Disclaimer: I own no characters except the OC, Souta and Taichi. Also based off Sora wo Daite, Oyasumi
Warning: Suicide-related, loss, sorrow, grieve, etc.
The Blue Left Behind is Not Enough to Paint the Sky
The bell to the last period rang melodiously.
Everyone packed up their textbooks and stationaries to head off to their clubs or to hang out with their friends after school. Several students on duty readied themselves to clean the classroom.
Hijikata packed quickly, stood up from his seat and was about to head for the door with his bag in hand when a guy he did not recognize stopped him.
'Hijikata-san, where are you going? You're on duty too.' The boy with sandy-brown coloured hair pointed at his name on the blackboard.
Hijikata frowned. He has something to do that he could not put off after school. He opened his mouth to ask for the favour of excusing him from duty but he saw the guy's friend grabbing his arm.
'Sou-kun! Come, come… come here for a bit.' His friend hurriedly dragged him out of Hijikata's hearing range.
'You're a transfer student so you don't know this but, we always excuse him from after school cleaning duty.' The friend whispered to the guy called Sou-kun.
'Huh? Why? What kind of preferential treatment is that?' Sou-kun complaint. It seemed unfair to him that this "Hijikata" could get out of cleaning duty Scott-free. He has something to do and somewhere to be too but he would not make an excuse out of it to get out of something that he is supposed to do.
'It's not exactly a preferential treatment per se…' the friend hesitated.
Hijikata, who guessed what the content of the whispered conversation is about, asked, 'Is this going to take long? I have somewhere I need to be.'
Hijikata made his way towards the door once again but was blocked by the shorter boy.
'Oh no, you don't… You're not getting out of here that easily.' Sou-kun said whilst his friend worriedly glanced at Hijikata's face to determine his expression. Once again, Sou-kun's friend tugged at him.
'I- it's alright, Hijikata-san… I can help Sou-kun here,… so you can attend to whatever it is that you need to do.' He dragged Sou-kun aside from blocking the opening of the doorway.
Hijikata's frown mellowed and he grunted a small thanks before he was completely out of the classroom.
Those who watched the spectacle sighed with relief but Sou-kun was fuming.
'Why did you let him go, Taichi!' Sou-kun crossed his arms, tapping his foot as he glared at his newly-made friend.
Taichi sighed. Burdened by Souta's ignorance, he made an effort to explain.
'Have you heard the rumours about what happened in this school, two years ago?'
Souta paused to recall something from his memory. 'That student suicide that appeared in the news?'
'Yeah. That's the one. I'm surprised you remembered.'
Souta scratched the back of his head. 'Yeah, well, I remembered my Sis' exaggerated reaction when she saw the news so when I heard that I'm transferring to this school this year, the knowledge was at the back of my mind. But what about it?'
Taichi lowered his voice so that no one else could hear them.
'Apparently, the guy who died was Hijikata's best friend.'
'Really!?' Souta was surprised. From what he saw, Hijikata was the anti-social type. His expressions were cold and his body language demanded people to leave him alone.
To hear that Hijikata had a best friend extorted a gasp of amazement from him.
Taichi nodded. 'Yeah. But that's not all. Some people said, they were more than best friends. They said he was,… that way. ...you know…' Taichi did not finish his sentence.
Souta was not stupid enough to not catch the drift. He can feel his facial expression involuntarily scrunched up in disgust and Taichi gave a small laugh for his success in getting the reaction that he wanted.
Still, 'What does that have to do with allowing him to skip cleaning though?' Souta protested.
'You see, he went berserk in the middle of cleaning once. Apparently it happened when he was cleaning up that desk.' Taichi pointed to the empty desk at the very back. 'It used to be the dead guy's…'
A small understanding dawned on Souta and Taichi continued with a shrug.
'Well, since then, we just let him off for cleaning because we don't know what else might set him off. He had to be restrained by about three teachers that time – just to stop him from thrashing the classroom, so we figured that it's probably better that we clean up without him.'
Souta nodded. 'I guess that's a fair reason…' he murmured as they resumed in stacking the chairs.
Taichi grunted in agreement. 'Yeah, you'll never know what else he might do if he goes all crazy again.'
Hijikata rushed to the train station and caught the leaving train just in time. He seated himself in one of the row of empty seats and saw the sun setting through the window.
It has been two years since he saw the familiar view. The sun setting in the horizon bled red and orange light, the clouds stained with the after-glow as they drifted across. This tragically beautiful scenery always reminded him of those mesmerising eyes of his beloved's.
His inner sadness made him clenched his palm. He knew that his nails would probably make the usual crescent marks, but he felt comforted by the pain – it ties him to this empty reality and it is alright, he thought, as long as he did not break the skin again.
The train stopped with a screeching echo. Hijikata had arrived at the last station. He left the station to walk for a few minutes in the Southern direction and found an arched gate hidden by purple wisteria. He saw the ordered row of tombstones and with practiced knowledge, he made his way to the furthest end of the graveyard. There, he found the still-recent grey tombstone, laid amongst all the other family tombstones.
He crouched down and sat on the pathway. He wiped the tombstone off a non-existent dust.
The grave is in a perfect condition – fresh flowers, lit incense, clean nameplate. One could see that Hijikata did not slack in his maintenance.
But that was not the only thing that he had come for.
He came for the company or perhaps he came to keep him company. Who knows.
The silence became comfortable for him now. After all, dead man cannot talk and all the things that Hijikata had wanted to say, he had unloaded to that clear tombstone on the first few days of its' presence. He had hurled those words in rage even though he knew that he will only hear an echo of himself as an answer.
At the time, there were a lot of regret. There were a lot of tears. There was the sound of his heart, shattering loudly in his ears.
But he managed. He bit his lip and swallowed down those bile of regrets. He closed his eyes and held back his tears.
His heart – he gathered the pieces and threw the fragments away.
In the first few days that he was gone, all Hijikata wanted to do was to curl up next to the cold slab of stone. All he wanted was to be there for him because it was his fault that he was not there for him when he was alive.
His brother stopped him. He said he was acting irrationally. Stop with this foolishness, his words echoed in Hijikata's mind.
His brother was the one most shocked to find out about their relationship. Hijikata on the other hand, was the one most shocked to find his brother raising his voice at him for his love that his brother had called a delusion on his part.
He did not want to hear it. Not on the day of his funeral.
He should have followed him the moment he knew he was gone but he could not.
Because living was the price he had to pay – the price for not being there when he needed him the most.
Hijikata Tamegoro came back home to find the lights still turned off.
He presumed that Toushirou would probably still be grave-visiting. He knew that his brother will not come home until the clock on the wall is pointed to nine; the time for the last train to leave.
He prepared dinner that is consisted of rice, miso soup, a side dish of potato salad and grilled fish. He set the chopsticks and served the food on the dining table, not forgetting to place Toushirou's favourite condiment near his dish.
He turned on the TV as he waited. Several comedy routines passed him by as he constantly strained his ears to listen to the front door that would only creak open an hour later.
Tamegoro greeted Toushirou as his brother took off his shoes at the entrance. He jovially ushered him in for dinner and habitually asked how his day had been. He was met with monotonous indifference but Tamegoro would not give up.
They sat through dinner with one-sided conversation on Tamegoro's part. Toushirou did not initiate a topic of conversation and only replied when he had to. It was a strained relationship, held together with Tamegoro's desperation to patch things up.
Toushirou reached for the bottle of his favourite condiment and Tamegoro stopped himself mid-sentence upon noticing the white bandage covered by the gloves.
'Tosshi, did you hurt yourself again?'
Toushirou retracted his hand back as if he had been burned. Not sure how to answer the question, Toushirou put his hand together to thank for the food and excused himself from the table.
Tamegoro quickly grabbed the leaving arm from across the table.
'Wait! Let me see.'
Toushirou tried to shake it off but his grip was strong.
'It's nothing. I accidentally hurt it in woodwork lesson.' Toushirou murmured.
'Let me attend to it then.' Tamegorou insisted. 'I'm not letting go til you said yes.'
Toushirou could not refuse and so he resigned himself to his brother's care.
Tamegoro unwind the loose bandaging and saw the clotted wounds. The bloody crescent-shaped marks were clearly from the fact that Toushirou dug his nails into his palm until it bled. It was clearly not an injury from the "woodwork lesson" as he had claimed.
Tamegoro left to fetch the first-aid box. He came back soon after and started on sterilizing the wound and firmly tightened it with a fresh bandage.
'All done.' He proudly examined his handiwork.
Toushirou muttered a reluctant thanks and flexed his fingers and found it better than how it was before. Satisfied, he was about to leave for his room when Tamegoro's voice stopped him.
'…You know, I am sorry.' Tamegoro softly whispered. 'It's been two years since then and I know I hadn't spoken much about it until now, but I hope you can find it somewhere in you to forgive me.'
Toushirou was not sure what it was that Tamegoro had wanted him to forgive.
Was it for calling his love for a man a mere delusion? Was it for acting foolishly when he was drowning in grief? Or was it for Tamegoro not being able to accept what he was -and still is-, for his inability to fall in love with anyone else but a man?
'There's nothing to apologize for. It wasn't Nii-san's* fault for pointing out the truth.' Hijikata paused. 'The abnormality lies with me and so there is nothing wrong with being unable to accept it.' He hesitated awhile before he corrected himself, 'accept... me.'
Those words weighed heavily in Tamegoro's heart. He saw how much his words had impacted on his little brother and he could see the self-loathing present in those darkening blue eyes. Sadly, he was not even given the chance to apologize. Is this how our relationship as brothers will end? The thought momentarily crossed his mind.
Toushirou rose from the sofa and took his school bag with him. His steps were composed and measured even though the person himself was in turmoil.
Tamegoro saw the fragile back disappeared behind the corner and heard Toushiro's bedroom door closed with a lonely click.
A/N: Nii-san: the way Tosshi addressed his older brother in this fic. Shorter version of Onii-san.
This was long. A lot is covered. So dramatic. But I like it. Review?