handle it either, not as I am. So I turn to something that is both pleasantly numbing and painfully destructive.

It's been six months and some days.
Or has it been seven months?
I can't remember anymore. What happens when you lose the will to live? I use to wonder that, whenever people said that was how they died. They just lost the will to live. Or the ever famous, they died from a broken heart.

I never really believed that could happen until I felt it firsthand. How could mental, psychological pain be transferred into physical? I'm still not sure, but it happened. I don't wonder about those questions anymore though, because I can answer them all.

What happens when you lose the will to live? You stop eating and sleeping. Your mind drifts to unpleasant things that sound tempting in their allure.You can't focus on anything and your body goes on auto-pilot.

You don't want to move; every step is harder to take than the last. Sometimes you smile and joke like you use to do; only there is no emotion behind it. If anyone took the time to look in your eyes they would see that, but maybe they are scared of what they would see. You become numb. You don't care. You feel nothing because you are nothing. It's the only explanation you can come up with.

And then you hit the bottom, and you think 'only up from here'. But then Fate laughs cruelly and hands you a shovel and your rock bottom sinks deeper as you dig and you think how it's truly pathetic you've hit the bottom of rock bottom. And then instead of just thinking of the unpleasant things you give into the temptation and once again you feel and it is wonderful.

But it fades. And then it's harder and harder to get to, until it seems you can never really have it again. And that's when you decide you're fucked if you do and fucked if you don't.

As the brown book was closed Kaoru smiled for the first time in a year. True it was a slight smirk and more bittersweet than anything but it was close. He wondered what they would think after reading what he had written. He wondered if his –no, her- Hikaru would cry.

He wondered who all would come. He wondered if they would understand. But most of all he wondered why it made a smile tug at the corner of his lips when he thought about the tears they would shed. It sounded sadistic, getting pleasure from other's pain but he thought he deserved it.

After all, he had sacrificed a year of pain for his brother's pleasure. He sat the journal softly on his brother's bed and took another look around, breathing deeply. For its owner to have changed so much the room hadn't changed at all.

With a soft sigh, more resigned than anything, Kaoru turned and left the house. His ending was bound to be messy, and there was no sense giving the maids the added grief of cleaning up after him.

x-x-x-x

A/N: Haha. I'm evil. I was re-reading this and thinking 'what the hell was I thinking?'
This will probably have a second chapter, but I don't know if I want a sad ending or not.