Title: Sakura Tears

Author: Growly

Genre: Angst/Drama

Fandom: Ranma 1/2

Pairing: n/a

Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2 doesn't belong to me

Rating: PG-13

Status: 1/1. Complete.

Archive: Yes, to WWOMB

Warnings: References to child abuse, rape

Notes: This is an angsty Kuno fic, second in a series of one-shot fics starring this particular character.

Sakura Tears
By Growly
~ * ~ * ~

Spring, and the air is filled with falling Sakura blossoms as delicate and white as snowflakes as they dance on the breeze. They drift down, covering the ground in white, floating serenely in the koi pond as I sit cross-legged on the shore trying to meditate. I cannot find my focus this morning, it seems, not with the gentle flutters of petals brushing my cheeks, settling in my hair as pristine and white as the feathers of angels.

My eyes slit open and I watch them fall through the golden haze of afternoon and my dark lashes. They are as beautiful as always. So terribly, heart achingly beautiful. I cannot but think they surpass both of my loves in their simple perfection. And yet…

And yet their beauty does not lift my heart as the sight of my loves does. Their beauty is that of something which passes only fleetingly through our lives – something which touches us, then is forever beyond our grasp. Perhaps they represent life in this way, for we are forever finding things which we can never fully control, nor ever fully possess.

I reach out one hand and close it gently, cupping a curling white petal in my palm. Sakura…

My fist clenches tightly as I feel a familiar wash of grief in my chest. After so long, I cannot even be sure who it is for precisely. For her perhaps? Or is it for us? The children she left behind. The latter, I think, for she is long past feeling any pain.

How long has it been? Seven years to the season since that unseasonably cold spring morning… Seven years and the memories are as fresh in my mind as ever. The grief is as new as it was on that day.

That day the world shattered.

It was as brief and formal a ceremony as any I have yet seen. We came home to an empty house, home to a virtual palace and it was so cold and empty. We tried to fill it with whatever came to hand, because too much emptiness knaws away at your soul.

Mother taught me that. She taught me many things. She was possibly the most vibrant person I have ever known. The ability she had to fill a room with just a smile and a soft greeting is one I have yet to encounter since.

The emptiness still lingers, though we try endlessly to drive it away with our many possessions, with our numerous faked smiles and our false cheer. But it does not work as we intend it to. We cannot fill it, and it slowly pulls away what we have. When I hear my sister's laughter it sounds as empty and as hollow as these halls.

Should I pity or envy her? She never knew our mother as well as I, has less to hold onto. Yet she never knew our father either.

Our mother taught me that too, that I needed to take care of my sister. I spent years looking out for her and it seems there is to be no reward for any of it. Not even some acknowledgement.

Would I do it again, I wonder? My sister can have no knowledge of the torments I suffered at the hands of the maniac who calls himself my father. Nor can any of my classmates. Fools that they are… they view him as a mostly harmless idiot. An annoyance to be tolerated. But he is so much more, more terrible than that.

I was soon to find that out. Our dear mother had not been in the ground for two days before the first night he visited me. It was the night I discovered just what mother had been sheltering from us at her own expense – perhaps even at the cost of her own life.

That first night was the worst. The merest thought of it brings feelings of disgust, horror… and worst of all the shame. I can deal with the disgust and the horror, but the shame… the shame was too much for even me.

Was there any pain spared me all through that first agonizing eve? Later on there would still be the disgust, the burning resentment and the cold lump of shame sitting low in my chest. But the first night was also one of physical pain, degradation and a shattering of childish ideals.

Lying flat on my belly among my stained sheets and torn bedclothes with the tears running down my cheeks and my voice raised in pained, whimpering pleas, I hit rock bottom. Later on, as I was forced to clean up the mess, came the first time death crossed my mind. I am not sure which it was that I envisioned: his or my own.

I was too weak to deal with him; too young and frightened. And I quickly came to realize as well that I could not do anything to myself.

I still had a duty, you see. Mother taught me about duty as well. And when there is a job to be done you do it. Especially if it means keeping your loved ones safe.

Kodachi…I still had my duty to her, as her oniichan and her protector. And so I endured, learning to cover the pain with a veil of strength, learning to create a mast of arrogant and aloof indifference.

It works damnably well… this façade. The mask of the bumbling, arrogant buffoon is one that few people can see beyond. Sometimes… sometimes if I try I can almost convince even myself that this mask is really me.

But in the spring, when the sakura blooms rain down on me in their gentle benediction – like the tears of that sorrowful, watching angel – at those times, I know better. There will always be something more behind this mask.

A single tear falls into the emptiness inside. It is painful and lonely, and heartbreakingly sad… but it is something to fill the void.

Hopefully it will last until the next time the sakura bloom…

*Owari

Japanese Translations
Sakura: Cherry blossoms