A/N: Yes, here I am, writing yet another one-shot even though I made myself promise not to write another for a bit and to concentrate instead on my very long stories. So, sorry folks- there appears to be a slight hitch in my plan. But grin and bear it, and hopefully I'll get the first chapter of "It's Never Too Late" up soon.
Disclaimer: You know the drill now, guys. I don't own Heroes. I don't own Adam Monroe, nor do I own Hiro Nakamura. If I did…well, life would be great, for a start.
Pathetic Fallacy
It had started out reasonably bright and warm for a winter's day, and all those walking around the old and highly traditional Japanese cemetery believed that although they were walking among the dead there was no room in their heads for sad thoughts. Instead, they thought about the happy times; the funny memories that they had with their loved ones who were currently lying under the ground.
Then the weather had suddenly changed. Rain poured and dark clouds merged together. Battle lines had been drawn.
So, it was one of those days where the weather appears unable to make up it's mind about what side to take. At least, that was the thought of one Hiro Nakamura as he stumbled up the gravel pathway of the said cemetery. It had only just stopped raining - the dark clouds had surrendered to the bleak winter sunshine - and now water was slowly dripping down the glasses of Hiro's round and normally happy-looking face.
But not today.
He continued to walk onwards, seemingly oblivious to how drenched he was, for his thoughts occupied - no, demanded - his full attention. He walked without fully knowing where he was going yet his feet knew the way.
An elderly Japanese couple walked in the opposite direction to Hiro and on seeing him, smiled politely. The elderly man greeted him, and made some remark about the weather conditions, but it took Hiro several long seconds to respond. However the couple didn't seem annoyed; they looked at him with something close to understanding. He glanced at them before moving his gaze forward. He had reached, thanks to his feet and their knowledge of the place, a small grassy hill surrounded by trees and from where he was standing two graves and memorial headstones decorated with beautiful colourful flowers were evident.
Hiro looked down at the graves, sighed and without thinking pushed his glasses up his nose. The elderly couple were still standing near him; apparently they wished to hear him speak, almost as if they were checking up on him. However what he longed for was just to be left alone, especially right now.
Yet he had been brought up to have good manners and therefore he would dishonour his parent's memories by being disrespectful, even more so to his elders. So after a last brief glance at the graves of his mother and father he turned and faced the couple and smiled at them.
"Good afternoon. I am sorry I didn't reply earlier, I was…" He stopped, before continuing, "Well, my mind was elsewhere."
The elderly man just smiled knowledgably, while his wife looked at Hiro with her kind face. For a small moment her calm and serene features that also spoke of laughter reminded Hiro of his own mother. He swallowed down the lump that had suddenly grown in his throat.
"It is okay." She said to him, softly. "Here of all places, we think more than we talk and usually cannot be distracted from our memories of those we have lost." She spoke like someone who had experience.
Her husband nodded. "We were just on our way home. We had been visiting the grave of our son." His voice shook and his eyes filled with tears, yet he kept on talking almost determinedly. "It is exactly a year since we lost him, yet…" He trailed off.
"Yet it feels like it was only just yesterday when he rang and told us he was coming home from work, before we heard the car crash." His wife finished for him, reaching for her husband's hand.
"I am sorry." Hiro said, feeling awkward for how could he hope to understand how parents who had lost their only child feel? He had lost his father though. It was different but perhaps not as different as he would have believed.
"I lost my…My father." He began, his tongue tripping over the words, "I lost him two weeks ago. I never got to speak to him before he died." There, he had said it. Said what had been ever-present in his mind since he had been told by Ando.
The couple looked at him with sympathy and understanding written so clearly in their eyes. How odd it is, thought Hiro, that they lose their son and I my father.
"We are so sorry for your loss. Please, do not allow us to keep you from your time alone. We know how comforting it is and would hate to keep you." The man said, inclining his head and moving away.
"Remember that your father is still watching over you, and always will." His wife smiled. There was a pause, during which Hiro looked at her face again, his mind flooding with images of his mother and him together.
The trip down memory lane was suddenly cut short when she turned around and asked him, "May I ask you what your name is?"
"Nakamura Hiro." Hiro answered, bowing slightly.
"Well then Hiro, do not forget what I told you and know that your father will live on in your memories and those of others. Whenever you think of him, he will be with you." She smiled at him once more and then she was gone, walking down the pathway with her husband.
Hiro remained where he was, looking at the couple leaving. He was slightly comforted by the kind lady's words but if only he had actually been thinking of his father; if only that was the reason why he was so depressed and unresponsive.
For the truth of the matter was, although Hiro missed his father intensely; was left with a huge void and although he felt empty, he had not journeyed to this cemetery in the heavy rain to visit the grave of his father. He had done that several days before he had done something that had cursed him with nightmares ever since. Nightmares, if he was honest with himself, that were caused by guilt.
So Hiro did not go down to his parent's graves; he looked at them one last time before sighing again and heading down a different path. He once again kept walking onwards until he reached a small plot that was unmarked and had neither flowers nor cards around it.
Hiro looked down on the unmarked grave, his mind tossing and turning like some boat at sea and his heart racing. He fancied that if he listened hard enough; really strained to hear, he would swear that he could hear the faint screams of the immortal man he had so recently trapped underground for all eternity.
He bowed his head, thinking deeply. Hiro had told himself quite often that Adam Monroe deserved it. He had murdered his father and many others and then tried to wipe out millions with the Shanti Virus. He was a - what was that word again? Billan? Billian?
Villain.
Oh yes, that was it. He was a villain; evil and dangerous. It had almost become a mantra.
Yet deep down Hiro felt torn. For although he believed that he also remembered the man, when he had known him as Takezo Kensei who had been a friend to him. They had laughed together, went on quests together and Hiro had helped him be a hero. He had been happy then; they both had. But then all had changed whenever he had kissed Yaeko underneath the cherry blossom trees they had both loved. For in doing so he had broken Kensei's trust and far more importantly, his heart. It had then proved to be the turning point for since then Kensei became evil; the villain. He had betrayed Hiro and Yaeko to Whitebeard, and when he ad Hiro and finished fighting in the tent containing all that gunpowder, he had sworn that as long has he had breath, everything Hiro loved he would lay to waste.
But all that had happened because of Hiro. It was all his fault. If he had left Yaeko; not kissed her then Kensei would have never become Adam Monroe; never killed his father.
Adam Monroe may have murdered his Hiro's father, yet Hiro had given him the motive to do so.
Hiro suddenly got to his knees, ignoring the combination of wet soil and grass soaking his knees. He was far too busy remembering.
"CARP! Let me out! Please let me out! Carp, please! LET ME OUT!"
The screaming had gone on for so long that it had then forced Hiro to leave. He couldn't take it. He had not returned to the graveyard; to the unmarked grave, since.
But now here he was, back again. With something to say.
"I am so sorry, Kensei." Hiro started off, looking at the soil and imagining the face of the man trapped in a coffin forever was looking at him and listening, "So sorry…Everything…It has all been my fault. I made you wan to kill. So I am sorry." He bowed his head, hiding his face.
How he longed to stop time, dig out Adam Monroe and say it all to his face, yet he knew all too well that once he had seen the face of the man who was once Kensei; his friend; he would want to let him be free.
There were times when Hiro wanted to kill the man below him - he hated him that much - but there were other times were he remembered his friend and wanted to release him. Hiro knew himself all too well and knew that this time, right here in the cemetery would be one of the latter. He had decided that he couldn't risk it and had told himself only to talk and then leave; nothing else, yet how he wished he could do more.
Droplets of water fell on his head and then down his neck. Slowly at first, but then faster and faster. The bleak sun had retreated, for it had lost the battle and the dark rain clouds, thought having previously surrendered, had returned and won. Their war was over, at least for now.
"If only mine would be too…" Hiro muttered to himself, tearing his gaze from the darkening sky and looking back at the grave. He stood up and retreated a few steps back before glancing at the grave yet again, sighing quietly and once more pushing his glasses up his nose.
"Kensei, Adam…" He was unsure what to call the immortal know, "This weather reminds me of something that I learnt at school. Weather reflecting a person's mood…" He paused, having to wipe droplets of rain from his glasses, "What do you call it in English….Pathetic Fallacy?" He said, switching to English for the first time since coming to the cemetery - Kensei/Adam's first language.
He laughed for a second, sharp bitter laughter.
As if Kensei/Adam could actually answer him.
He shook his head. "Yes. I think it is pathetic fallacy. And I am truly pathetic, for here I am at your "grave" though it isn't really. Because I wasn't able to kill you; my father's killer; but I have given you a fate worse than death for you. Pathetic, is it not?!" He almost spat out the English words.
With that, Hiro walked quickly away, telling himself not to look back.
Don't look back…
Don't look back…
Yet when he knew that the unmarked grave would soon be out of sight, he turned back and looked.
Rain drops were pouring down his face. But then again, it could have been tears.
He remembered the kind lady's words of advice - to remember his father. But how could he remember his father, without remembering him?
Unknown to Hiro but known to us, at the same time deep underground, a man is screaming whilst hammering on the lid of the coffin he is currently in. He refuses to give up, even though he has been doing this for goodness knows how long and no one has answered.
His hands are bloody, his face pale and his eyes distraught. As he begs to be let out, he thinks of the one who trapped him here; thinks of what he has done; what he has lost and water trickles down his face.
This time, it must be tears, for rain water cannot get into a coffin now, can it?
Pathetic Fallacy indeed.
Um, yeah. No idea how I came up with this. :thumbs up:
Well, what do you think? Feel free to drop me a line!
Toodles, Leah xo