Fall
.The neon lights of the city streaked past him, cacophonic glares of discordant yellow, acid blue, and angry pink, disapproving and disappearing in the distance. He stared through the intrusive reflections on the window beside him, accompanied by the rhythmic requiem of the mindless movement of the bus, carrying him on a one-way journey to a destination he knew with his reason but was too impenetrably indifferent to remember. He sat motionless, still, silent.
He knew that it was no coincidence that he had seen him, ten years after their confused and violent parting. His hair had lost its original shade of red, fading into an ancient, jaded tinge of oak brown. The peach of his cheeks had given way to the pale complexion of stress and worry, the inevitable markings of the typical working-class man. His voice, when he had heard it, was no longer the beam of an infectious shriek, but had transformed into an experienced air of calm confidence. He had changed, become arguably unrecognizable, but Rukawa knew it was him. Rukawa would always know it was him.
He had grown older, shed his mesmerizing naivety in the irreversible stages of human life, and although Rukawa would have originally felt betrayed and disillusioned by the clichéd cross-over of the only person who had ever made a difference, he found that he was at peace and accepting of Hanamichi's foreseeable fate.
The first time Rukawa had seen Hanamichi, he had been six years old.
It had meant nothing to him then, a peculiar scarlet-haired youth laughing in echoes, a free spirit bounding without restraint towards the sunset. He had watched him, falling to the ground clumsily and immediately rebounding back onto his scraped feet, unfettered and unfazed by failure. Rukawa had observed him from a distance, and in his untried six year old mind, Hanamichi had appeared unexceptional, insignificant, and redundant in the unfolding of his life. .
Nine years later, Rukawa had met Hanamichi on the Shohoku rooftop, and in the exact moment their eyes had met - before the fiery punches and the juvenile insults and the untiring rivalry - Rukawa had known that he was the one.
It was a feeling and realization that he did not instantly sense or acknowledge. It came slowly, seeping in through the infinite layers of lethargy and apathy, the sleepless nights and the unchangeably unpredictable attacks of isolation, loneliness, and melancholy which formed the predetermined itinerary of Rukawa's timeless days. It was not love, or lust, or passion, or desperation. It was not something Rukawa understood, nor was it anything he could explain in words. In the stifled and suppressed history of Rukawa's life, Hanamichi had been the only thing that made sense, the only thing that shone through, the secret Rukawa had no choice but to keep hidden.
Rukawa had left him in the winter of their second year, shortly after the kiss.
He remembered the stench of cigarette smoke, the noise of drunken celebration and flushed basketball players with imbecilic grins pasted onto their faces. He remembered the usual punches and blows that brought no pain, the airy, tingling sensation of Hanamichi's skin on his, the hypnotic breathlessness, the spellbinding tension, the captivating fear. The addictive claustrophobia in the fleeting and frantic pinning of Hanamichi's body against the wall, the relentless ticking of seconds like eternities passing them by. The unreadable element which crinkled in the air as Hanamichi's glare became indecipherable, an incomprehensible gaze which for an instant mirrored the buried workings of Rukawa's own soul.
He remembered the deafening stillness of the world coming to an end as he moved forward and their lips met, the rapid and interminable taste of the grace that was Hanamichi, the burning heat and the freezing cold and the blinding rays of darkness and radiance that scarred Rukawa forever in all the places no one could see. He remembered the apocalyptic quiet of the universe crumbling intently into ruins.
The conversion had been swift. Rukawa had applied and been accepted into America in a matter of months, and without warning, had made a characteristically soundless and unknown departure from Shohoku, the place in which he had met the purpose of his existence.
Not a word had been exchanged between them, a situation which Rukawa went to extreme measures to ensure.
He knew that Hanamichi had seen and recognized him in the subway. He could tell from the undetectable tilt of his head, the burst of emotion akin to upheaval which coloured his demeanor, the ephemeral light which glimmered in his eyes.
Rukawa had stepped off the train at the next station without hesitation.
It was not fear, or shame, or stupidity, or instinct which had driven him to do what he did, what he had done ten years before. It was knowledge of life, experience of failed expectations, memory of unfulfilled possibilities, certainty of the simple and merciless truth that nothing - neither effort, hope, persistence, nor love – could ever be enough.
From the age of eleven, when his mother had candidly and brokenheartedly declared that she wished he had not been born - a confession she would continue to repeat in years to come - he had known this as clearly as he knew he was to die; as firmly as he knew that he loved Hanamichi, that he would always love Hanamichi, that Hanamichi was the only person he had ever loved.
And now, a high school drop out, social outcast, and alcoholic at the age of twenty eight, dead to his family and dead in his soul, stifled by countless ventures into and out of rehab, the monotonous droning of AA meetings and futile pseudo-psychological scrutiny - Rukawa knew that there was nothing left to say.
And for the first time since the moment he had set his oblivious infant eyes upon the undying glow of Hanamichi's life, as the bus screeched and dived from the bridge into the welcoming depths of the despairing sea below, Rukawa felt bliss.
Notes:
The fics I have written have been horrible, embarrassing, and undeserving of public viewing. But writing crappy fics is better than writing no fics at all, and this is my first fic in over a year now, so I hope that it's more than a psychological projection of my own feelings.
I have always seen Rukawa as a tragic figure, concealing some sort of sadness behind indifference and silence. I believe in his romantic inclination because his rare bursts of emotion are almost exclusively owing to Hanamichi. This fic is a testament to what kind of character I feel Rukawa is – but perhaps it's dramatized with my own emotional state nowadays.
I don't know whether everyone feels like this once in a while – like there's no escape, no hope, no way to go from here – but somehow I doubt it. Such thoughts are only for depressives, which is not to say that being a depressive character type is a necessarily bad thing, since being depressive gives you the ability to accomplish so many great things, a heightened awareness of the world, an increased understanding of people and how to be considerate.
But I digress. I hope that this fic was alright, despite rusty writing skills.