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northwind_gale) wrote2012-03-26 11:53 pm
oh look I wrote a thing after all this time
Anyways, Zexal fic. Here.
Title: N/A
Characters: Tsukomo Yuuma, mentions of the Gate, Tsukomo Kazuma, Shark, and Tetsuo
Rating: PG-13, maybe?
Warnings: Suicidal thoughts. It's Kattobinguless Yuuma, okay, so generally bad things.
Notes: This is based off Lethe's AU. Also spoilers for 47, or at least the concept itself is.
Yuuma held the key in his hands, terrified and shaking. It had been a long time since he had last seen this key, and holding it only brought up the bad memories of how he had received it in the first place. It, along with several other items, had been left to him in his father’s will. His father was now either dead or missing, Yuuma didn’t care either way. All he could remember when he thought of his father was that damned camping trip, the trip that had sealed his fate as a worthless and pathetic loser.
Going out with his father had been such an escape, a way to be free from school for at least a short time. Out there, nobody called him stupid, teased him for not being able to do a thing. He could pretend to be strong when he was with his father. But then, that one climb up that cliff face…
“I can’t do it! It’s too scary, I can’t do it!”
“Of course you can, Yuuma!”
And then, without a further word, his father kept climbing. Yuuma, held by only a thin rope, could do nothing but follow lest it snap. Continually being dragged onward and upward, against the cold and the wind and the fear, his father ignoring or not hearing his crying to stop, his hands and knees cut against the stone as his little body struggled to keep up with his father’s strong movements, so much unlike his own. It was too scary, and he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t. And when that rope snapped from being put under so much strain, his father too far up and too fast for Yuuma to keep up with, he was lucky to be so close to the ledge where his father had pulled up. All he had to do was to haul his body up the last foot or so of bedrock.
And he couldn’t do even that. He held on, shivering and crying until his hands were numb against the rock face, and when he finally brought himself to try and pull himself up…his hand lost its grip, too numb to even try and exert any strength. If his father hadn’t caught him…well, that would have been the end he deserved, wouldn’t it? Instead, he had been bodily hauled up by his father, cradled like an infant as he continued to cry until he fell asleep, waking up later in his room.
When his father had gone missing only a scant few weeks later, Yuuma found that he felt little for the father that should have been able to do so much for him, yet couldn’t even help him become even a tiny bit less of a failure. When the box of various ancient trinkets came into his possession, he only felt a hollow emptiness, as if any hope of him becoming any better was completely and utterly gone. The trinkets were left up in the attic, never to be disturbed.
Until today. Yuma felt the strings of the old and dusty hammock creak from the strain as he shivered and curled up in it, holding the key close. For so long, he had been haunted by that door in his dreams. “Whoever opens this door shall have nothing to fear. But in exchange, they will lose what is most precious.” And for a long time, he was too cowardly to open that door. It was a terrifying thing, all tall and demonic, stone mouth large enough to swallow him whole should it not feel like bothering to chew him up with the large, foot-long teeth. But now…
At the school, many students had recently fallen to the trouble student, Shark, and his ferocious, almost vengeful, dueling. Just today, Yuuma had been unfortunate enough to see Tetsuo, the strongest duelist in his class, fall to the terrifying rouge duelist. And then Shark had spotted him. Had designated him as his next victim, “for a breather round,” as Shark had put it. That was all a pathetic person like him could offer at his best, anyways.
Yuuma knew he wouldn’t win. He could never beat Tetsuo, after all, and Shark had crushed him easily without taking a single life point of damage. And when he inevitably lost, his deck…it would be gone. His father’s deck. The deck that he used despite the painful memories it held because he was too scared or too unskilled to get other cards. The deck that had been reduced to its bare bones due to him already losing so many cards due to the ante rule that students sometimes used when teachers weren’t using (always dueling him whenever they chose to use that rule because they knew he would be too scared to report anything to the teachers). It would all be gone. And just like that, he knew that any redemption he could have scrounged for himself would be over. After all, hadn’t he once declared that he would be Duel Champion? A declaration hastily blurted out, for no other reason that he didn’t know what to say, and he was scared to be the only child without a dream. And now that would be over.
There was no point in him even trying to scrounge a living after that. What everyone suspected, what everyone whispered under their breath, would be proven true, and he would never be able to redeem himself, never be able to grow beyond the worthless loser that he knew that he was. And so he found himself in the dusty attic, crying silently as he curled up as much as possible, the golden key clutched next to his heart in clammy, shaking hands. The voice in his dreams echoed in his mind.
“Whoever opens this door…”
He saw it. In his mind’s eye, he saw it as he closed his eyes, looming and towering over him.
“…shall have nothing to fear.”
Yes. He’d have nothing to fear after this. Nothing.
“But in exchange…”
The price. It was nothing. It was completely worthless, after all.
“…they shall lose what is most precious.”
What did he have left that could even be considered precious? What, after all, was he so worried about losing? His self-respect, his right and will to live. That was all he could rightfully claim, as a worthless person. That was his most precious thing. His grip on the key slackened briefly, before clutching it even closer to his heart as more tears came, dripping down his face, landing on the tiny green gem that was embedded in the key. In his agitated state, the deepest wish of his heart found its way to his lips in a feverish, frightened whisper.
“As worthless as it is…it’s what I hold closest. As you demand…please, take my life, so I don’t have to fear anything in this world anymore!”
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EVENTUALLY!