Lucilfer (ChrolloxReader)

Chapter 72

The world was a dark place when the Jeep finally shuddered to a stop in the tight parking lot outside of the apartment complex. Life still clustered within it, car horns sounding dimly in the distance and purring engines rumbling through the nearby streets as I shut the door and traipsed towards the main entrance, but I couldn't seem to hear any of those otherwise obnoxious sounds very loudly. All of it felt muffled, as though I were under water again, separated from the droning events of the city nightlife, wondering why I was fated to feel so suffocated while breathing air.

I knew I needed sleep, but I wasn't tired—physically, at least. But I would force myself to sleep, anyway. Everything would feel better in the morning. I'd told myself that over and over on the drive back.

Strangely, though, I wasn't unhappy under this current. It was still foreign to me to be so vulnerable beneath it, to live in it without the one I adored, but things were so much more set in place now, pain and sadness having ebbed and leaving me with one simple motive. I supposed I'd always known what I was to do; I'd reaffirmed to myself many times that I'd chosen Chrollo, that he'd chosen me, that I was marked by only him. But it felt much easier now, not quite so cutting and excruciating to sit by and watch what would become of Kurapika.

I held no spite for Kurapika, though his goal was to destroy my lover; I held no spite for Chrollo, though his callousness had scarred Kurapika beyond repair. And I held no spite for myself. After blaming myself for so long, step by step, I was able to fully accept myself, to forgive myself for this lapse in judgement, for this time period of misunderstanding and dismal confusion. I wasn't unhappy, but I wasn't comforted or satisfied yet. And I wouldn't be until I could move past this dragging hurdle and rest in Chrollo's arms.

Perhaps my melancholy lover would allow me a final moment with Kurapika before death struck and I would lose the chance to tell him what he truly meant to me, what he was to me, even though I had proceeded so selfishly with him. If I could tie up the loose ends surrounding our makeshift friendship, perhaps I could let go quicker.

I wouldn't expect him to forgive me, if he knew whose side I'd been on for so long. And perhaps the last image I'd have of him in my mind would be the glassy scarlet of his furious, defeated gaze, crumbled and filled with hate directed towards me. But that was alright. It wouldn't change how genuinely I wanted him to find freedom, and if he would never wish to understand the extent of my honest emotions towards him, if he was bent on seeing only the surface of who I was, that I'd sold him to the end of his existence, that I'd betrayed him, so be it. Either way, I knew my own truth; either way, I still wanted happiness for him.

But it was never written into his purpose.

The only question which arose from that statement was whether or not predetermination really had played a role in his life. Was it fate who had administered to him this cruelty, or was it the fault of his own mind that he was chained to a life of emptiness?

It was Chrollo who had scarred him, but after the fact, he never allowed himself room to recover. And in reality, he never wanted to recover. He lived in his own vicious cycle of torment, and I couldn't save him, though I tried.

But I can't try anymore. How many signs must I send to you for you to realize that I am the pathway to your grave?

As I made the short climb up the two flights of stairs to his door, I pulled my phone out to check for a message from Chrollo. His inbox was still empty; he hadn't responded to what I'd sent him the morning of the sixteenth. But a half-hearted smile managed to turn up the corners of my lips as I wondered how he would reply to my spoken recall of the first time we'd kissed. Wondering about the events of our dynamic through his eyes always fascinated me.