Disclaim: PSOH is not belonged to me, so do its charaters. Neverland and all the details I borrow from Peter Pan are not mine as well
Summary: Leon. Twenty years of searching.
A/N: Hope you like it. This story is written for Leon, one of the most interesting character I have ever seen.
Ah…Spoil of the last volume.
Chapter 1: Neverland
"He is gone. The count. Gone."
The man in Chinatown said simply. So simply that Leon could not stand. And he felt Jill's worrying look on him.
You know what? He had really gone. Nowhere could you find him. He had disappeared. Like the bird flying away to escape the harsh winter. I saw him leaving this morning. On his face there is somekind of a sweet sadness. He just knew that he had to leave.
"Sweet sadness?" The detectives asked the man again. And man nodded. A strange light sparkled in his deep eyes.
"Detective, the sadness of a lost dream."
"How could you know!" Leon cleared his throat, feeling the anger climbing up his head. Anger and despair. Anger and despair all at the same time. "One could never know! I tell you! One could never know what the shit this count is thinking! He's been wearing mask! He always wearing mask!"
Yes. D might be wearing mask. And he must have always been wearing mask. Leon knew that. The chinese man might have left Leon and Christ behind with no more care than for the empty shop. Somewhere on earth, D was smirking at his stupidity now. Again. And again. But now, Leon could not see that smirk. The anger in his head slowly transformed into a bitten feeling. Leon could not bear it. He tried not to think more. But he realized eventually, against his own will, this feeling was called loneliness.
"You should never think that you understand somebody enough, Detective."
"Shut up!" Leon yelled. Jill grasped his hand, tried to stop him from jumping to the man.
The man still stood calmly in the steps. Why did all those Asian people look all the same when they smirked? This smirk seemed to draw out all of Leon strenght. A question suddenly dawned on his mind.
How much of D has he thought he could understand?
Almost nothing. He did not understand a single thing about D. What did he know about the Chinese man, say? His name? No. His age? His family? His real wish…?
But there was onething about D that Leon had always believed in.
He believed that D would not leave them in this way.
The feeling in his heart now is called loneliness.
Yes, it is called loneliness. Leon knew now, sitting with Jill in the cold pet shop and drinking beer. He did not think he could stand having tea now. The scent of the jasmine tea would be too much.
Not a world did they say after Christ's phone. Christ did see animals in the Pet shop in humaniod forms. And Jill said, yes, she said about some sweet smell on Leon whenever he returned from the Pet shop. Not tea. Not the damn fumes clouding D's pet shop that make his nose jumped. This nostagic scent, as she said, reminded her of her childhood. And mother.
D. Jill's mother.
This strange link made Leon smile uncousciously. Yet the stone weighing in his heart seemed to be heavier and heavier as this thoughts swam through his chaotic mind.
"I never know that you like him that much." Jill suddenly broke the silence between them.
"What?"
Jill looked at him with such sad expression that Leon suddenly realised, his friend was a woman, after all.
"You like him, and you like this place, right? Don't try to deny. I know you more than yourself, Leon."
Leon wanted to shout back to Jill. But he could not. And he didn't. Instead of that, he just nodded. And said simply, to his own surprise.
"Yes, I did. But not in the way you might be thinking about."
"I know, I know" Jill smiled, raised her head to look at the sunshine outside the red window.
"You know, Leon, I hear something about a place name Neverland…"
Neverland.
Neverland.
Leon closed his eyes. In the sound of wind stepping down the window to enter the room, he could hear and imagine clearly in his head, how thing had always been in the past. The strange sounds of animals. The smell of tea. The laughter of Christ. And somebody, not Jill, was looking at him over the table, and said in a very gentle manner, horror fairy tales about the lost souls in the city falling into their trap of wishes.
Horror, but they were fairytales! Fairy tales! Real and horror fairy tales. Leon felt sick. He felt gross, angry and confused at the same time. But he just could never moved, yes, just could never moved. His soul longed for those stories, he knew in shame. In D's cold but charming voice, he saw some blurred illusion of a lost kindomn, a world he had always believed in when he was little.
And today Jill had named it.
Neverland. The world of lost dreams. The world that every child had dreamt of, come there, played during their childhood dreams. Yes, D did bring Leon back to his Neverland. Through the invisible fairy tales that floating in the air of the pet shop, Leon could have a glimspe of the shape of wind in the world he had lost.
D was in Neverland. He was always there, telling Leon about his strange customers and pets like reading from a book the story of Leon's very dreams.
Leon opened his eyes again, unable to keep back his sigh. All the illusion had disappeared. Surrounding him now was no more than cruel reality. Reality of the empty pet shop.
Come home, Leon. Don't stress yourself that much. It's enough for today.
Leon nodded and turned his back to Jill as he walked a way.
Coming home. But where was really his home? Where was his soul have some kind of shelter.
Waliking from the Chinatown to the main streets seemed to be stepping out from another world. All those memories were still so vivid today. But who could know what will happened in the next month? Next year? Or even twenty years later?
Who on earth could have known?
Which fairies will fell from trees in the Neverland today…?
There was some dreams you could not find back. There was some place you could not return. There was some moments you could never live enough again- even in your mind.
Leon stood there. He could not move on. His feets was not obeying his mind. No longer. They had not obeyed his mind at the beginning. All Leon's roads had led back to this pet shop, where he knew that, behind the red curtain, the truth in dreams was waiting for him.
Leon stood there, in the middle of the city. People passing by, like moth in a hurricane, like shadows without wonders about the blue sky over their heads, and all the truth you could see just in dreams. The only one who stood back was him. The only one who stared at his lost dreams was him. Leon could not raise his head. The blue sky would be too much…
Which fairies will fell from trees in the Neverland today…?Which souls would get lost? To whom the world of dream would disappear…
Why do he feel so lost.
It was the first time Leon realised that the city was so big for him.
"You could understand more or less, but you could never understand enough, son."
The old man said silently when Leon returned to Chinatown the next day. There was no Detective Orcot now. There was just him, Leon, Leon Orcot. The man whose his dreams suddenly disappeared to the chaotic world, standing in Chinatown, trying to find an answer. The answer was just never there. D must have carried it with him, forever, to some faraway corner of the earth.
"About a person?" Leon asked. The old man raised his eyebrowns, and looked down to his hands.
"About everything."
The man walked away after this mystery answer.
Is this "everything" refers to oneself as well?