“Undeserving” by Mereo Flere
A/N: I am a terrible person.
XXX
Happiness isn’t something given to you on a silver platter. The future was something you had to take into your own hands. However, even though I knew exactly what I would need to do to find that happiness, something was stopping me: the small voice of a girl, who in another world would’ve been known as Tohsaka Sakura.
“You aren’t good enough,” she repeated, over and over again. “You should leave Senpai alone.”
And she was right. I wasn’t good enough. I had known for the longest time that I was broken, twisted in ways most people could not comprehend. The young man known as Emiya Shirou didn’t deserve the terrible fate of being at my side. He was a good man, no doubt destined for a life of heroism. Holding him back would only be selfish.
“Please… let him go.”
The girl’s voice pleaded with me. And, though I didn’t want to, I listened. This body of mine simply went through the same motions it did before the Grail War had even happened, waiting for the day when he would inevitably leave me behind.
But you know… I was worried. I guess you could even say I was scared. Shinji was gone now, killed in the war, and there was nothing left but an empty mansion for me to return to at night. When Shirou left, I didn’t know what I would do.
Compared to my future, the pitch black basement I had once spent so much time in seemed almost blindingly bright. There was only a single ray of hope in this empty life…
But, that girl’s voice wished for nothing more than to let it simply fade away.
XXX
“Don’t do it. You shouldn’t do this!”
Once again, the girl’s voice filled my head. I closed my eyes, trying to drown it out in my thoughts – to no avail. It was meaningless to even try.
That voice had always been against a relationship with Shirou... and now it was against me even being close to him. Sitting beside him, sharing a meal with him, visiting his home… it had gotten to the point where I could not even call his name anymore, without that voice shouting at me.
And yet, I find the strength to smile at Shirou, telling him how amazing the breakfast was again while in the background Taiga agrees with some rice clinging to the corner of her mouth. I fake regret that it’s been too long since it had been my turn to make it, and he laughs about how I need to get up earlier…
But I can tell that he’s worried about me. He’s been worried ever since the war ended… and that just makes the voice’s cries even louder.
XXX
“There’s something wrong there, isn’t it?”
Emiya Shirou stood in front of me now, looking deeply into my eyes with a concerned expression. I felt my back brush up against the clubroom’s door – and with his arms on both sides of me blocking any escape I knew there was nowhere to run.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied, berating myself for letting him ambush me after practice. “Everything is fine, Senpai.”
“You’ve been avoiding me,” he said. “How can I think everything is fine?”
He could think that because everything was fine now. As long as I didn’t see him… as long as I didn’t meet with him, the voice wouldn’t be screaming in my head and the sooner that I was out of his life the sooner he would be fine as well.
…however, there was no way I could say to him. How could I tell him what was really wrong with me? About what had happened to me, what I had become?
That was simply something I couldn’t do.
“I’ve just been busy,” I lie again, wishing desperately that I had come up with a better excuse beforehand. Silently, I hoped that this would be one of those moments where he wouldn’t see through me.
And of course, he chose now of all times to see through to the truth.
“That’s a lie,” he accused with confidence. “You’ve been going straight home every day after practice. Nobody even sees you outside of school anymore.”
“That’s…”
The excuse doesn’t even leave my mouth. I knew that there was nothing that I could say to let him drop it.
Nothing… except the truth.
“That’s because I can’t be around you, Senpai,” I say with a wince, feeling my chest hurt from just saying those words. “It’s too painful when I’m with you.”
Shirou took a step back in shock, surprised as much as I am by this confession. For a moment, I considered using this chance to simply run... but I knew this confrontation had to end here.
“Why?” Shirou asked, managing to recover his voice first. “Did I do something wrong?”
I thought of all the things I could say to make him leave. I could tell him that I really hated him all this time – that I knew about the Holy Grail War, and the small part he had played in Shinji’s death. I could tell him that I was the one who had actually summoned Rider, and that he should have died in Shinji’s place. He probably wouldn’t believe me, not completely, but it was enough to make him leave me alone.
The voice told me I had to drive him away with those words. Glare at him, fill my voice with venom – do whatever it took to push him away. It was the right thing to do.
I knew what I should do… but I also knew what I wanted to do. And those desires... I couldn't deny them any more.
“Yes,” I told him, giving him a weak smile. “When I’m around you, my chest hurts so much that I couldn’t bear it…”
“What?” he asked, as though he had never really thought that Matou Sakura could love Emiya Shirou. It wouldn’t have surprised me if he hadn’t, but that made it more necessary to make things clear to him. So, I stepped closer to him, ignoring the increasingly loud voice shouting at me.
“You can’t do this! You have to stop! Please, don’t do this!” the voice begged me.
But I didn’t stop. With what strength I could muster, I reached out and wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him down closer to my face.
“S-Sakura?!”
I closed my eyes, though I could still see his puzzled expression. I wanted to keep eye contact – but I needed to concentrate, I needed to ignore the voice, to say the words I wanted to say.
“Senpai, I love you.”
Then, before he could answer, I pulled his our faces even closer, and took back my own happiness with a kiss. The voice continued to shriek at me, but…
From now on, I would seize my own future.
XXX
A year had passed since that first kiss. The voice is quiet now. If I listen closely, there are times where I can hear it sobbing in the back of my head… but she’s accepted this fate in the end. There was nothing she could do but accept it, after all, whether it was now or back then.
Though I knew Shirou’s heart had still been set on the servant that he had summoned in the war, I had managed to steal enough of his heart away from Saber to convince him to stay with me in Fuyuki. I doubted I could ever completely hold his heart, but this amount of love was enough. Even if it was just this much, even if he never really forgot about Saber, I was satisfied with this much.
It was all I needed, really.
Thanks to Emiya Shirou, the future of the Matous would be bright once again.
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Originally Posted by lantzblades
