Itazura Na Kiss- Eternal Love Story

#36 Heartbreaking Confession

(General POV)

Naoki felt like the earth beneath him vanished. The world around him shattered. His heart stopped. But then why was he feeling that intense pain piercing him? Why was he still breathing? Nothing made any sense anymore.

He didn't know when he started crying. His breathing became erratic and his head started to pound. He could feel Kotoko was shaking him and telling him something but his mind was already switched off. He couldn't comprehend anything she was saying.

What did he just saw?

What was that?

What does it mean?

Is this some kind of a sick joke?

Is this a dream... a nightmare?

He closed his eyes tightly.

Let me wake up. Let it end. Make it go.

Let me wake up please.

Nothing was different when he opened his eyes again. Everything was true. Everything he was feeling was real. It won't just go away, he realized.

Naoki groaned out loud due to the immense pain in his heart but he chocked immediately which muffled his cry. Kotoko pulled him into a hug again. She was also crying and shaking. She was aghast seeing Naoki breaking down completely right in front of her. She couldn't even voice anything for a while and just kept rubbing on his back. On the other hand, Naoki kept crying on her shoulder... still in a haze.

It was raining outside, hard. It would seem like the sky had also broken down in tears with them. The window pane of their bedroom made a loud shattering noise due to the thunder.

None of them could tell for how long they just cried. Nothing Kotoko said was making any sense to Naoki. He tried to replay what he saw and hear in the video but his mind was a mess... thoughts were jumbled. He gulped and tried to calm down because he needed answers. He pushed Kotoko away from him and finally met her eyes.

"Why?" He could only utter.

She stared back at him with tears sliding down her face. Unable to reply, she just shook her head. She didn't even know how to answer that question.

"Why?" Naoki repeated his question loudly. He didn't mean to shout at her. He was just trying to keep talking. He needed to know before he loses his mind.

Yes, he was angry. Not at Kotoko... well maybe a little... he didn't know. But he was definitely so much angry at himself that he could just grab a dagger right now and run it straight through his heart.

No scratch that.

He wanted to repeatedly stab himself until he couldn't feel anything anymore. He wanted to rip his head off. He wanted to break all the 206 bones in his own body. He wanted to bleed to death drop by drop. He wanted to inflict so much physical pain to his own body just for the slight hope that it might override the mental pain, the torture he was going through right this moment.

But he couldn't do any of it. Human cannot always do what they want. That is just not the way how it works.

"Please..." He sobbed. "Please I'm going crazy... please... please I..." he couldn't finish the line. He swallowed the lump that formed in his throat.

Kotoko closed her eyes. She couldn't see him devastated anymore. She can't take it anymore. It was already too much. She broke him. It was her. It's all her fault.

She did this to him.

So she decided to be honest to him.

"It happened before I started my treatment. The day after I found out about my oka-san and my supposed pregnancy complexity, I went out for a walk. I... I wondered around the streets and probably I was too weak. I lost my conscious and fell down the stairs. I was taken into the Hope emergency because it was closer to the place of my accident. I had to stay a night there. I met Dr. Ayano there for the first time and then I decided to start my treatment."