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She was an idiot. Such a ******** idiot. How else did she think that was going to end up? People die, they always do. If Hotaru had learned nothing else in her life so long yet so short at the same time, was that people will always die. It was a fact of life and she thought she knew it well. But evidently she didn’t. A scoff escaped her lips and she lifted the bottle of whiskey to her mouth and took a long, burning draw from it. People did not pass her for there was no one here to do so. No one lived in this derelict house with a gaping hole in the ceiling, rain gushing through to soak her frame.

She had scarcely moved in the past day. Only stood to grab the bottles of potent liquor she kept here. This was supposed to be safe but she was a fool for thinking that too. Why had she thought that somehow this was all going to work out? This wasn’t a ******** fairytale and you don’t get your happily ever after. She knew that.
Yet somehow, Hotaru had found herself hoping for it to be that way. Just this once.

“Why do you pretend not to care?”

Hotaru looked up from her blade, the one she had been sharpening, a foot propped up on the table while the other rested on the floor. Her emerald eyes met with cloudy, opaque blue ones, unseeing, framed by a tumble of golden curly hair. A cocky smirk curled across her mouth, though she could not see it. Perhaps that was why Amy knew that it was bullshit most of the time. That deep down she was truly just a sad woman, angry at the world and herself, but was so afraid of appearing weak. Yet, out of habit, she smirked anyways. It had even come to the point where it fooled herself. And that was just fine for her. Better that she think she’s happy than realize she’s not.

“What are you talking about sweet stuff? I don’t pretend anything. I don’t even fake orgasms when I run into those people who don’t know what the ******** they’re doing.”

A small frown quirked across her lips and her brows furrowed. If Amy wasn’t blind, Hotaru had no doubt in her mind that she would be scowling at her or at least pinning her with a disbelieving stare. That was one thing that always made her a bit uneasy being around her musically gifted friend. Everyone else, including herself, was fooled by the guise she put up, so practiced and smoothly that she no longer realized she was doing it. But Amy could not see those false smirks and cocky smiles.

“You do. You just won’t admit it. Not even to yourself. What are you so afraid of?”

The smirk dropped from Hotaru’s face and she rose from her chair, somberly approaching the large window with the moon hanging overhead.

“Myself.”

How did it all go wrong? She had tried so hard, gave her everything to make this work out, to go right. But that was never enough.

‘I never have been.’ She thought with a storm of sorrow and rage all at once.

Hotaru kept her darker, saddest feelings locked deep away within herself. The world was cruel to those it knew were down. But beyond that, she could not bear the pitying looks she would receive from people. The pity motivated gestures of kindness for the sake of “helping” her. But this was not an act of kindness to her, but an action that reminded her that she really WASN’T enough. That she couldn’t do anything on her own.

Caring about anyone, friends or lovers, was foolish. Stupid.

She thought she had learned this. But apparently the lesson had not been stern enough for her to heed. Hotaru always had been slow to accept the rules placed upon her. She wished she had broken out of her usual behavior just for this. But it was not in her nature to accept anything that was set by someone other than herself easily.

People always assumed this was why she would continue to fight a battle even after it was clear it was lost. In some cases, like arguments, this was true, for accepting defeat was only a reminder that she was not enough by herself. But in true battle, where your life was on the line, it went beyond that. Hotaru was too strong to weak to take her own life. So she threw herself into battles in hopes that she would not come out of them. Even then she was too weak.

‘You’re pathetic.’ A wicked voice in her head, her own consciousness, told her viciously, ‘Can’t even die in battle with honor like the man who taught you everything.’

“That was not honor.” She spat to the air, taking another clumsy swallow of whiskey to silence the horrid voice of herself, “That was murder. He deserved better.”

‘He did. But you don’t. You are nothing but a failure. No one wants you.’

“Kaine did.”

The bar was crowded, packed full of drunk and sober people alike but more of the former. It was also smoky for many were lighting up cigarettes to get their nicotine fix. Hotaru was drunk, just like most of the people in this bar. She had come to not only embrace the comfort of alcohol but to nurse the wounds in her pride after her defeat today. She had temporarily come to help out and aid a group of assassins, to get paid for she was one of the best when it came to infiltration.

Kaine had asked her to and she gladly accepted. Although at the moment she wished she hadn’t. Today one of the masters had called her out on her attitude and soundly defeated her in front of a huge crowd. Now she felt a tremendous amount of shame that she masked with a devil-may-care attitude. Still nursing the tequila seemed to make it a bit better. After she had consumed so much that the room rocked a bit in her gaze, she rose and turned around to survey the bar. A lecherous grin crossed her face and she sashayed over to Kaine, who had just entered the bar. Hotaru twined her arms about his neck, nipping at his collar bone.

“You’re late.” She purred.

“I dunno. Seems to me I came just in time for the main event. I may actually get to top tonight, you’re drunk while I’m sober.” He smirked down at her, snaking his arms about her waist and pulling her to him so she was flush against him, “I could take advantage of you.”

Hotaru laughed softly against his skin, threading her fingers through his silver hair then pulled back. He looked at her for a moment with intense purple eyes before he leant down and tried to take her mouth with his own but was stopped by her other hand.

“You know I don’t do kissing. Now, big boy, I’ve got a room upstairs for you to TRY to take advantage of me.”

“Oh I won’t just try.”

But he did not succeed, though Hotaru was not sure why at first. Kaine had all of his movements, coordination and could have easily muscled his way ontop and she probably would have enjoyed every second of it, standing on her own be damned. But when they lay in bed, still naked, he turned to her a strange look in his eyes. He stroked the side of her face for a moment, like he hadn’t quite ever seen her before.

“Hotaru…I..I know you said you wanted to be strictly casual but..I’d like to have something more. You mean more to me than what we have.”

She instantly climbed from bed, not even bothering to clothe herself and she face the window and drew the curtains back to look upon the city cloaked in night.

“Get out.”

“What?”

“You heard me.” She said sharply, not turning to look at him, “Get out.”

Hotaru tried to take another drink from her bottle but realized it was empty. Empty. Just like her now. She stared at it for a moment, as if she wasn’t quite sure what she was looking at. Then rage erupted into her and she hurled the bottle with a war cry where it flew across the room and shattered on the opposite wall. The glass fell down along with the rain across the corpse lying in the room. A corpse she had not moved since it had fallen there yesterday.

And it reminded her of her failure and all that she had just lost.

“Hey Amy.”

“Hm?”

“If you could have anything. Anything at all, what would it be?”

The small blind woman smiled with mild humor at her, “That’s an odd question.”

Hotaru grinned, “I’m an odd person. Humor me.”

Amy set her flute down and pressed her fingers against her mouth in thought in such a way it looked like she was daintily covering a burp. The red-head found herself smiling-not smirking-but actually smiling at the endearing gesture.

“I think I would like to be able to see. Just once. I don’t care what it is. I never had sight and I don’t understand how it can be beautiful when I’ve never known it. Just once, even a few minutes, I’d like to know what it was like.”

Hotaru looked at the body once more, cracking open her second bottle of liquor, feeling so horribly dead inside. Why did she think they wouldn’t find them? They always found her. And it cost her the life of someone she had let into her heart. The red-head stifled the dry sob bubbling up in her throat but taking another swallow of her alcohol.

Just one more thing to drink for added to her list. But it wasn’t just one more thing. Hotaru had just had her world destroyed after she had worked so hard, taken such care to build it again. She was lost now. What more was she going to do now that everything was taken from her again? For the second time in her life she had been completely unmade. Hotaru wasn’t so sure she could rebuild herself again.

“Not that I don’t love the sound of the ocean, but why are we at the beach, Hotaru?”

“Just give me a minute.”

Hotaru rummaged around in her bag, until at last she dug out a vial with a shimmery green fluid inside. It had cost her every bit of the money she had saved and then some. She had to do quite a few missions and unsavory things to get all that she had needed but she was certain it was going to be worth it. The red-head pressed the vial into Amy’s hands.

“Drink this.” Hotaru told her.

“What is it?”

“Just drink it. Trust me.”

Amy uncorked it and gently washed down all of the liquid, crinkling her nose in a cute way.

“It tastes funny.”

“If it works, it’ll be worth it.”

“What is it supposed to-“

The blonde cut off with a gasp. Hotaru watched with wide, hopeful eyes as Amy’s own cloudy eyes cleared until all traces of cataracts were gone, nothing but endless bright blue. The blonde looked around, blinking fiercely against the sunlight. Several minutes went by before she adjusted and at last she drank up everything the seaside had to offer. The rolling waves, the cloudless sky, the long coast of sand. Amy took it all in with unabashed wonder. Then her eyes misted over and she wept, turning and tackled Hotaru, embracing her tightly.

“It’s so beautiful!” she sobbed into her shoulder.

The red-head embraced her back, pressing her face next to her ear.

“You have an hour.” Hotaru whispered, “Don’t waste it.”

Amy didn’t. She ran along the shore line, plunged into the water, her friend chasing after her. They splashed, they played, they dug for seashells, they sat in tide pools and let fish nibble at their skin and climbed the rocky formations. It was the fastest hour of Hotaru’s life and she was certain it was the same for Amy’s.

“Thank you.” The blind girl told her breathlessly, tears in her eyes because she was so happy.

When they made it back to the musician’s apartment, Amy crashed, asleep before her head even hit the pillow. Hotaru stood by her bed for several minutes just staring before she finally made herself do what she wanted to do. She bent over and placed the softest kiss upon the slumbering woman’s mouth.

“Happy 23rd Birthday.”

That night she slept with three different people, trying desperately to purge her mind-at least for a few hours-of the beaming face of the woman she could not let herself have.

‘You can’t care about anything. Just stop it, you know it will end badly.’

But she couldn’t stop it and soon she found herself sleeping with more and more people because she could not bear giving herself the weakness to care about another person. Hotaru tried to ignore that it seemed to hurt Amy too.

The rain was coming down even harder and Hotaru found herself crawling-far too drunk to stand now. The glass bit sharply into her knees, her legs, but she did not stop and did not care that they were bleeding. She came to a stop by a familiar corpse and laid next to it on her side. She grabbed it and pulled it in closer so the lifeless head was cradled against her chest.

“Happy 24th.”

Hotaru cried.

I completely understand where you're coming from. I read your story again after reading your comment and I'm really glad that I did it.

Sometimes, as writers, we create characters that we could easily throw away; we have no attachment to them, so they don't seem real (Even though they aren't, obviously. I'm sure you understand my meaning.). But then there are other characters that we create, and we bond with them, and then discover all of these layers that we didn't realize even existed. And you have a moment where you just wonder, "I made that?"

It's great. Really wonderful.