Categories > Anime/Manga > Yu Yu Hakusho

The Pros and Cons of Breathing

by SereneShadow 0 reviews

Kuwabara and Yukina are over, but Kuwabara wishes that wasn't so. What will he do to get her back? Songfic to the song of the same name by Fall Out Boy.

Category: Yu Yu Hakusho - Rating: R - Genres: Angst - Characters: Kazuma Kuwabara,Yukina - Warnings: [!!] - Published: 2009-09-22 - Updated: 2009-09-23 - 2169 words - Complete

0Unrated
The Pros and Cons of Breathing

Kazuma Kuwabara stood underneath the window of his one true love, his life, his only. Yukina's apartment lights were on, but there was little movement. He didn't consider this stalking, and most wouldn't, either. He had come to talk to her, and that he would do. Whatever it took.

His emotions were so potent that as the sun rose overhead and neared the horizon, causing all things to glow orange, he felt as though he would cry or fling himself from the nearest cliff.

He and Yukina had had such a wonderful relationship, something that he had never had with anyone else...something that made him feel good, and not as if he was second-best. Something that made him feel like a man.

The loss of this relationship, which was engraved in every pore, every hair, every inch of his flesh, was like hacking off one's leg. A big, gaping hole was left in his chest, and often times he could not understand how he survived without it.

She was so much a part of him that he didn't remember how to be one person. It had always been Kuwabara, Yukina. Yukina, Kuwabara. Never just one, or just the other, but the two of them intertwined like two plants, climbing toward the sun with each other's help.

The loss of this—the loss of her—was almost too much for his heart to bear. He might have been a veteran of some of the worst fights in mankind, but his soul was very fragile, and it was being torn apart by this terrible, awful situation.

Bury me
Standing under you window
With this cinder block in hand.
Yeah, 'cause no one will ever
Feel like this again.


He would ring her doorbell soon, but for right now, he could only stand there in her flowerbeds, standing just to the side of a group of carnations, and hoping that she would take him back willingly.

It may or may not have been a lost cause, but he wasn't going to give up without a fight. He simply couldn't—the weight of it would kill him. The weight of bearing the rest of his time on this earth completely alone was too much for him. Far, far too much.

He was honestly separated on this issue. Part of him wanted to run, run as far away as he could, and another part of him wanted to march up to her door, wait for her to come in sight and whisk her into his arms and kiss her as though she would die tomorrow.

Neither of these actions seemed comprehendible to the desolate Kuwabara, whose insides were twisted up and down and all around and who could not understand what could have possibly happened to ruin this for him.

And if I could move
I'm sure it would only be to crawl
Back to you.
Must have dragged my guts a block
They were gone by the time we...


His fingers shook as they rose to ring the doorbell. After some gut-wrenching minutes, Yukina opened the door. She was wearing her usual kimono, nothing out of the ordinary there, but she looked so different, though of course still as beautiful as when she had loved him. Perhaps she loved him still.

"Yukina, I...I wanted to ask you..." He had hoped that she would finish his sentence for him, but she only looked at him, questioning slightly.

"Ask me what?" She asked, her voice light and fresh and glorious to his ears. The truth was that he had not had a question for her, but only wanted to see...well, to see her again. And see if she wouldn't mind taking him back into her life.

"To see you. And ask if you wanted to try going out again." Yukina looked extremely crestfallen.

"Oh...Kuwabara..." This simple statement would not have caught the ears of any passers-by, but to him it was like a hot knife through a little butter-heart.

She had called him "Kuwabara." Yukina never, never called him that. She had always called him by his first name, his proper name. This formal and distant method of addressing him was all the sign he needed. "Okay...I get it..." He turned away and walked home.

Whoa! I want to hate you half as much
As I hate myself.
You know that I could crush you with my voice.
Whoa! I want to hate you half as much
As I hate myself.
You know that I could crush you with my voice.


He walked slowly down back alleys, trying to avoid anyone who might want to see him today. Today, he was nothing to everyone. Nothing to himself, nothing to Yukina.

That may not have been everyone, but to Kuwabara, those were the only people who truly mattered in this world. Sure, he had friends, but nothing compared to Yukina. No one understood him or knew him like her. No one had ever loved or respected him as she had. And he doubted that anyone ever could.

The walk home was not far, not farther than a few blocks, but it felt as though it took eternity, and with every step he distanced himself from her. From the start of the troubles with his beloved, Kuwabara had always had a positive outlook. "Nothing can happen. We're going to end up fine" had been most of his own pep-talks.

And as the fights and arguments and trouble had continued, he had kept this in his mind, keeping him praying that things would always turn out okay. Only now they weren't. They weren't okay one bit, and he would have to accept that now.
But he couldn't.

Kuwabara got home as the sun was setting, pink, orange and golden on the west side of the world. He climbed up the tree in his backyard and sat on the edge of his roof, on the edge of the world, trying to see Yukina's house from there.

Stood on my roof and tried to see you
Forgetting about me.
Hide the details
I don't want to know a thing.


The sun setting behind him, Kuwabara stood and watched Yukina go out into her front yard, facing the sunset and watching it. He could barely see her, but saw her he did. And she saw him too, his tall and desperate form pressed against the orange sight, obstructing her view.

She felt both annoyed and very sad that he was there watching her and stopping her from seeing the sunset—seeing the seasons change, seeing time go on, seeing herself move on.
Kuwabara's eyes got a bit foggy and he knelt on the roof, wiping his eyes.

I hate the way you say my name
Like it's something secret.
My pen is the barrel of the gun;
Remind me which side you should be on.


"So, Yukina, are you still dating that guy?" Asked Melanie, one of Yukina's friends from the apartments. The two of them were jogging through a park that was in the center of the land between Yukina's apartment and Kuwabara's house. Kuwabara was sitting under a tree, not visible to them, and working on his homework.

Once again, the feeling that he was stalking her came upon him, but it had been an honest coincidence. At the same time, he stiffened and listened for her response.

"Kuwabara?" She whispered. Kuwabara felt shivers go down his spine at the fact that she couldn't even say his name out loud. "No, we broke up."

Melanie and Yukina jogged by, and as they passed the tree under which Kuwabara had sat, they noticed naught but a stray piece of paper. If they had gotten close enough to read it, it might have said, "I want to hate you," but they did not, and what it truly said went unnoticed by all.

Whoa! I want to hate you half as much
As I hate myself.
You know that I could crush you with my voice.
Whoa! I want to hate you half as much
As I hate myself.
You know that I could crush you with my voice!


Kuwabara himself also went unnoticed as he dashed out of the park, trying as hard as he possible could to stay out of Yukina's sight line. He didn't want her to see him like this—so alone and terrified and unmanly. So dishonorable. She would never take him back if she saw him so weak. She could never take him back...

Stood on my roof and tried to see you
Forgetting about me.
Hide the details
I don't want to know a thing.


It had become almost a ritual for them to watch the sunsets together. Now, it was almost a ritual for them to watch them apart. Yukina sat in her front yard, watching the sun go down, and Kuwabara stood on his roof doing the same and catching glances at her. He had hoped that she would see him and realize how much he really loved her and missed her and wanted her back.

And though she did see him often, she never acknowledged his presence and she refused to speak to them. The understanding that she had come to was that they were just not mean to be, and Kuwabara did not realize this.

The only way she knew to deal with him was to pretend that he himself did not exist. It was a painful method of torture after having shared a tear gem with him, but...in her mind, this was the only way.

Wish that I was as invisible as you
Make me feel.
Wish that I was as invisible as you
Make me feel.


And so she shunned him. After months of this cold, terrible, horrible behavior, Kuwabara was breaking apart from the inside out. He was dying slowly, a starving man in an empty cafeteria.

Having what he wanted and asking so little seemed so far away from now...and she treated him like nothing, and he often wished that he was just that. Nothing. Just a stain on the floor to be stepped on and ignored...at least he wouldn't continue feeling this pain.

Whoa! I want to hate you half as much
As I hate my—
Whoa! I want to hate you half as much
As I hate my—


Kuwabara had felt self-doubt before, but nothing like this. Absolutely nothing. This was self-loathing, accompanied by thoughts that were dangerous to him, like poison in his mind—thoughts that stated that perhaps this was not his fault, perhaps it was that uppity bitch Yukina, and he should hate her and not himself.

But these thoughts scared him (perhaps because they were right) and he didn't want to dwell on them. He wanted to just hold her, and hug her, and be with her always. And if he thought thoughts like that, then she would never, could never, take him—

Whoa! I want to hate you half as much
As I hate myself.
You know that I could crush you with my voice.


As Kuwabara sat held up in his mind, he suddenly felt as though he had just been struck upside the head. A very troublesome thought came into his head, and he wanted it to go away, but he also wanted it to be true, and wanted this pain to just go away.

He felt that this thought would take him there, but perhaps not. Perhaps it would only plunge him further into darkness. Perhaps it would kill him. Of course, this thought surfaced anyway. She's never taking you back.

His head reeled—all of his previous hopes and dreams that they might get back together...reunited and it felt so good...smashed like a piece of glass. He was sitting around waiting for someone who clearly didn't give a damn about him anymore.

He was wasting his life—even considering taking his own life—for some girl who was no more in love with him than he was now with her. He wondered whether he had actually loved her, or had just held on to her because he didn't want to be alone?

Just held on to her and wouldn't let her go because he was selfish and didn't understand himself? It was a stunning realization, but it gave him clarity that he had not had since they had last kissed.

He no longer needed her. And though this pain did not zap itself away immediately, and he still felt his stomach swoop when she walked past, he realized that this was not his fault, and that she was to blame. She was to blame, and he didn't love her, and never had, and that was all right by him.

(I WANT TO!)
Whoa! I want to hate you half as much
(HATE YOU!)
As I hate myself.
(I WANT TO!)
You know that I could crush you with my voice.
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