195Love Hina: Deserted
I was coming on to change my profile and call this dead, and I couldn't do it. So I wrote.
I hope there is some closure for anyone who gets here.
Sorry to everyone I left hanging for all this time.
Chapter 19:
Shinobu.
"Naru..." Keitaro said, the name hanging in the air.
The atmosphere in the room behind them congealed instantly, with people awkwardly looking away as they realised they were staring at the three people in the doorway. Kitsune loudly started offering people drinks and talking – as much as she wanted to hear how this one played out, it was probably better for Keitaro that everyone didn't.
Shinobu almost pulled away from Keitaro, a guilty mistress caught cheating. She hated herself for the instinct. If there was guilt to be felt, it was absolutely not hers.
Keitaro opened his mouth, but he didn't hear his own voice - to his surprise, and obviously even more to Naru's surprise, it was Shinobu who began to speak.
"I don't believe you were invited." she said, curtly.
"I wasn't." Naru said, her eyes glancing down at Keitaro's hand hanging around Shinobu, and the lack of a gap between them. She raised her head again to address Keitaro. "I couldn't believe it when I saw this... ghost of a building again. I can't believe you rebuilt it."
"I didn't." Keitaro stated, making it clear it wasn't his doing.
Naru's eyes narrowed questioningly, tentatively glancing down at Shinbou.
"You? Really?"
Shinbou felt anger well up inside her, in a way she didn't expect.
Keitaro's life was destroyed - it was something she had known, not the details, but that Naru was at fault. With the time that had passed, being so close to him and around everybody else, it had fallen away. Keitaro himself was never one to dwell on his own pains, and so it had never been a focus. There had never been a time to find out more.
To be stood here and to be condecended to by her... it was more than Shinobu could bear. She burst.
"You dare to come here and question what I've done?"
Naru took a step back as Shinobu took one forward, clearly shocked by the outburst.
"I rebuilt this place out of love - it made me who I am, it bought me to the people who I love, and it is now a way I can be with those people."
"I shouldn't be surprised you let it get torn down. Love must be totally alien to you. I don't know the details, but no one who understands even the concept of love could be so heartless."
Shinbou heart her own heavy breathing, felt tears fall down her cheeks, felt her heartbeat - fast in her chest - as she finished. Keitaro's hand lightly landed on her shoulder, grounding her. The anger was gone, and all that was left was sadness. Like the other residents, Naru had once been her friend.
Naru's face was turned to the ground, and she stared at her feet.
"You didn't tell her?... them?" The words drifted up from her, not a hint of the anger being returned that Shinbou expected.
"No." Keitaro's voice sounded weary. "I didn't need to. I told Shinobu I was left with nothing and nobody, and she took me in, without question. My word was enough."
"Tell her, at least. I owe you that much." was all Naru said as she turned.
Shinobu almost took a step forward to follow as Naru walked away, but Keitaro's hand lightly gripped her shoulder and he shook his head.
"Come on, let's go upstairs, we should talk." he said, and Shinbou nodded. They walked in, and as they passed through the party, Keitaro shot a nod at Seta, and similarly gave small notice to the other residents they were fine. Shinbou trailed, disoriented, mind still whirring until she was already sat, and it was just the two of them.
"I don't need to know the details." she said softly, looking into Keitaro's eyes.
"It's a big part of my life, if a painful one. I want you to know about all of it." He said, looking straight back.
She nodded, a slight motion, and Keitaro began.
"We had taken in new residents, after the old guard left. Naru had always been heavy handed with me but it had never been serious. It never occured to me it could be a problem."
He sighed.
"He was paralysed from the neck down. Naru was... distraught."
"We started together, selling things to pay the settlement, but then she started isolating me, more and more. Meeting people upset her, no new tennants, no money coming in."
"She'd be so upset and want to drink, and it would cheer her up a bit. Then she was drinking so much, and I thought that at least, if I was there, I could make sure she didn't get hurt."
He glanced sideways awkwardly "or hurt anyone."
"People would come by - my parents, Seta, anyone, and I'd have had too many with her, and she'd be upset because she didn't want to see people, so I'd push them away. The only real exception was Mine-sensei. We'd drink together and it would feel, normal. Just for a bit."
"Slowly, over time, it crept in - I should have told her sooner, I shouldn't have let her think it was OK. I shouldn't have accepted male residents."
"Then she said the house was a constant reminder, she couldn't live there any more. Then, when it was sold, she just... went. I was as much a reminder as the house. She couldn't live with me any more."
"I was replaced. Mine-sensei... she had turned to him. The whole time she was pushing her guilt onto me, I didn't see it then, but it was obvious. All those months... He was my first call when I had nowhere to go, and that's when I found out... She had taken that too."
"I started ringing other people, to find a place to spend the night at least. My own parents didn't take my call. Seta just asked how I hadn't stopped it before that point. If everyone I cared about thought I was at fault, then maybe I was."
"She had told everyone I had been getting in fights wile drunk, that I had done it. That I sometimes hit her. By the end people were helping her get away from me." Keitaro's voice wavered.
Shinobu felt physically sick as she hugged him.
"When I realised, it just... I still loved her." He said simply, tears at the corners of his eyes. "I must sound like an idiot, after she... but it's true."
Shinbou wordlessly shook her head into his chest, trying to refute. Keitaro just looked up, trying - and failing - to hold back his own tears.
"I couldn't not love her anyway. I missed her more than I missed everything else, and I knew I should hate her, but I couldn't find it in myself."
"I was just broken. Until you started putting the pieces of me back together."
He said, and looked down with a smile, tears still falling down his cheeks.
Shinobu kissed him deeply, wet tongues colliding between wet cheeks.
"It's not fair, you deserved better." she said as they separated slightly, still pressing her forehead against his.
"I got better." He said, kissing her lightly again. She couldn't help but smile a little.
"I felt like a fool, for still trusting and loving when I should have been numbed to it all." Keitaro said, with a soft smile. "If that meant not being with you, I'd suffer through it all again, ten times over."
Shinobu's heart felt like it would burst through her chest. Her emotions were all over the place. She wanted to be angry at Naru, she should be, the manipulation was disgusting, heartbreaking. Was it worth it though, to let it hurt more? Instead, she could be here, in the place that she loved, with the man she loved, and think about all the things she had.
Keitaro sat and stroked Shinobu's hair, holding her tightly, feeling the warmth of her body, and the closeness of her heart. A weight had been lifted off his own, one he didn't realise he had been carrying. A shame and guilt and anger all rolled into one.
It was pushed aside though, by the only thing that mattered any more.
Shinobu.
