Visual Kei

Months passed by like days. I was already a valued member of The Oni’s elites, honing the talents I gained from my divinity. I trained every day with Samael, harder than the others because I never had trained before. I had to catch up to them in half the time, and I quickly overtook them. Even Ray seemed genuinely surprised.

Ray had helped me more than anyone else in the compound. I found out definitively that he had the same power Chino did; he could interpret the thoughts of someone else, but his power was slightly less potent than Chino’s. He needed to make eye contact with them, even if only for a moment, to see into their thoughts. Still, his aptitude with that skill helped him teach me in-depth how to focus my own talent—sensing the emotions of others. Under his guidance, it became as easy as second nature, but I could now be separate from it. Instead of sharing the emotion, I could simply taste it and understand how it came to be.

I sought information on my own. I kept up on the lives of Chino, Tsurara, Rei, Shinji, and Kiiro when I could, but the things I heard were grossly exaggerated, biased, or questionable at best. Eventually, they slipped out of my sight altogether. Miko had died at the hands of Aku, but as far as I understood, the men had been reunited after a month or so. They found each other once again and lived the lives they had before they met me. Their band became active again, and I found their newest CD for sale in a record store downtown. I still wondered if they were living happily… if they regretted ever meeting me, or if they missed me as much as I missed them.

My father and brother were told that I was hired by a powerful and secretive organization that served the United Nations indirectly, which wasn’t exactly a lie. My father thought it was shady, but my brother had no opinion. He visited me now and then, but we couldn’t speak about much. When we did meet, he seemed lonely and lacking direction or purpose. I hoped he didn’t lose his job, and somehow, he never did. I still hadn’t heard from my mother.

Eventually, I had to go back to school, so that cut into my activity with the company. I graduated with honors, though. You might be surprised how boring it gets when we weren’t being sent on missions and the like, it made me want to do homework sometimes.

It was after the ceremony that my life took on a newer and crueler edge.

Shortly after arriving back at base in my high school’s ugly colors, I disappeared into my room to change out of the stupid robe. As I was undressing, Ray knocked on my door. I told him to come in, and spoke to him through the screen. He sat on my bed, quiet as usual.

“I apologize for missing your graduation ceremony,” he said, that deep voice sending a pang of nostalgia through me for a moment. “I would have gone if I could.”

“Don’t worry about it, Blondie,” I said, pulling on jeans and a tank top. Old habits die hard. “It wasn’t all that interesting anyway.” When I stepped out from behind the screen, I was surprised to see him standing beside it. His eyes focused fiercely on mine, examining my face intently.

“Something wrong?” I asked, stepping around him to toss the ugly robes into a basket on the floor. When I turned back to him, he grabbed me roughly, shoving me against the metal wall, his lips mashing against mine violently. My eyebrows quirked, eyes going wide like a child walking in on his parents doing the naughty. I pushed him away without thought. “You can’t go around doing this all the time,” I said sharply, glowering at him.

His eyes shined knowingly, a smile playing on his lips. I was torn between wanting to smack that look off his face and wanting to throw him on the bed and ravish him.

“No,” I said flatly. I turned away, hiding my eyes.

“I want you,” he said simply, his eyes free of judgment, free of love, and free of sorrow. They were so blank… so empty.

“No.”

“I know what you want, Alice.”

I glared at him. “What are you trying to say?”

“I offer flexibility.”

“And what does that mean to me?”

“I desire no particular outcome of this except that it happens.”

“Are you offering me casual sex?” I asked, slightly offended.

He shrugged. “Your choice.”

I stared at him for a time, letting down each of my mental barriers individually, laying out the past and all its implications to him. I would hide nothing from Ray if he trusted me enough to actually want this from me. Kiiro. Some kind of melancholy invaded his blue eyes as he touched my thoughts.

“Who is he to you?” he asked, in a tone most curiously devoid of emotion.

“Kiiro was . . . is my friend.”

“Which is it?”

“Both,” I answered, taken aback slightly. Although he kept his tone civil, it was apparent that he was digging for information that he could have easily gotten from my thoughts.

“Did you love him?”

“You already know.”

“Maybe,” he said, looking at his hand tracing my bed frame. “But I want to hear you say it.”

“Why?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. “Why would you want to hear that?”

“I just do.”

“I loved him.” I looked into his crisp blue eyes. Why did it hurt to say this to him? His face made no indication of pain at my words.

“Do you still love him?”

I didn’t respond at first, my heart lurching against its moorings. I couldn’t look away from him. He turned his harsh gaze on me, his eyes narrow with cold anger.

“DO YOU LOVE KIIRO?” he demanded loudly, almost a yell. I flinched, feeling a tear snake down my face. Why was I crying? His eyes were locked on mine and I couldn’t look away, but I felt like I had stepped in a trap, with my foot bleeding and caught.

I couldn’t find my voice. I couldn’t say what I’d wanted to tell Kiiro for so long, and I couldn’t say the one word that Ray apparently needed to hear. The one syllable caught in my throat.

“Damn it, Alice, tell me!” he growled, leaning forward and grabbing me by the belt loops and pulling me toward him. His face was inches from mine, his icy blue eyes demanding. His parted lips exhaled viciously, his warm breath fanning across my face. “Do. You. Love. That. Bastard?”

Another tear crawled down my cheek. “Y—Yes.”

“Say it,” he whispered through gritted teeth.

“I love… Kiiro.”

Getting closer to me, our lips almost touching, he looked deep into my eyes. I could feel his hips against mine. “Why? After what he did to you.”

“I don’t know,” I whispered honestly. “I’m sorry.”

He smiled, but it didn’t touch his eyes. “I will give you what you wanted to have with him. There is no risk being with me.”

“Wh—What do you mean?”

“Half-breeds like me are sterile,” he said, brushing my long hair back away from my shoulders. His eyes took on a dark quality. “And I don’t care if you love me.”

“You don’t…?”

He smiled that unhappy smile. Then I knew it was a lie.

“Ray, I… I wish… I wish that I could love you.” I pushed the feeling in my heart forward so that he could feel it. His eyes softened a little, and he touched my face with a finger.

“I know, Alice. But we can’t always be perfect.”

Could I really do this? I looked down as I thought about it, what it would mean to me. I couldn’t keep thinking about Kiiro—he was never going to be a part of my life again. He couldn’t. My heart felt hollow and cold. Maybe I needed this; needed to know that I could do it if I wanted to. And believe me, I wanted to.

He saw the answer in my eyes, and pulled me into his embrace. His arms wrapped around my shoulders, crushing me to the hollow between his collar bones. I held him for a moment, breathing in his strange cologne. He pulled off my shirt and kissed his way down my shoulders and toward my chest. I leaned back and let myself fall onto the bed. He climbed over me, kissing and caressing. After what seemed like either seconds or hours, he stripped completely and dimmed the lights in my room. I glanced over at his nakedness. He was sexy. He avoided my eyes as he climbed over me. I felt my emotions and everything else drain away. I was empty.

Kiiro . . . My wholehearted internal cry seemed to spiral away like the final note of a dirge, vanishing eventually into nothingness.