I can't believe I wrote this… Not because I hate it, or anything, because I love it. But this is the first decent piece of writing that I've done in a while, and I think it came out extremely well…
Oh, yeah. I almost forgot. I don't own YuYu Hakusho. Nor do I own the song "Red Rubber Ball".
I really am pleased with the way this came out… I think this is the best thing I've ever written!
And I only want to ask one thing of you. When you review, I just want to know if you think it's fine the way it is, or if I should do another chapter focused on Yusuke. I was going to do that originally, now I'm not so sure… So I'm taking a poll.
Anyway, enjoy "Like a Red Rubber Ball"… And please, remember to review. It's not really all that hard. Is it?
"Today's lesson will be centered on writing poems. And now, before you all groan, just let me say that you will be writing free verse, which means..."
Keiko tuned the teacher out then, beginning to draw scribbles absentmindedly on the piece of paper in front of her. She knew what free verse was. They had learned about it back in middle school. But more likely than not, she was the only one who remembered that.
She slipped the paper she was doodling on behind the front cover of her notebook and pulled out a clean sheet now that the teacher had finished his lecture. She began writing without realizing it, and before she knew it, she had five lines down.
She had actually been in the middle of the sixth line when she noticed that she was writing. Seeing that she had written words already startled her, but not enough to lose her train of thought.
"...in the sea. If I never hear..."
And she kept writing until she finished, never knowing what it was exactly that she had written. Glancing at the finished product, she saw that it was nearly one full sheet, front and back. She read it over somewhat quickly, to see what she had come up with.
I should have known
You'd bid me farewell
There's a lesson to be learned from this
And I learned it very well
Now I know you're not
The only starfish in the sea
If I never hear your name again
It's all the same to me
And I think it's gonna be all right
Yeah, the worst is over now
The morning sun is shining
Like a red rubber ball
You never cared
For secrets I'd confide
For you, I'm just an ornament
Something for your pride
Always running, never caring
That's the life you live
Stolen minutes of your time
Were all you had to give
And I think it's gonna be all right
Yeah, the worst is over now
The morning sun is shining
Like a red rubber ball
The story's in the past
With nothing to recall
I've got my life to live
And I don't need you at all
The roller coaster ride we took
Is nearly at an end
I bought my ticket with my tears
That's all I'm gonna spend
And I think it's gonna be all right
Yeah, the worst is over now
The morning sun is shining
Like a red rubber ball
Oh, I think it's gonna be all right
Yeah, the worst is over now
The morning sun is shining
Like a red rubber ball
Keiko smiled, pleased with the way it came out and the overall effect. It was almost nostalgic, as it made one look back, yet at the same time it told of moving forward. She scrawled "Like a Red Rubber Ball" at the top as a title and then signed her name at the bottom.
The girl read it over again now, more carefully, to look for any spelling errors she may have made.
But she got caught up in the words of her composition and their meaning. She moved through the lines on the page, struggling to make her way through the sea of memories that flooded to her as she read them. Each of them pulled at her, trying to drown her in the sea of the past.
And then she realized what her poem was truly about.
Yusuke.
Yusuke. Everywhere she turned as she fought to stay afloat in the present, he was there. His goofy smile. His stupid laugh. Emerging from the cave with his punk-rocker long hair and tattoo-like markings. The night he visited her in her dreams to tell her he was coming back. Sleeping at the Dark Tournament. Walking down the street as he returned from his first six months of training with Genkai...
Yusuke. Her poem was about Yusuke Urameshi.
Then one memory burst through all the others, and she heard her own voice, her very words, ring out loud and clear...
"I'd wait forever, Yusuke."
She felt a pang of guilt. She did remember saying that, those words she had meant with all of her soul, every fiber in her being. But now he had left her. He had left her for his first love, his true love: fighting.
Keiko sighed. Who was she kidding? He had never really cared for her, not that way. To him, they were nothing more than just good friends. They had never been anything else.
"I'll come back in three years. And then... let's get married."
A small, shocked gasp escaped her lips. Instantly, she turned to her head to the right to look for the speaker of those words. They had been so clear, it sounded as though he had been right beside her... But... no, he wasn't there.
But that... that had to been just another one of his jokes. He couldn't have been serious. That was just his way... He hadn't changed a bit since he was four years old.
But I liked him better when he was four years old. At least he wasn't fighting demons and risking his life every day...
The bell rang, signaling the end of class and jolting Keiko from her daydream. She shot straight out of her chair and began frantically collecting her things.
"Now, for those of you who haven't turned in your free verse poem already, take it with you and hand it in first thing tomorrow morning..."
So the girl opened her notebook to put her completed poem there behind the front cover for tomorrow... to find that what she had been scribbling was a sketch of him.
Yusuke.
- -
The day was circled in red on her calendar. She saw it every time she came into the room, and, as a matter of fact, it was the only thing that she even had written on that calendar. But she had no rational reason to give as to why she had circled it... She never would have forgotten the date. Like her name, and like his name, the date had been etched permanently on the inside of her skull.
Yusuke's birthday. His eighteenth birthday. The day he promised her that he would come back. It was about a week from now.
A week... she had made it so far, but it felt as though this last week would kill her.
Keiko looked at the red circle on her otherwise blank calendar from her place at her desk and sighed. Yusuke. It had been such a long time... Would she even recognize him? That is, if he even came back at all...
"And it's not just your stupid gags or the way you laugh... There are ways you move and speak that I would never forget..."
She heard her own words again mocking her. She remembered those words too. And as though it was some sort of signal, more memories flooded to her.
His smile after his first victory of the tournament, and how happy he seemed in that environment... The day he had flipped her skirt for the first time, and she watched him trip and fall into the nearby river as he ran from her... Crying uncontrollably at his wake, having to be dragged away by her friends... Yelling at him and lecturing him earlier that morning, telling him to die...
Her fear for his safety when Puu turned cold in her hands. Her anger when she realized he and Kuwabara had ditched her at the movie theater. Her disappointment when she found out he was keeping secrets from her and had purposely kept her in the dark. Her joy when he told her that he would be able to come back from the dead...
Memory after memory came, each of them so vibrant it was as though she had gone back in time and was re-living them. She pushed her books away and rested her head in her arms on the desktop. She was helpless until the memories ended. Homework could wait...
Charging into a burning building to save his barely-alive body from the flames...
"I saw a road of blue fire leading me out, and I was surrounded by his presence."
And Keiko began to cry. That feeling. She could remember it so clearly, she could almost feel it just thinking of it. And yet... that was all it was, a memory. It had been so long since she had felt that warm, comforting feeling...
Gone. He was gone, it was gone.
"Yusuke..."
It had only been three years since she had last seen him, but it felt more like three hundred.
"Yusuke..." she whispered again. "Yusuke. Yusuke!"
And the girl continued calling his name through her tears, eventually crying herself into a fitful sleep full of thoughts of Yusuke.
- -
Today. Today was the day. She knew it even before she opened her eyes and looked at the calendar.
Today was Yusuke's birthday. Today was the day he was coming back, if he even decided to come back at all...
Today was also the day she was going to visit Genkai's temple with the others. It had been a while since they had been all together, and she was excited. She couldn't keep her mind off the thought the entire school day.
But, much to her disappointment, she soon found out that they wouldn't be all together. One of them was missing.
The one with her heart, the one whose return she was so anxiously awaiting.
At first she had been hoping that Genkai had called all of them together because he had finally come home to them. But she was the only one who knew that today was supposed to be that day...
She forced a smile on her face and pretended to be happy for the sake of the others, but on the whole, she was quiet. She was glad to see them, but... she had been hoping Yusuke would be here.
When the others decided to go down to the beach and swim, she made her way down beside them blindly, her mind occupied with thoughts of the boy whose presence among them was missing.
She slipped off her shoes and then socks when she felt the surface beneath her feet change from the solid dirt to the uneven sand, and she continued to walk forward in a daze until she could feel the cool waters of the ocean against her skin. She glanced upward and saw the sunset. The setting sun caught her attention, hanging there in the sky, shining like a red rubber ball...
And in that sunset, she saw Yusuke.
Yusuke. She saw phantoms of him everywhere, always seeing him where he wasn't. Seeing him in people she passed on the street. Seeing him in Genkai and Kuwabara and Shizuru...
There was just something about him... Everywhere he was, at the same time he wasn't.
Yusuke.
He was the sunset, he was the trees. He was the lonely boy everyone ignored at school. He was the girl no one tried to understand. He was the kid on the street trying to get noticed because he thought that no one cared. He was the girl with problems at home. He was the four-year-old boy who gave flowers to a four-year-old girl and asked her to marry him...
She could see him in ordinary people, even though he couldn't be described as anything but extraordinary. There was something about him that made him just like everyone else. And yet, he was nothing like anyone else.
There was only one word that could describe what he was like.
Yusuke.
He was everyone, and yet he was only one person. He was everywhere she looked, and yet, he was always nowhere to be found.
"Yusuke! It's over, Yusuke! You hear me?"
Everyone turned to look at her, surprised. That was unexpected. She had been so quiet all day.
"You were never around when I needed you! Even when you were here, you weren't here! You weren't here for me..." Keiko paused then to take a deep breath, tears threatening to overtake her.
Shizuru dropped her cigarette and ground what was left of it into the dirt with her foot. "You tell 'im, kid," she whispered, looking at the girl with a new kind of awe and respect.
"I know I said I would wait for you forever, but I'm through waiting for you! I can only take so much, Yusuke, and I can't take any more! I don't want to have to wait for you any more..." She finally finished, dropping to her knees, and began sobbing loudly.
Her five companions looked at one another, both shocked and confused by her sudden outburst and then the just-as-sudden change from anger to tears. They began to make their way toward her, but when she spoke again, they stopped, having no idea what they could do for her.
"Yusuke... Yusuke... Yusuke! Yuu...uu...suke...e..."
"Poor Keiko," Botan whispered sadly.
"Urameshi, you bastard, how could you do this to her?" Kuwabara muttered under his breath. He knew that Yusuke had promised to come back, and he wholly believed him, but it hurt to see the girl in such pain...
- -
Yusuke had heard the entire thing. It was hard not to hear Keiko when she was screaming. And when he finally made it through the trees and arrived on the beach, he simply stood there looking on, listening to her call his name in misery, watching her cry. Not only did it make him feel incredibly guilty, but it also tore his heart in two.
No one noticed him approach. Kurama, the Fox, with the most acute senses, didn't hear him... Kuwabara, the most sensitive, didn't pick up on his aura... Keiko and Genkai, who should have known he was back simply because, were none the wiser...
Kurama, Shizuru, Botan, Kuwabara, Yukina... He saw them all, staring at Keiko, standing around as though they were waiting for some sort of miracle. So Yusuke cleared his throat and opened his mouth, deciding to speak before he had to hear her scream his name so pleadingly one more time, before he had to watch one more of her tears fall.
"I don't want to see you cry any more..."
The five turned to look at him when he began to speak. He had surprised them even more than Keiko had, because no one had known he was there. Startled by the sudden attention, he muttered the girl's name so softly no one heard it.
"I don't want you to have to wait any more either, Keiko."
Keiko did not turn to look at him, remembering all of the times she had looked for him to find that he wasn't there. But when she heard him, she stopped crying, and sat in silence. "Yu...suke?" she asked softly, in a way that reminded him of his mother.
She slowly began to move, standing up and turning to face him. She looked at him, regarding him, deciding whether or not to believe her eyes when they had fooled her so often before, deciding whether or not he was really there.
"Yusuke?" she asked more clearly.
He smiled and gave her a weak half-wave with his left hand because he was holding his bag with his right. "Hi."
He hadn't changed a bit since that day. It was almost as though there was no such thing as time where he had gone. He was Yusuke. The way he stood, the clothes he wore, the way he moved and spoke... was all Yusuke. Everything about him screamed "Yusuke".
He hasn't changed. He... He came back.
Small tears formed at the sides of her eyes. She thought of that night, the night he came back. At first she had been afraid that she had lost him, and just as she had given up, he had returned.
Though he had never been anywhere when she had looked for him, there was another thing she had learned about Yusuke that she had forgotten.
He always came back.
Whenever things looked darkest, and it seemed like all hope was lost, he came back.
"Yusuke!"
She ran toward him. Of all the things he had been expecting, this wasn't one of them. He had been certain that she would have slapped him. So he wasn't given enough time to brace himself for the impact and he dropped his bag as she knocked him over.
"Well, someone's become more athletic since I left..."
But Keiko wasn't listening to him. It had been so long since she had heard his voice... She heard him speaking, but she didn't hear words. She simply heard Yusuke.
"Hmm?" Yusuke noticed that she was slowly moving closer to him. And before he knew it, he could feel her lips on his. He was startled at first, but he didn't do anything to stop her, and he closed his eyes just as a wave crashed over them.
The water from the wave receded back into the ocean, tearing the two apart. And they sat staring at each other, occasionally blinking but not saying anything.
"Dang, Keiko, I'm going to get you for that!" Yusuke jumped to his feet and ran toward her. Keiko got up as fast as she could and he followed her a little farther into the ocean.
As the others joined in their horseplay, Kurama and Shizuru stood where they were, watching and laughing. It was good to have Yusuke back. Nothing was quite the same without him.
Yusuke. He was back. And as Keiko watched him fight with Kuwabara, she saw that it was just like old times – the good old times.
Only, there hopefully wouldn't be any more demon-fighting.
He was back, he was finally back, and she didn't have to wait for him any more. It was a new day, and she could start fresh. There had been times in the past three years when she felt like she couldn't go on any more, when she had felt that things couldn't get any worse. But Yusuke was back. The worst was over now.
As she turned back to look at the sunset again, this time so she could appreciate it, she was hit on the back with a wave of cold water. She turned back quickly, almost losing her balance. "I'm going to get you, Yusuke!" she yelled, sending a wave of her own in his direction.
The sun is the giver of light that marks day and night. The morning sunrise is what normally begins a day. When a new day dawns, the morning sun is there.
But the morning sun and the setting sun are one and the same.
The worst was indeed over now. The darkest time is always just before dawn, when the light returns. And just like always, Yusuke had returned just as Keiko had given up.
So with his return, the dark era drew to a close and a new one began, the setting sun watching over them... shining like a red rubber ball.
- Kuramastrass -