Control (A Rain x Kitana fanfiction!~)

Part 2-Someone's there for me.

~PRESENT~

“A person who truly loves you sees the pain in your eyes while everyone else believes the smile on your face.”—Unknown.

After scrubbing her body for the seventh time tonight, Kitana got out of the bathtub, steam billowing around and condensation fogging up the glass mirror. She looked down at herself. Her skin was rubbed raw and clean, stark pink against her usual ivory tone. It singed and aches from excessive washing, as did her hair, which she scratched at her scalp so badly it was enough to draw blood. Wiping off the condensation from the mirror, she looked at herself. Bloodshot eyes from too much soap—and crying for no apparent reason—the very bubbly soap to make her shudder and cringe. Lips scrubbed until the skin was rubbed off. Everywhere he touched she washed away, but it still lingered there like a ghost. Always around, always there, always behind her shadow.

Grabbing a robe, she threw it on and started brushing her hair. As she did, she ran her tongue along her mouth, which still had that phantom feeling of the demigod's lips that she thought would vanish after brushing it off.

But it was still there.

Still lingering.

She stared at herself in the mirror. That infatuation she had for him, that love she had, died ages ago when he basically spilled his sick, twisted mind to her right in the gardens. To gain power. Be stronger. Better. Enough to overthrow her. But how did Rain manage to get deep inside, dig deep and deep and find that miniscule sliver of love she had for him?

As she kept staring, she saw her younger self. Shorter than her height now. Longer hair. Tousled and wavy. Dried streaks of tears on her pale cheeks. Lips pale. Eyes bloodshot. Hands holding locks of her hair and paintings. And her eyes—once warm and full of life around the time of her youth—were full of rage and pain and sadness. The younger her whispered, “Why was I so blind? I should have stopped him. I don't understand. . . . I'm such a fool for ever thinking about love. Love is the world's most stupidest emotion and it should never be allowed. I should have thought about my duty and duty itself and not get caught up in this thing. I want to get rid of my heart. I wish to be stripped of my feelings . . .”

Kitana stared down at the vanity, at her tiara, her earrings, her hand mirror, the flowers that came from the gardens every Friday. ANYTHING except those brown eyes that reflect her stupid youth. Anything but that. Those idiotic dark black-brown eyes that made her blind and horrible and not a perfect little princess everyone expected her to be—

Her vision blurred with tears, and she scurried off to the bathroom, feeling heat spread all the way up to her scalp along with a sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach. Gasping for breath, Kitana used a hair-tie to wrap her hair in a ponytail, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Nothing.

She clutched both sides of the toilet, breathing heavily, hoping what she felt was nothing bad. Nothing that could possibly say she has something for him now. No, he was messing with her mind. Parts of her was going insane—and it manifested itself as physical symptoms. She remembered the name well—Conversion Disorder. She was so angry and devastated that she didn't realize his dark path well enough that it's all manifested as excruciating nausea. Slamming her hands against the tile floor of the bathroom, she kept hearing her younger voice cry out in her ears, begging and sobbing and regretting being even with Rain in the first place, and she leaned her head in the toilet and became sick.

Warm hands touched her back. Circular motions that were slow and tender.

Slow, cool breath caressed her heated skin. Whispers that were about her—for her—melted in her ear and became sweet honey.