Disclaimer: Standard disclaimer applies.
A/N: I've written a lot of drabbles and such... I'll just place them all in here instead of submitting them individually.
And always, please enjoy.
NOTE: Tezuka --> Oishi
WARNINGS: You find out.
Carnation
He dreams about him from time to time.
Oishi was another item on his list of life's regrets; maybe he was even the first one on the list according to importance.
If ever in doubt over which he regretted more over, Oishi or his second regret, he would choose the former without hesitation.
Because his second regret, and the third, the fourth, and so on, all revolved around his first; they were all correlated.
Nowhere, on his list, can tennis be found anywhere.
He played tennis now, professionally.
So it was not a regret.
He was actually doing it.
Yet, he dreams about tennis from time to time, too.
And it would always be accompanied by his junior high school tennis teammates, all whose faces have been obscure and blurry in his dreams except for one.
Oishi.
And the dreams would all serve to remind him of his biggest regret, again and again.
Oishi.
Perhaps he is still grieving over his death, a death that should not have provoked regret, since he had no way of preventing it from becoming reality no matter how many scenarios he recomposed and the different outcomes he had recreated in his mind.
He might have been able to delay death.
But, definitely not prevent it.
Now, regret captured all of his memory.
In a way, he is holding onto him now as he holds onto his memories, unlike before, when he allowed him to slip out of his grasp too many countless times.
Before, he had a lot of time.
Now, he has no time.
He is too late.
A flower shop: neat, tidy, well-kept and slightly attractive to passersby in its faint captivating aroma---perhaps when he first decided to enter the shop, it had appealed to him in its resemblance to his deceased companion, whose physical resting place he was to visit that day.
A bucket of carnations innocently halted all his further advances in his first step through the entrance.
He surrendered his attention at their demand.
The current shopkeeper must have noticed the small inconvenience, pausing from her work.
"Ah. I apologize, sir. I will move that immediately."
Saying, gloved hands slid the misplaced bucket back to the side with its other flowery companions.
"What is its meaning?"
He asked, suddenly, quietly.
"I'm sorry?"
He never removed his tiger eyes from the carnations.
She followed the invisible path of his vision with her own.
"Oh. It's 'I'll never forget you.'"
Memory pressed down upon his eyelids as they squeezed out a negligible amount of gentleness.
"Never...is it?"
A whisper.
A question he did not seek the answer to from anyone.
Maybe in time, when he retires from tennis and adds it as another item on his regrets list, Oishi will then be replaced, and he will forget him.
But, it was his never now.
Authoress's Crap:
For some reason, I just think that tragedy between these two is so possible. Hm... Maybe it's because they're both so traditional...
And yes, about the title. "Hand Grave" translates to "Tezuka", and "Big Stone" translates to "Oishi".
Anyways, thank you for reading. See you next time.