Name: Good-bye
Genre: General
Rating: G – don't be too disappointed.
Disclaimer: Characters are not mine, etc.
Summary: There is only one way to say 'good-bye'. Akadou's infamous 3D does it in style.
Please review. Reading is optional. =)
You remember Saki-chan right? Ponytails, fondness of stuffed toys, some life-altering heart condition and the ability to make Kuraki's grin even stupider? Yeah, her. Nice enough kid. Kinda fucked up that Kuraki was the only one in class to get a steady girlfriend in our third year – even if it was just a little while – but still, nice enough kid.
She was a bit too cute to be my type.
Then again, my type is busty, rich and naked.
But there's something I can't forgive or forget her for. It's the same thing I'm sure Kuraki never forgave either. He's just as much to blame though. Both of them were idiots.
That good-bye was fu- eh... Screwed. There are only so many times you can say 'fuck.' With Ichimura coming by every so often, a thesaurus lodged up his skull and sprouting words I could never spell ('erythrocyte' was a kicker), it makes me conscious about my own vocabulary.
Ichi's doing well, though. Mid-terms are over, and his eye-bags have shrunk. He's the sort of guy that'll go places. He'd bring his friends along, too. We couldn't believe that, of all the places to celebrate, he ended up choosing Kuma's. He's a good idiot.
I'm getting off track.
That good-bye was really screwed.
Kuraki tried chasing after the bus. It started innocent enough, escaping the evil clutches of Yankumi and making as much noise as possible along the way. Once out of the terminal, it took a while for us to notice that Kura was still running down the street waving his hands like a crazy fool.
I'd never seen him run so fast.
The only reason we caught up was because he tripped.
Kura, if you're ever reading this, I mean to say that you 'collapsed of a broken-heart.' Y
es, we've established that.
Yes, we all think it's manlier than tripping over your pants.
Everything about that incident was messed up. The fake smiles, the promises to keep in contact, pointless waving, and definitely those tears – the ones that Kura only let go of after his face met the pavement.
Apparently, the floor wasn't as good a kisser as Saki-chan.
That is no way to say good-bye.
Now, I'll tell you what the right way is.
If you know Saki-chan then you've got to know Yamato Ogata... Unless you're Saki-chan's mother or something. In case you are, please don't tell your husband that Kura kissed your daughter. We like him with all his limbs attached.
Yamato Ogata, co-leader of Akadou High School, known for his random fits of violence, superiority complex (haha, see Ichi? I do listen to you!) and 'Don't touch my sexed up'-hair. Anyone stupid enough to suggest that he was a wimp because he wasn't Akadou's sole leader had their face handed to them on a silver platter. All-in-all, he's not a guy you want to get on the bad side of.
But he's been going through some trouble.
The past year's been shit for him. We, the old gang, meet up at least once a week, even if it's for an hour for a few games of darts. I heard he got into drugs and drinks for a while. We were both taking vocational classes, but he dropped out of that after the first month. Damn, he was scary then. Honjo made the mistake of getting too personal before Yamato was willing to say anything. I didn't think faces could swell up that much with just one punch.
At least he hasn't been arrested for anything, and he's clean now. We saw to that, forced him into quitting cold turkey. I'm pretty sure that it constituted as kidnap somewhere along the lines, but Yamato's not a kid anymore, so I guess that made it alright? Either way, he's not pressing charges. That's what friends are for.
Family problems don't always work out. I heard the divorce was finalized last month.
You guessed it. His good-bye was the greatest.
After months of living out at our houses (Honjo had a Hell of a time explaining to his dad why Yamato was fast asleep in the tofu shop's kitchen at four in the morning), unpredictable medical bills, fist fights and pure insanity, we'd all started to forget that we were already out of high school.
Right about the time he'd started his job at a construction site, he decided to move back with his mother, help her along and all that good son jazz. In turn, she decided to move to her sister's house in Fukuoka.
Déjà vu hit you yet?
If it didn't, don't worry. It only hit me once we were at the bus terminal.
Over half of 3-D managed to show up. You have no idea how fucked up that was. They even prepared signs, for crying out loud. Yankumi was there. Kura didn't even wait for the bus to leave to start the water works. Sure, we punched him and told him he was being a girl, but no one ever actually told him to stop.
It was a good day: sunny, but breezy, the sort of day you ditch school to welcome. But we were having the equivalent of a funeral parlour at the bus station.
I felt sick.
Yamato's like a brother to me, and he was heading to the airport to catch a flight to somewhere that might as well have been Timbuktu. Where the Hell that is, I don't even know. Ichi likes throwing around his geography knowledge as well. His mother had taken an earlier flight and was waiting for him.
All that was left was to disperse the ragtag group and board the bus. Hell, if he didn't hurry, the police in the area would probably do it for him. Security never did stop giving us odd looks.
I don't particularly blame them.
"Honjo..."
I swear I never knew Honjo wasn't a natural blond. Shut up. But his black hair was showing at the roots by then. I remember the expression on his face, twisted and pale as Yamato clapped him on the shoulder. He looked like he'd taken a bite out of a lemon. Or got kicked in the balls. Or kissed Yankumi. Or... You get the idea.
"Kuraki."
I didn't know if Kura even heard him. The guy looked close to collapsing. Good God, it must've been like Saki-chan all over again, I'd thought at the time. He grabbed Yamato, attempting to strangle the life out of him, who I give credit for not flinching too much. To Kura's credit, he wasn't sobbing.
Just sniffling. "D-don't forget to call..."
How did Yamato learn how to smile sadly? But he managed it. Just as miraculously, he managed to peel Kura off him.
"Ichi..."
No tears this time. A quick hand-shake, a one-armed hug, a pledge to email and a threat to upload drunken pictures on the internet if Yamato didn't keep his promise to keep in contact. Ichimura is pure class. He even got a few laughs out of our walking corpse.
The bus seemed to loom ahead of us like the world's most ominous coffin.
"Kamiya. Ren."
He still hadn't forgotten our names, I thought with a sort of forced bitterness. I tried, really, to hate the guy that was breaking up a gang that shouldn't have existed in the first place, but had turned into a figurative rose among thorns. Lots of thorns.
I won't even say who the rose is.
A final, departing wave was sent to the rest of the class. All of us were friends, comrades, but I suppose we were Yamato's Lieutenants.
Yankumi was crying. Jeez, what is it with woman and tears? Must be those whore-mans.
Er, no offence meant Kuraki.
The painted signs went up of 'Good luck, Yamato!' and 'Do your best!' Cheering started. Someone released a confetti bomb. Sparklers were lit. The police took the 'bang' the wrong way, and started charging towards us. Whistles filled the terminal. People were screaming. Stampede in every direction.
Does that faze you?
You haven't hung around 3D enough.
Laughing his head off, Yamato boarded his coffin, backpack in tow, waving like a bloody idiot. I heard the conductor yelling at him to get to his seat. They were on a tight schedule. I was busy trying to make myself as small as possible against a pillar, torn between choking on air as Yankumi tried to reason (with her fists) a guard away from unfortunate Honjo, who hadn't been smart enough to run in the opposite direction. Kura was clinging to me for dear life. Somewhere along the line, my shirt became his napkin.
I threw that shirt away, just so you know.
And Ren... Was decking the conductor in the face.
Open-mouthed and petrified, I think only Ichimura and I saw the old man flail helplessly, falling out of the bus's door. Ren was a blur, first stepping over his victim, then running through the aisle Yamato had just started down. I saw him grab Yamato by the neck, cutting off his air supply faster than you could blink, simultaneously spinning his rival to face him with his free hand.
It took me a few minutes to realize that I was watching two of my best friends sucking face.
It's not something you see every day, really.
But seeing Yamato's fist crash into Ren's jaw an instant later, yeah, that was typical every day sort of stuff.
Though that was the last thing I did see, as a security guard's baton sent me to dreamland. At that moment, I was simply grateful that Ren had convinced the guys to not bring firecrackers, too.
When I woke up, I had no idea where I was. For a moment, I thought we'd all been sent to the Principal's Office. The walls were that same bland white, and with that many 3-D students there, it wasn't exactly unfamiliar territory. Yankumi was bowing to, assumedly, some guy in power. We were immature. We made mistakes – that sort of thing.
I touched my head, which felt like it a parade was running through it. Honjo sported a bloody lip. Kura was surrounded by a mound of used tissues, but that stupid smile was back, as he spoke to Ichimura, who appeared unscathed by the whole ordeal. Ren looked like he wouldn't be talking in a while, his chin now a quaint shade of purple, but his arm was draped lazily over slender shoulders, effectively pulling their owner against him.
You know, having a bruised face actually makes death glares more effective?
And Yamato, well... He wasted money on a plane ticket. He'd end up dealing with a few incredulous gasps later, once people came to their senses. His mother would sob about missing him for a few months. He'd have to sleep on kitchen floors until he could afford his own apartment, but... He was grinning.
"Hey." A tap on my shoulder brought a grinning Ichimaru to my attention. I inwardly groaned, knowing what was coming next. "That'll be my 'thousand. And you thought Yamato would make the first move... Idiot."
And that is how you say good-bye.