Disclaimers: Sadly, I do not own SD's characters *bows to Inoue-Sensei*. This is a songfic and the song isn't mine either, *bows to Opeth – Hope Leaves.
[I've been told, and so I'm doing, to delete the lyrics. I didn't mean to use anybody's words instead of mine, they were only so perfectly blended with my thoughts that I couldn't think of this story without them. But a policy is a policy, right? So, even now I think this is quite bare and senseless, with NO STRANGE INTENTION , I suggest, at least, to check the original song, just to have the real atmosphere.
Summary "Hope Leaves" is a brief view of Hanamichi's future, set in a sad and moody scenario: there are feelings so rooted in one's heart that not even Time itself can erase them.
Enjoy this little experiment of mine;
Notes I hope this will "warm" you a little. Feel free to express your own emotions or thoughts: comments and ideas are well accepted.
Warning: I'm not a native English-speaker and I'd like to know if something is misspelled or incorrect.
Yuki
_HOPE LEAVES
.1
Sad eyes skimming through the surface of an old memory.
It's a yellow-wrinkled high school picture of the whole last year basketball team.
He looks at it and his mind wanders, looking for already-known answers and short-term relief.
He finds it in the rhythmic screech of shoes on the shiny wooden floor, patched with sunny bright strands coming from the outside.
And then the merry-glassy shatters cheering up to the team last victory pop in his mind…along with the never ending shivers of hurried whispers in his ear, goose bumps all over the body, and a pair of dark eyes piercing his soul and not leaving it…
In the picture, the dark-haired boy keeps the arm around the red one's shoulders.
The first with his usual composed and serious expression, the other with the well-known happy and cheerful sparkling smile.
They're holding each other, almost casually, and they are looking straight on the camera lens.
The other players are all around them, so radiant and fabulously unaware of their future…at the thought, the knot in his stomach tightens.
They used to spend their time thinking about fulfilling their dreams, realizing them and outdoing their own possibilities...and then, one day, they just woke up and realized everything had just slipped away.
So it is, he knows now, nothing ever remains the same, people and things keep changing, and one cannot run against the grain of time.
Oh, if he knows…he learned that on his own skin.
Now he's been left only with images and words of a very distant reality.
His wounded soul, still bleeding, continues drowning and dragging his own smothering conscience in the depth of his nostalgic youth.
.2
It's like watching an old movie cropped and mixed scenes.
Everything flows in front of his gaze, still so confused and yet so painfully clear.
Wasn't that a delicious agony every time their hands inadvertently brushed?
Wasn't that an unbearable heat every time they stood together waiting for the bus, under the heavy rain, while the rest of the world was shut off the spectrum of their cheap umbrella?
Every time was the first time, even the most banal and the most insignificant, and then his heart leapt up, filling with the whole world rhythm. Unable to contain it and also unable to let it go.
Each image is an excruciating pain to Hanamichi's insides.
Each argument, each speechless conversation made by unsure glances, each delicate touch…
Hanamichi's soul quivers, near to the breaking point.
And with his own astonishment, he also recalls that once they had been even rivals.
They loathed each other in a very dramatic and deep way: they were simply incompatible and too much different.
But then basketball won them over and they started to forget their divergences, almost without noticing it…until they became friends, an unbeatable team inside and outside the parquet.
They never expected too much nor they did think about their future: they simply reached out and touch each other's shy heart.
Hanamichi's eyes still teeter.
There's only oblivion left for his last doubts and hesitations.
Now he's a married man and his dear Haruko-chan is his sweet-lovely perfect wife.
He's a proud father and he fondly follows his son's growth, already appreciating the man one day he'll be.
He's a straight-arrow person, respected and with a well-paid job as basketball trainer.
He could almost say he's happy!
Almost.
Where are those erosive spasms from?
Why does his heart feel so inconsolable?
Why does the baka-kitsune just fled away from his life, in the same fuzzy and casual way he had first entered it?
Hanamichi trembles, his eyes eventually bleary.
He'd like to see Kaede once more and talk to him, patching up things, make them better, choose a different path.
But now he has no occasion, no more.
Fifteen years have already evaporated and there's nothing he can do about it.
There's no way to fill the hole he feels in his chest every time he checks that old picture.
His paining soul twitches, pinched by the ineluctability of time.
.3
It is, after all, ONLY the void left by the dark-haired boy, now an international basketball player.
Hanamichi can't forget the way Kaede, almost abruptly, had left him, following his own dreams.
After Kaede's departure, he only felt dumbness and stillness.
The others soon noticed his temporary incapability of facing things because maybe, for the first time, they really had realized how important the Kitsune was to him.
Days slipped by and he watched them from the corner, feeling lost and confused.
He rarely felt relieved only training himself for hours and hours…
He spent a great amount of time contemplating the nothingness stuck in his familiar ceilings…human beings only crave for love and for the right person to take care of.
Kaede Rukawa was his everything and he figured out it too late.
Now Hanamichi perfectly knows the fierce suffering of his loss.
Neither years of tranquility have completely healed him: it always feels like the Kitsune has just disappeared five minutes ago.
.4
Rukawa's pale skin, his beautiful features, his fine scent: everything spins in a blurry swirl and explodes in some weary and tired tears.
Hanamichi lingers on that photograph and sees again all the scenes with his eyes, in a bittersweet revival.
Here it is, his precious Kaede.
His long-lashed eyes, his noble face, his pointed chin and his slender neck.
His cryptic way to behave and talk (a continuous riddle, indeed!), shy and shameless at the same time, like if he's completely innocent and yet totally impudent.
Hanamichi piercingly smiles, his eyes closed and his mind focused on Rukawa even more.
He can see Rukawa's reserved expression while he walks the red-headed home; he can see the mute longing in his eyes when they're all together, after a match, and he doesn't want Hanamichi to go away until the very end.
Ah..and here it is, the precious and random intimacy of a quiet spring sunset, wind skimming through their bare necks, when Kaede laughs at the red-headed sudden stumbling in his own feet…And Hanamichi's heart clearly skips a beat.
There are their insults, their bad words, their nicknames…
There is the food they shared, the music they loved, the beautiful landscapes running outside a train window seat and the long, cunning summers spent together waiting for their glorious time to come.
And then, in a precise moment, everything speaks of his most precious memory.
They were silently strolling in the night, surrounded by light snowflakes in the park near his house.
Rukawa suddenly brushed his hand, trembling, and then grasped it with all of his strength.
Hanamichi amazed eyes opened wide with blunt misunderstanding and…yes, why not? It was panic. Pure panic shudders: his concealed and latent feelings were revealing themselves all at once.
Sure they had already shared a hug…sometimes fleeting, sometimes accidentally, sometimes only driven by the joy of winning a match.
But in that single, special hug there certainly was something new.
What the hell…!Hanamichi reminds it so clearly, so pleasantly warm!
Oh, he really could not bring himself to forget that tender lightness!
And his face first blushing and then burning in red flames.
His heart bloomed in pure joy when the beautiful kitsune leaned to him very quickly and kissed him, barely a chaste touch of lips. It was anxious, bashful and still so full, so real...
They stood there for minutes, kissing and pressing their inflamed bodies, sharing something good and unbelievable.
If only he had knew how to convey better his feelings… It was love, Hanamichi knows it well now!
But back then, he just remained still, while Kaede, after looking him with enormous teary eyes, suddenly rushed away, leaving him alone.
Two days after, fearful of goodbyes, Kaede had left everyone without saying a word, always so stubborn and unpredictable!
And now he's in America and every year he calls Hanamichi to wish him "Merry Xmas" and to whisper him, with a sad voice, "Happy Birthday".
He doesn't talk much, as usual Hanamichi is the real chatterbox!
But the truth is that he can feel Rukawa's solitude pressing from the other side of the phone and he wishes to stop it.
He wishes to hold him tight and reassure him.
He wishes to love him freely again.
.5
Engulfed again in the time, Hanamichi's awareness of the present brings back him to the reality.
Everything seems so far away…
What if nothing has ever happened?
The dream is left behind and Hanamichi suddenly realizes the phone has been ringing for a while.
He picks up the phone lazily and put it in his left ear.
- Hello?- he mumbles, still so stick in his past reveries and emotions.
- Happy Birthday Hanamichi…- Kaede's deep voice says, as every year it does.
Hanamichi smiles and, shifting the phone on the right ear, whispers:
- Ohi, Kitsune...- his voice at once sweet, his lips lingering on the little smile.
And then he speaks again:
- I was just thinking about you, Kaede.-
- Oh…Really?- his tone slightly purrs - And what were you thinking, do'hao?-
- I love you, baka Kistune.-
Then Hanamichi can hear a series of undetected noises.
Kaede Rukawa sobs very softly and then chuckles, his tears-stricken face half hidden in his left hand:
- So do I, do'hao, so do I.-
/owari