Kaedehara Kazuha ~ ATHYS: Angst To Heal your Soul

VI - Save Me

Song: Save Me~ Noah Kahan

🍁~Why do you keep reaching for my hand?
Do you see something I can't?
Why do you try to save me?
This fate is well deserved
I only make things worse
Why do you try to save me?~🍁

Kazuha's head spins. There's a grave feeling in his heart like something just went very wrong. He feels a sense of urgency to make things right before you head off to college. He's planning to stay right here in Liyue. 

He can't wait to listen to your music when you actually do release some.

He knows where you live... maybe he could apologize?

He begins walking down the stairs of his mother's mansion at the same time his mama yells out, "Kazuha!" She sounds scared.

He runs to the living room. The first thing he sees is his mom (Ningguang) in tears and in his Mama's (Beidou) arms. Beidou's staring at him like he killed someone. He turns to the TV almost mechanically, and what's on the feels like a stab to his heart. Turns out he did kill someone.

The volume just now registers in his ears. "...recent high-school graduate Y/N L/N found dead, presumably by suicide by falling off their apartment complex's roof after overdosing on painkillers. According to sources, they were supposed to attend..." The reporter keeps talking, but all Kazuha hears in void. He falls back into the sofa next to his moms.

The died thinking he hated them. That he thought them to be beneath him. They died because he wasn't there for them like they were for him. They died thinking he hated their guts. Not that he loved them.

You didn't just die thinking these things. He realizes with a jolt. You died because of them. For some reason, that doesn't make him feel better.

He starts crying at some point. His mothers refuse to console him. This is on him.

He wants to head to your house, still. He wants to see you. I mean, there's a small chance this is all fake, right? There's a chance you're just at home reading a book right now. Or playing with your dog. Or writing a new song. You'll call him tomorrow. You'll sing it to him.

Deep down, he knows this is all but fantasy.

But what if it is?

Because Kazuha can't live with what happened to you. What he did to you. 

You were always there when he needed it. Why didn't he do the same for you? Why did he only think of apologizing tonight, and not the previous night? So many whys. 

You were the reason he was alive today, and he was the reason you weren't.

He wonders what he did to ever deserve you. You definitely deserved much better than him. He wonders why you felt the need to help him till you did. Even if it was cutting at your soul. He wished you hadn't helped him. You should have dropped out the minute you realized he was hurting you. Why didn't you?

At the very least, he wished he had broken your heart earlier, when you hadn't gotten so attached.

Maybe any one of those things could've resulted in you being alive right now. But none of them actually happened. What happened is that Kazuha was a dick to you, and now you're dead. He can't change that. It's all his fault.

And that hurts. as it should.

He gets up from the sofa with no real thought in his head. He didn't know where he was going, either. But somehow, he's on the street now. He walks out of the Jade Chamber, the largest house in the city. His mom's home and office.

He walking down the street, down to where you used to live a few years ago. You don't anymore, because you shifted to a different neighborhood a couple years ago. Guess you don't even live on the same planet as him anymore, though. Or plane of existence, at least.

Kazuha breaks into a run.

He runs and runs, gunning his speed and trying to take all his anger out on his feet. Trying to let all his grief out like the tie that flew out of his hair at some point. Trying to process purely with the wind smacking him in the face. He imagines it's you smacking him in the face. Calling him an asshole like he is and beating him up for what he did to you.

At some point, he runs into the the nearby park, the largest in Liyue. The way he's running, he doesn't think he'll ever run out of steam, because his feelings for you won't run out either, and that's what's really fueling him. 

But then a twig gets in the way, or something. Kazuha trips and skids onto the floor. The rocks create scrapes on his arms and face and knees. Good. i deserve them. He thinks.

He lays there, in the fallen leaves, and a memory comes to him.

"Don't you ever leave me again." Kazuha remembers saying, holding you tightly in his arms.

"Fuck you, Y/N. You broke our promise." He looks up at the sky.

A moment of silence. A nearby stray dog comes over and stands over Kazuha, looking down at him quizzically.

He smiles, you loved dogs.

He looks the dog dead in the eyes, and for a second, it's like looking into yours. 

"Thanks for trying, but, you shouldn't have tried to save me, Y/N."

The dog leans down and licks his face. And this is when Kazuha breaks down completely. 

"I'm sorry."

He stays there till morning, talking to the dog, like it's you. You had a dog, her name... ZooZoo. It's ZooZoo. A joke, to tease Kazuha, when you first got her, that was your nickname for him. You'd since evolved into to Kazoomans and the Kazoozoos and the Kazs. He used to have a nickname for you too. Cloud. He used to call you Cloud. His Cloud. 

He wonders why he stopped.

He wonders how ZooZoo is doing.

By the morning, he's named this dog as well. 

"C'mon, Cloud! You're comin' home with me."