Hospital For Souls (M i c h a e l i s) [Kuroshitsuji 3]{Completed}

Chapter XX (ii): 'I will give you everything I can, if you'll only let me try.'

Will you still love me when I'm no longer 

Young and Beautiful?

Will you still love me when I've got nothing but

My aching soul?

I know that you will, I know that you will, I know that you will, 

Will you still love me 

When I'm not Young and Beautiful?

I sit in the window seat, the strong June sunlight warming my skin. Oh, this is beautiful -- I never thought I would feel this heat again.

But my heart is cold, as cold as ice without him. Violet, my Violet -- every time I think of him, it chills me deep to my bones.

I struggled with a lot of feelings when I first regained my soul. Confusion, betrayal, pain, and a completely undying and crippling love, an ache for Violet. Such a longing to pull my fingers through his thick black hair and kiss his pale forehead; to stare into his impossibly deep amethyst eyes and tell him how much I love him.

How much I loved him.

He's dead. Gone. And I watched him die and now, I am here, and he -- he's rotting in the ground.

Oh, God. Violet.

I bite down on my lips and tears spring to my eyes. I am certainly doing that a lot lately -- sobbing over a dead man that I love, and I -- I hate, but -- I love him. I love him so much. And I have nothing to remember him by.

He wouldn't want me this way. Not ruined like this, with my skin covered in self-inflicted scars. My lips, bleeding and chewed to pieces. Who on earth would want that?

It truly is lovely here, though. The servants are much kinder, more talkative than anything I have every experienced. Lord Phantomhive is a generous benefactor. And that woman, Celeste -- she is a comfort to me. Sometimes, I wonder if I truly can move on with my life.

And yet, I always fall back into the deep chasm that is Gregory Violet.

I turn the page of the book in my lap, cursing as my finger brushes against the edge, before slicing through it. Crimson soaks the snow-white page, infecting the black print, and I sigh. It takes days for me to heal one small cut.

I place my finger between my lips gently and suck, the taste of my own blood flooding my mouth. Wonderful.

I sigh again.

There's a knock on the door and I turn sluggishly, throwing my feet off the seat. "Yes?"

"Grace? It's me." Celeste slips through, her soft black ringlets brushing against her shoulders, green eyes wide.

"Celeste! Back in one piece, I see. I knew that you would return, safely. Did you catch the Undertaker?"

"I... I am sorry, Grace, but – I'm sorry."

Oh. I realize what that must mean, and something twists painfully in my chest – he, and Charlotte, and all of my sisters are gone. But it is not Celeste's, or Lord Phantomhive, or Sebastian's fault. It is only his own.

"He defied the natural order of things, and ruined many lives in the process, my own and Violet's included – but he was kind, Celeste. So kind to me." I sigh.

"I'm sorry." Celeste clears her throat, brushing her hair away from her face – she looks rough, but that is to be expected. "But I have a guest waiting for you in the parlour. Do you feel fit to entertain?"