An Angel's watching Over Me
You can shed tears that she is gone, or you can smile because she has lived.
You can close your eyes and pray that she'll come back, or you can open your eyes and see all she's left.
Your heart can be empty because you can't see her, or it can be full of the love you shared.
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday, or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.
You can remember her only that she is gone, or you can cherish her memory and let it live on.
You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back.
Or you can do what she'd want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on."
He was just standing there, the wind whisking silently through his two-toned hair, that looked almost black in the pitch of the night. He was completely motionless; staring at the figure kneeled on the ground. His eyes seemed longing, he wanted to help the man...but how could he when he had no control over his own feelings?
The pain and intensity in his eyes seemed atypical for a kid his age, he didn't look any older than 15. The night was dark and eerie; it always was when he came there. The surroundings were quiet. It was as if everything was holding its breath. The wind wasn't making any sound as it slashed across the leaves of the trees. The swings weren't creaking. The mist was just as thick as it had been last year and the sky was atramentous.
This was Bakuten Park, which in the days of the man who was sitting ethereally in the corner of the park, used to be the most cheerful place in this mortal abode. It still was, but each year on this particular date, it was the most doleful place. On this day, no beybattles were fought; no kids played on the swing… people didn't even come for walks.
It was around midnight, the bewitching hour. It marked the beginning of the day that took his mother away from him and his father. Back then he had been a one year old kid, crying for his mother, not knowing she was gone forever. No, this was not Kai. His name was Gou Hiwatari; son of one of the captain and coach of the greatest beyblading team that ever existed; heir to the Hiwatari enterprises. He was a splitting image of his father, the man whom he was staring at, but with his mothers ruby eyes.
He didn't know much about her. The main thing he knew was that she had been his father's life and he cared for her more than anything in the word. The rest seemed unimportant. He did know that the two of them had met when they were a bit younger than he was. He knew about their incomparable friendship. He knew that his mother was a polar opposite of his father him being an introvert and her an extrovert. He knew that she loved being with people as much as his father preferred solitude. She loved the day while his father was a man who lived in the shadows. Why shouldn't he, when he had a sun of his own? He knew that she was his sunlight. He always smiled at the thought.
Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.
He thought about her often. He loved her, even though he had not met her. Whenever he tried to think about how she might have looked, he imagined ruby eyes, similar to his own...a pale face, which had strands of chocolate brown hair on it...He had tried imagining her smile, but somehow, always ended up wishing that he'd seen it at a personal level to do so.
He had only known her till the age of one. He didn't live in Japan; he lived in Russia, ever since his mother's death. Kai didn't want to stay in Japan after Hiromi's death. He didn't want to live in a place which reminded him constantly of her. Hiromi had always been the one who intentionally _ or unintentionally _ would convince him to stay. So, he left and cut all ties with his team mates. Gou had never met the infamous Bladebreakers. He had heard a lot of them, but aside from his father, he'd never met any of them on a personal level.
Each year he and Kai came to Japan on the day of her death anniversary. They'd visit her grave, at midnight. Kai would spend the whole night there. The next day they'd go back to Russia when the other people would start visiting the grave. A lot of people came to visit her grave each year and Kai had no desire of associating with any of them.
Hiromi had been very young when she had died. Heck, Kai and Hiromi had gotten married only at the age of 19. Three years later Gou had been born and Hiromi passed away just an year after that. The bladebreakers had been traumatized at her death, Kai was badly affected. He broke off all of his ties with everyone, just like he did whenever he felt lost. But this time there was no Hiromi to try and get him back.
Kai and the Bladebreakers had gotten permission of the city government to have her grave in the park. Kai and Mr. Dickenson did have some influence; Kai, owning half the corporate world and Mr. Dickenson being the owner of the BBA. It was frowned upon by many people, having a grave put in a children's park. But her being a children's idol, the children didn't really mind.
So, resting silently in the corner of the park was Hiromi's grave with a simple epitaph. This park had always been her favorite place. She had spent a lot of time here, playing as a kid and when she had gotten older she had spent most of her time training her boys there at Beyblading. Kai had told Gou that she loved to sit on the swing set. Whenever she used to be upset she'd swing there. That park and swing set held a lot of memories. Even a day before her death she had visited that park. She was feeling really anxious and had walked over there in the evening. Maybe, she had an inkling that something bad was gonna happen. A while later Kai followed her there. He waited for some time to give her some space; he knew well enough that people didn't like company when they were upset. The two of them had spent the whole evening there while Tyson and the rest of the guys had been babysitting Gou.
Her death had been a painless one. She passed away in her sleep. For her it was a peaceful way to go, but for those she left behind, it was another story. Having to wake up to find that the person sleeping next to you is dead, it does something to a person... something you never quite get over with.
Gou knew that her death had been a huge blow for the rest of the Bladebreakers as well. They had lost one of their closest friends. Then Kai had left too. They lost a quarter of their family in one go. When Kai left he took Gou with him. They had gotten used to the kid, they loved him. They had all expected him to turn out to be one of the greatest bladers ever. When Hiromi had told Kai and the others that she was going to have a baby; the first one to speak had been Ray, "Watch out, Tyson and Kai, this kid will give you two a run for your money!" They had all been happy. Kai had been a bit unsure at first not knowing if he'd be a good dad, considering taking care of others was not something that he'd seen or was good at it, himself. But he had turned out to be a better dad than expected, Gou believed that too. Though after Hiromi's death, he had grown rather over protective of him.
The ironic thing was that Gou never participated in any tournament. Kai had given him Dranzer and Gou was a naturally talented blader, no shock there. But he never taught him how to beyblade, Gou had learnt himself. Kai cut all his ties from the sport after Hiromi died. He once told Gou that there was no point in beyblading if Hiromi wasn't there. There were too many memories connected to that Beyblade, things he did not want to reminisce about in fear of getting hurt. Gou never participated in tournaments, Kai didn't want him to, and he himself didn't either. The only reason Kai had given Dranzer to Gou was that he didn't completely want to lose the memories of his past. He wanted Gou to know, though Gou didn't know much about Hiromi or the rest of Kai's friends. Kai on one handed wanted to block that part of his life from his mind to get rid of the pain, but on the other hand he didn't want to lose all of it either.
The other bladebreakers had also quit participating in tournaments; it didn't feel right with a member missing.
Each year, Hiromi's friends and family from all over the world visited her grave. Each year Kai and Gou would also come from Russia to visit her grave. Each year the people came from morning till night, staying a while kneeling next to her tombstone, shedding tears; they'd also place flowers on her grave. Each year Kai would stay at her grave from the first second _ which marked the start of the day _ till the time the first ray of light would appear on the horizon. Then the two of them would go back to Russia, that very day.
He, who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay, more present than the living man.
Gou wanted his father to feel better. He didn't want him to forget about her but he didn't want him to act in a way that his life was over, the way he had been for the past fourteen years.
He wanted him to get back with his friends, to have fun. Not stayed cut off from people like he, too was dead. He wanted Kai to tell him about Hiromi, about the Bladebreakers, the Blitzkrieg Boys and everything. He missed her; so, he should tell him, not keep everything bottled up inside waiting for it to eventually choke him to death. He wanted to walk over to him, but he had no idea how to talk to him. Kai being Kai, Gou didn't have a very open relationship with him, one he might have had with Hiromi. He himself was not very good with words, much like Kai, and much unlike Hiromi.
Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.
He silently made his way towards the grave. Tears were threatening to fall from his own eyes at the sight of his vulnerable father, lying like that there. He missed her; it was funny how you could miss someone you have never met, someone you never really got a chance to know...The night had gotten darker; the park almost looked like an actual graveyard. As he got closer, the figure of his father became more clear, the epitaph also came into view. He could make out the words engraved on it:
Hiromi Tachibana Hiwatari
A Bladebreaker,
a true friend.
Beneath this simple stone that marks her resting place
Our precious darling sleeps alone, in the Lord's long embrace
The last two lines were engraved in such a small writing that they were barely discernible from such a distance. He involuntarily shivered, the night was cold. He sat down on the grave next to Kai and ran his fingers over the engravings on the tombstone. Kai didn't realize that Gou was next to him, if he did he made no action to show it. Gou had no words to say. He and Kai never spoke much with each either. Neither of them was open with their feelings or good with words. If Hiromi had lived things would have probably been different. Gou knew that his dad was hurting a lot, but he had no idea on how to make him feel better. He looked at his face and flinched. Kai's face was much like it was when he had been a teen, lacking the cobalt tattoos; he never put them on after she died. Though it looked the same, it wasn't the same face. This face was worried and anguished; it was as if the years of pain which Kai had gone though had caught up to him when Hiromi left. That had been the last straw. He endured all the misery but when Hiromi died, he gave up… he broke…
My heart still aches in sadness and secret tears still flow.
What it meant to lose you, no one will ever know.
"She promised that she would never leave me," Kai said, each word dripping with pain. He hadn't realized how much hurt he was in, till the words starting flowing out...they seemed painful, yet so effortless.
For a second Gou was just shocked. He hadn't expected Kai to respond to what he had to say, much less start a conversation himself.
He blinked, confused.
"Since, I was a kid everyone left me." Kai began, "My parents, grandfather, the team wasn't always together either. Hiromi was my only constant."
Gou remained silent, listening to the words ...the painful tone of his father.
"Then she left," Kai said, his voice barely audible, staring at the starless night sky.
Everything was quiet...the silence got ghastly.
"You should try to let go," Gou stated, hesitation evident in his voice.
Kai looked over, annoyance clear on his face at his son's words.
"You want me to forget about her?" his voice was tinged with resentment as if he couldn't believe what his son was saying.
"No, I don't want you to let her go," Gou started, "I don't want you to keep everything caged in your mind. Live your life like she'd want you to, but keep her with you. You should have never left Japan. You left because you didn't want to deal with the memories but you've been keeping them in your mind all along. Not talking about the past or hiding from it doesn't make it disappear. What was the point of leaving or never talking about mom or your friends when you kept letting their memories haunt your inside?"
Kai wasn't respond. He was staring at his son as if he was a ghost.
"You shouldn't hide from the past, but embrace it and move on," Gou tried to make him understand. He had his right hand in his pocket and was gripping Dranzer tightly. The phoenix always provided him comfort. He'd always beyblade when he felt lost or missed his mother. The warmth of the immortal phoenix reminded him of Hiromi. "Don't try to forget her, but don't let her memories bring you misery, be happy for all the times you had together. Be happy with the people you have left." Gou finished, sniffing.
Tears were silently falling from Kai's eyes. Maybe the kid's right. He thought.
Kai smiled a small smile; it wasn't a melancholic one but a sincere one.
"Hey kiddo, you want to know what happened when Hiromi joined the team?"
Gou was caught off guard, his eyes widened but he gave a smile, "Sure dad,"
The whole night went by quite differently from how it did for the past 13 years. Instead of crying, sitting on her grave, Kai told Gou stories about all the times he had spent with Hiromi. He also told him stories about all the adventures Kai and Hiromi had, had with the Bladebreakers and Blitzkrieg Boys. He also told the stories of different tournaments. Gou listened intently with deep interest. He always wanted to know about Hiromi and the Bladebreakers and their lives. He had never heard his dad speak so much in his life. Kai told him how Hiromi and Kai used to come to this park at night often and spent the time talking. Though, Hiromi did most of the talking, while Kai used to listen.
Instead of leaving with park, with the first gleam of sunlight, Gou and Kai kept talking about the old days till the sun was glimmering brightly over the park.
"… and then Tyson dared Hirom…" Kai stopped in mid sentence. He gave a melancholic smile. "What do you know, it's morning." This was the time when he woke up 14 years ago to find Hiromi dead. He had been resenting day light ever since he was a child; he was always a person who preferred the shadows. After Hiromi died, he had seriously developed an antipathy towards light. The darkness was much less painful. He thought that Hiromi always preferred the day, maybe he could too.
"Yeah," Gou said, "Thank you, for telling me all of that."
Kai smiled. It had been a long time since he saw a Japan sunrise. Nothing could be more beautiful than it. The sky turns a hundred shades of yellow and red. You never saw such sunsets in frozen and iced up Russia. The park didn't seem the same place it did in the night. The birds were chirping, the smell of eggs and waffles and ramen was in the air. There was a scent of clean water lurking in the air, due to the humidity of the night. The dew dampened grass glimmered under the bright rays of the sun. The park was as colorful as it was when he saw it the last time in the light of day.
Gou was also registering his surroundings. He had never seen Japan in the day. He found it very different. He was thinking about all the things he learnt about Kai and Hiromi and their friends. Suddenly he was nostalgic for something he'd never known. He had a yearning to meet those people who cared of him so much when he was a baby. He was thinking that if they'd lived in Japan he'd know all of them. Most of all he had an irrepressible craving for his mother, he wanted to meet her more than ever, he knew he couldn't so he wanted to hear more about her. But he knew that his father had crossed his speaking limits long ago. Maybe he could ask him later, he had decided that he would try to be more open from now… his father needed that. The world, to Kai, was becoming a place he didn't care about...he didn't want that to happen; his mother wouldn't have wanted that to happen. Kai needed to realize that Hiromi, even if she wasn't here with him, would always remain in his heart through her memories.
Love is stronger than death even though it can't stop death from happening, but no matter how hard death tries it can't separate people from love. It can't take away our memories either. In the end love is stronger than death.
The two of them sat quietly for a while. There was a light sound of footsteps and laughter. Both Kai and Gou immediately looked towards the source, merely out of reflex. Kai's eyes widened. Gou, too looked shocked. Walking towards the entrance of the park were 6 men of Kai's age. Kai recognized them immediately, so did Gou, after all he had seen a lot of their pictures. They were walking with bouquets of flowers in their hands.
Kai decided that he won't run out, he'd meet his friends. He owed them an apology for bailing on them. They'd be very happy to meet Gou and he would too. Kai knew that Gou wanted to meet the Bladebreakers since a long time. It was time that he stopped running from the past and faced it.
When the Bladebreakers came towards the entrance of the park, they froze in their footsteps. They were shocked to see Kai, but more over they were shocked to see a younger version of him without the cobalt triangles, but had ruby eyes which reminded them so much of the girl they had came to visit.
Kai and Gou both stood up. The bladebreakers were staring at them.
"Hey," Gou said, hesitantly. The bladebreakers walked towards the two of them. Tyson and Daichi were grinning ear to ear. Max was still in shock and so was Kenny. Ray's expression was a happy one.
"It's been a long time, sour puss," Tyson smirked, seeing his best-friend's familiar face, "Whenever you'd leave you'd always sneak back to visit Hiromi… never us."
Kai blinked at him.
"Do you know how unfair that is?" Tyson continued with a teasing smile. He turned to Gou. "Your dad's the world's most unfair person, you know."
"He can be at times, but he's the best."
"So, you know us?" Max asked, surprised.
"I know everything about you guys," Gou began, "and I have wanted to meet you for a long time."
"Everyone does, I'm still famous," Tyson said, his voice playful.
Both Kai and Ray smacked him on the head. Everyone else snickered.
On the other side of the park, standing unnoticed all through the night had been an almost transparent figure. When Gou and Kai had been talking, she had been wearing a sincere smile on her face and her eyes had been longing as if she'd give anything to join the two boys she loved so much. She was now staring at the group of boys who were laughing and talking near the grave. She had a pale face and she seemed to look 16, she was wearing denim shorts and an orange jacket over a see green tank top. She had been leaning against a tree which was situated between the beyblade dishes and the swing set, in a very Kai like position. On top of her head engraved on the tree was 'Kai and Hiromi: Best friends forever!' Kai had been annoyed at this when she made him carve it on that tree 22 years ago when the two of them had been 16 after BEGA got defeated; they hadn't even been dating back then. Hiromi traced her hand over the words then turned towards the Bladebreakers and Gou. She slowly started fading, the smile never leaving her face. The second her figure vanished, Gou, Kai and the rest of the Bladebreakers all looked toward that tree; all of them had thought concurrently that they saw a glimpse of Hiromi. They turned back immediately and shrugged the thought, thinking that they were probably hallucinating; the very thought that Hiromi was watching now, seemed ridiculous. But both, Kai and Gou couldn't shake off this strange, internal feeling...for a second, they thought that the figure they just saw really had been Hiromi; that she was still watching over them…
The magic feeling...It's grown so strong...
Always leaves me...To a place where I belong...
Won't go away...Never lets me down...
I've got the greatest friends...That ever could be found...
Across every river!Behind every tree!
On top of every mountain!
There's a part of you and me!
Wohooo, second one shot of the night, which is a result of insomnia and plot bunnies. So, if it sucked, it's not my fault. I've gone from sleeping to 14 hours a day to 4 hours for the past week. But the fact, that it's angsty, sappy and corny, that my dear readers is my fault. I just love emo and sappy stuff. Funny thing, when I was writing about Gou, I kept thinking of Sasuke. Weird, right?
Disclaimer: I do not own Beyblade, the rights of it belong to Takao Aoki, but I do own the plot of this fic. I also don't own the poem in the start, the song in the end, the words of the epitaph and the italicized quotes used in between the chapters. When I was searching for inspiration to write down this idea, I came across this stuff and I had to add them in the fic 'cause they fit with it so well, though I did edit them a bit to match the fic. But the idea of using the song came when the plot bunnies about this fiction were running through my head at 6 in the morning, as I was tossing and turning in bed. I don't know who wrote the poem, the quotes or the words on the epitaph, but I do know that the song belongs to the owner of Pokémon.
Oops, I almost forgot! A major thanx to Dead by n0w who beta read this. I apologize to her for making Kai suffer, I know you weren't happy about that. I don't know what I'd do without her. ^_^ I tried changing the song, but it didn't work sorry about that.
For those who care, I' putting up the next chapter of 'Runaway Hilary' in a few hours and that was written in a sane state of mind, I just have to reread it once for errors. Those who want can read it.
Please, read and review, I worked really hard on this.
Later…