Soundless Imaginings | One-Shots

Downfall | One Piece

I can't breathe.

I'm suffocating, with not an ounce of air able to bypass my severely constricted throat. I'm sitting here, fingers curled with desperate intensity into my bloodied hair, staring blankly ahead of me at the body laid bear upon the deck. I can't breathe, I don't want to breathe, not when his chest is so goddamn still. 

Someone's talking, I don't know who. Kay, probably. A hand grips me by the shoulder, vigorously shaking me, but I don't budge, don't move. I just sit and stare and hold my breath to keep from screaming out every vile obscenity I have in my admittedly rich vocabulary.

This is all my fucking fault.

"..ya... Raya! You damnable fool, answer me, for Kami's sake!" 

Kay's voice sounds like we're separated by an entire ocean, but no, she's right next to me; the warmth of her hand slowly seeps through the numbness, flushing a layer of crackling ice from my veins and sending an electric jolt racing up my spine. She moves in front of me, attempting to get my attention or simply block my view, I'm not sure which, but I don't exactly give a damn. I scramble around her on hands and knees, scraping my nails disastrously over the rough wooden planks that make up the deck as I skid over to the body.

"Raya, I beg of you, gain ahold of your senses and listen to me," Kay hisses from behind me, her voice dripping venom and forged in steel. Any other day, any other moment and that would have shaken me to the core, maybe warned me off whatever I was doing to warrant its use. But I do nothing more than sink my teeth into my bottom lip, just shy of drawing blood. "You're in shock. Understandable, yes, but that is precisely why I am asking you - ever so nicely - to go with Adriel--"

"Like hell I'm gonna leave him!" 

My voice - so different, so fragile compared to Katana's unyielding composure - sounds on the verge of shattering.

I hear her draw a deep breath, releasing it several heartbeats later. She doesn't press the subject again, giving me a moment to myself. 

I sniff, squeezing my eyes shut in the vain hope of trapping the inevitable cascade of tears behind flimsy lashes. Molten droplets slither down my cheeks, collecting into a steady steam that drips from my chin and onto his crisp white shirt. Not that it makes any difference now, him being soaked to the bone, his spic-and-span attire glued to his lean form like a macabre second skin. I brush the back of my hand over my eyes, swallowing a hiccuping sob.

Kami, it's been so long since I last cried. I had a nifty little record going, too. 

"Timor, man, I'm a badass. Badasses don't cry."

"Says the girl who wept a literal river when she was under the assumption that her beloved swordsman had gotten himself killed on Thriller Bark."

"Shut it, Dracule! I told you that in confidence!"

"Oh, did you? How positively crass of me."

"Ohhh someone's looking to get a lil' taste of Honoo, ain't ya? C'mere you damn snarky--"

"...The last time I cried was four years ago."

"...Holy... Timor, that ain't normal, I hope you get that..." 

A humorless laugh escapes me, though I'm quick to bite the inside of my cheek, silencing myself. Pathetic. I'm so pathetic. That conversation seems like a lifetime ago. I was arrogant and moronic, shooting my mouth off like I always do, with the same old horrid consequences. I didn't get it back then, why his reply was in any way significant. I thought he was just being freaky, as per usual.