Saturday, June 12, 1999 9:50:27 PM

Hidoko Matsumoto
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Here, I'll reveal why Kiyoshi feels indebted to Ruri… Not much of a fanfic, you're advised to treat my fics all as pure fiction! This is to keep "Creature Of The Night" (and "Unfurled Wings" too…) from having holes. Personally, you're supposed to read this if you read COTN, cause… Well, this is the interlude!

Warning: Non yaoi, non lemon, non everything, just a normal story.
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Kiyoshi watched as Tetsu gazed deeply into Hyde's eyes, oblivious to everything around him, but Hyde himself. And Hyde, too, gazed back with the same likeness.

:.The similar bondage which makes them far better… Than even angels….: Such a thought drove at his heartstrings.

His thoughts flew back to a time, when he was still a human, a truly alive man. Only eighteen. He was only eighteen when he met Ruri.

She was unlike any other whom he had seen, a jovial and petite woman turning on twenty-two. Happily engaged to a doctor, six years older than her. That was the hard part. Kiyoshi could only gabble nonsense in front of her, making her laugh , and she would seem all the more younger.

Sometimes, he would drop by her home, to give her a surprise. Indeed she was surprised, and he would be treated to a pie, or a pudding. She was a housewife, a very good one at that. Almost immediately Kiyoshi would forget that she was engaged.

But he knew, that even if she could accept him, they would never go far. He knew it deep in his soul, and that was what hurt him most. Why would she accept him in the first place, anyway? Kiyoshi could not remember ever hoping. But he had an illusion that she would. It was an illusion which began to break. Illusions of love were never reliable. By his nineteenth birthday, Ruri was married. Kiyoshi never attended her wedding, no matter how hard she tried to contact him, he cut it all off. He had never felt so alone.

Finally, one rainy day, he met with an old lady. Bearing a heart of gold, he refused to let her go home alone with a sprained ankle, so he piggybacked her home. The old lady turned out to be Ruri's mother. As both Ruri's and his surprise registered in, Kiyoshi knew that he could never escape. It was time to face his heart with a true soul.

After that, he became Ruri's 'best friend'. He would always be there when she needed someone. Her husband was busy, and when he went home he would be too tired to listen. Instead, when he had a bad day, he would shout at her for being noisy. Ruri's troubles were deeper when her mother broke her spinal cord. At first, it was okay. Later, Ruri became pregnant, and she needed all the help she could get. Kiyoshi came over, more recently than her husband would like him to.

In a fury, as he was drunk one day, he sped too fast down a driveway and had an accident which damaged nothing but his brain. Unable to think consciously, or stay awake, or talk. To tell Ruri how much he was sorry for making her worry when he was unconscious, much as his soul would have liked. They would keep him alive for as long as they could, they said, and Ruri was never without hope that her husband would wake up one day.

It all added to Kiyoshi's pain, when Ruri's twins were born. Kiyoshi became a makeshift father for the children, as they began to grow older and wiser. In his eyes, they were his children. Only twenty-four. And he aged so much in mind. Much as he acted crazy, he was incredibly reliable.

Soon, he realized what he needed. He decided not to love anyone after all. Somehow, his heart finally listened to his decision, and the emotion 'love' did not exist. The pain was gone, as he was a happy dude, and Ruri was his happy friend. He managed to be happy.

"Thank you, Kiyoshi, for always helping me," She said gratefully with a smile for the umpteenth time. She always meant what she said. It was then that Kiyoshi's heart melted. It would make him happy that he had helped her at all, and he would feel that everything was worth his effort. He was, also, able to call himself a 'true friend'. In reality, it was Ruri who helped him. Especially when he stepped into work, he was faced with all sorts of discouragement. Ruri was there to make him ready for war again.

In fact, Ruri was the one who reminded him that there were still caring people. He would have lost all hope, had it not been Ruri by his side.

It was not like the love that he had felt before. It was a deeper emotion which bounded him to Ruri: need, care, and strength. Friendship was all it was. Friendship that sustained through the years, that strengthened them in times of hardship. So, even when Ruri's children died of cancer, Kiyoshi was there.

They made a promise. A pact that was never to be broken; to be by each others' side every moment.

But Kiyoshi could not fulfil that promise. Despite all that Ruri had done for him, he died early, and left her alone to face the world. Despite the fact that she had always been there when he wanted to move to Timbuktu, he had let her down. And he had made yet another fresh scar on her life. He would never forgive himself for that.

Bondage. Bondage of any kind. It was what the world needed, if he had a chance to speak for it. If they had bondage and did not see one another as strangers…

His eyes gleamed sadly, remembering the way others had treated him. The cold world in terms had driven out the fire in him. And all he had was Ruri's encouragement to relight it…

He felt a nudge in his ribcage, and was brought back to reality, with a smiling Takanori.

:.Yes, bondage like this….:

He smiled gratefully. He had his friends now, after he was dead. And, when Ruri joined him… When Ruri joined him, he would be able to fulfil his promise.
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~owari~

11:08:00 PM Saturday, June 12, 1999

Author's notes: *ahem*… Hi! Ho! Hi! De! ^^; Okay, I'm just glad that this is done with. I kept telling myself : No Ruri x Kiyoshi! No Ruri x Kiyoshi! No Kiyoshi x Ruri!! (for that matter) etc. I wanted to write something that was just on bonds, not that kind of love. Like Katsura (the Author of "No Kinen Ni"…) said that "love is not only those kind of love, it can also be friendship" or something like that… I wanted to show it thoroughly here. Yes, that kind of feeling, when you can just embrace someone, and know that she/ he is there for you, where you really 'like' that person, without means of 'wanting' him or her, where you just wish all the best for (lets use the universal one) him, not expecting anything in return. And both of you feel the same about each other… Wait. This sounds a lot like that love… But it is not. Basically, these are things that are hard to differentiate when you only describe. You need to feel it for yourself. Anyway, I've seen plenty that misdirected… ^^; I mean, really. Even some famous writers over the world have described it wrongly.

Ee, such a hard topic.

I'm not sure, but I hope you have felt it -- Or at least had a glimpse of it-- in this fic, cause the rest of what I write is definitely going to be about that kind of love. Maybe I'll be able to stick my idea of "universal love" in properly in the main UW, but the fic is going off track… Like, I meant to write more on Yoshiki and Hide. But anyway I'll be showing that kind of love in different forms in the story. Wonder if you can identify with it.

Oh, and I think the idea of universal love is here… If, everyone has this kind of bonds with everyone else… Yes, it will be everyone is friends, there is no difference, no coldness but encouragement… Impossible, ne! Not even Confucius can make it come true, much as Chinese listen to him… Heck with it, philosophy is crappu. If you want philosophy, go read "Tokyo Babylon" and figure it out yourself. And never say "treat others as you would yourself"… Perfectionist: treat others BETTER than yourself. Reality: Treat others better than yourself if you gain from it…. One reason why I hate humans…

Oh. And no, I haven't had this kind of friendship before. But I can see it in a faraway dream.

Night!

~hidoko

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