Title: This Silent Song

Author: Kannachan27

Inspiration: songs - Shirushi and Hibiki by (And their lyrics)

Date: 12.17.08

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Her eyes sting from the bright white light that comes from the computer monitor. She knows she should turn it off, that she should stop looking at it, but she can't. Not right now.

Her eyes roam over the characters on the screen, her lips moving shakily, stumbling over the sounds that fall from her lips in a whisper. She shifts her eyes away from the unfamiliar symbols and stares at the translation into her language. The foreign words come naturally to her now that she's not staring at them and attempting to read. She's just learning Japanese, and all the bands that she's listened to and found the lyrics decided to write mostly in kanji - in the characters that even that Japanese have trouble remembering or reading.

She listens to the voice that's singing this lovely melody in her ears and pretends that it's a song for her. The words wash over her and the meaning of the words dig their claws into her heart, her throat, her mind, and they don't let her go.

Darling, Darling, I've seen you from many different angles

All of them exquisite, you've shown me what love is

Now you're trying to show me by way of subtle techniques

That your uncertainty is a precautionary border

To keep you from getting hurt.

To her, it was like he was telling her everything she'd wanted to hear. Even though this was the first time they'd met, he already knew her so well. That is, the man singing the song. They would never meet, but this was the first time she'd listened - actually listened - to what he was singing.

The thoughts come unbidden, No wonder Daisuke likes this song so much.

She rereads the same verse and feels the sharp sting of the claws digging into her throat. She whispers the words to herself with a smile on her face and the thoughts come again.

"It's like he wrote this song just for me."

She whispers it like a forbidden mantra, punctuated by her only real thought every now and again. Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry.

The tears come sliding down her cheeks anyway.

Darling, darling

I've seen you from so many different angles

even if the day we can no longer be together comes our way

I don't think it matters because I can't help loving you.

Darling, darling,

Oh, my darling

Maddeningly and vividly

you fill my memories completely

Darling, darlling.

She didn't want to remember her lost loves that she carried so close to her heart, but the man's sweet voice brought them back to her. The boys that she had loved so much - the ones who had told her they loved her, long before she began thinking of them in any other way. It had been over a year for one, half a year for the other.

She didn't want to remember the times with both of them. Not right now. Not when her feelings were raw and she had nothing else to occupy herself with.

The song changes then; another song by that Daisuke had told her he liked. Hibiki. It sounded upbeat, almost happy. She clicks the link that lead back to the list of songs and quickly selected it. There was a video playing on the page and she paused her iTunes.

It was the music video for Hibiki.

She watches the girl shove her CDs into a purse, get into a van and drive past the Sakura trees. She pauses the video on the sight.

The pink leaves were so beautiful, and she half-thinks that she'd only believed they existed in anime before laughing at her stupid thought. She knew they were real. She stares at the cherry blossoms fluttering in the wind, anyway, and wishes that she could live somewhere so beautiful.

She resumes playing the video and laughs when, the next time the girl is going to school, she rides past the Sakura and catches sight of a boy, smiling like he was the happiest boy in the world, and taking pictures of the pink leaves. The boy glances up at her, and she quickly pedals away. When the two sit next to each other in school, the video is paused again.

It was so sweet, being in love. She pushes the thought away, but stares at the screen for a moment more - the girl's sweet face flushed and embarassed, averting her eyes just as the boy glances over at her - before hitting the "play" button once more.

Ah, yes. They were laughing and flirting and playing around with each other. The fireworks, rides home on his bike, listening to the same CD... their lives were happy.

The girl almost didn't want to go on any furthur, but she did, anyway. She watched as the girl in the video ran away from her love, as he stood in front of the class and she looked at him and didn't want him to go. As the boy left and she watched from the doorway. When the girl opened the CD - Kind of Love by , the same one the song was from, the one that they had been listening to together - and saw the letter he'd left inside.

When the girl ran up the stairs and stood alone on the rooftop of the school building, she was not the only one crying. Compared to this song, the tears from shirushi were nothing.

Almost wanting to stop the video again, the girl stifled her tears and hoped for a happy ending. Surely, this girl would have a happy ending.

Miserable days left of school, going to work, getting drunk to ease her pain and throwing the arm of a man off of her as she hugged a pole or a wall and cried. Going to work and recieving a paper that made her look worried and bow; possibly an apology? At the end of these flashes of life, she lay with an old CD player clutched against her chest and an old CD - Kind of Love - playing in her ears.

The end of the video was coming, and there was no happy ending yet. Still, the girl hoped.

She watched the trip back from work; the woman wore her hair differently, more like she had wore it when the video showed her as a high school student, and her skirt brushed lightly against her legs. She looked a bit happier than before, until she came to a halt.

Watching the video, her breath hitched when she recognized the cherry trees and the boy, older now, taking pictures of them. Happy ending, she hoped, let her have a happy ending.

The boy turned to see her and smiled, a bit awkwardly, before looking away. The girl looked torn between crying and smiling. When he looked at her again, she was still there, trying to smile.

Eventually, it came. Slow and difficult, but her face was soon lit up with the smile that showed in all the pictures of them together. She was going to cry, it seemed, but it was a happy moment. Then, the video ended.

It was a happy ending. That was the only thought after the song ended. The next was to find the lyrics.

It wasn't hard; they were on the same site as the other song's. And some of this made her laugh and cry. It wasn't hard to pick out her favorite verse of the song:

"I put the thing I looked for but could not find in my pocket."

"Isn't that what happiness is!?"

your voice tells me.

It seemed appropriate. Though, for a cheerful sounding song, it makes her throat tighten more quickly than the other songs.

Maybe it was because this was a song of hope. Or maybe it was because it was close to her heart. Things start off well, and then something happens to ruin it.

Unlike the girl in the video's life, however, hers did not have a happy ending yet.

I love you, I love you

Tears are overflowing

For now, I'll shut away that bloody news in a drawer

And walk with you, like the wind, like a river

Though sometimes I feel like I could be swept away

By the flow of the storm of time.

That was where her love was, right now. She'd keep her memories and her heart locked up in the drawer and try to move on. Soon, she wouldn't have a chance to feel like this. It would be too late to do anything about it. Even now, there was nothing she could do.

The only people she cared for were unattainable, so she'd walk on alone and try to ignore the emptiness she sometimes felt.

So now, she sits here writing this and attempting to forget the stupid feelings that she'd dug up by pursuing one of her few passions. Tomorrow, she'll be fine, but for tonight all she wants to do is cry and listen to the new songs she'd found over and over again until she can sing them in Japanese without reading the pronounciation.

For tonight, she is the girl who is vulnerable inside her border of uncertainty, because the only thing you cannot be protected from is yourself. Her thoughts will run wild and cut just that much deeper into her bleeding heart, and her eyes will be burned away by the glaring white of the computer screen.

Do you hear the voice of my heart?

It's in this silent song...

No one will hear the voice of my heart

I'm okay with that, it's better that way.