Someone Missing

There were five of them, five of them always.

But, actually, there were only four.

It was some sort of a phenomena, something all four of them knew, but couldn't explain. All of them felt it, that something-- no, someone-- was missing, but they didn't know how or why. For as long as they could remember, that feeling was there. That they were incomplete.

Each of them would look at their group as one of five, but then a situation would present itself and they'd realize there were only four of them after all. All four felt this. They never discussed it though. They simply knew that each other knew and felt the same thing. They just knew that similar thoughts ran in their minds in those many, many instances when--

There were five of them, five of them always.

But, actually, there were only four.

They were incomplete.

"Ayuko!"

Ayuko stopped and whirled around at the sound of her voice, brown bangs settling over his eyes as he finished his turn. His friend stood a few feet away from where he was, cheeks slightly flushed from chasing after him, and Ayuko found himself smiling slightly at the sight.

"Rokua, what is it?" he asked her.

Rokua recovered her breath quickly enough, and she straightened from her slightly bent-over position, brushing imaginary dust off her skirt. Her hair was up in its usual high ponytail, and for the umpteenth time Ayuko noted that he had never seen it tied in any other way before. When he had asked her about it before, Rokua had merely shrugged her shoulders and told him it just felt right to have her hair like that. Oh, and that it really wasn't his business.

Ayuko really couldn't complain though. It was what brought them together as friends after all-- Rokua's hair. No, not her hair. Her entire appearance actually, though it was her hair that he had spotted first over the girl's backyard fence while swinging in a nearby playground. It wasn't as if Ayuko picked his friends by their looks alone however. No, he wasn't like that at all. It was just that there was something extremely familiar with how Rokua seemed to him...although he was fairly certain he knew no one that even looked remotely like her.

"Ayuko?" Rokua's sharp voice pulled him out of his thoughts and his eyes immediately snapped from her hair towards her face. He gave her his best guilty-sheepish look. Rokua's disapproving glare just softened the slightest. "Have you listened to even a single word I've said?" she demanded, and Ayuko remembered that there was something familiar about the way she would yell at him too.

"Um...no. Sorry," he said quickly, willing the ground to open up and swallow him. Of course, no such luck. He brought his arms up to prevent the whacking he knew he was going to be in the receiving end of pretty soon from doing much damage, but it never came. Rokua was obviously in a hurry.

"Well, Dukorou said he'll meet us in the ice cream shop later today because it's so hot." Of course. Rokua, ever the manager of their little group. Ayuko often suspected that she kept tabs on everyone's whereabouts and such. With that little notebook she often had with her, it wasn't unlikely. "Something came up, so I can't come. Please tell him and Rouji that I'm sorry-- well, really I am! Dukorou's treating all four of us to ice cream later!"

Ayuko chuckled as Rokua left him right after her statement, saying she was late for her next class. He waved his arm even though the girl wasn't looking back at him to be able to see it, shouting "I'll tell them!" right after her.

What Rokua said registered in both of their minds. Neither of them found anything wrong with it however. At least, not right then. Rokua would realize her mistake the moment she steps into her classroom while it would dawn on Ayuko after he finishes washing his hands in the restroom. The words had flowed out easily from Rokua's lips and they didn't sound strange at all to Ayuko's ears but--

The thing was, there were only three people for Dukorou to treat to ice cream.

That particularly warm afternoon found them in their favorite sweet shop, happily eating their fast-melting sundaes. Although there were only three of them, they sat on a table for five. It was merely out of habit. Rokua was definitely not coming-- she had stopped Rouji in the halls earlier after deciding Ayuko would probably forgot. Needless to say, Ayuko didn't feel particularly flattered after hearing about it.

Rouji and Ayuko sat on one side of the table, while Dukorou sat across it from the first boy. Rokua usually sat on the chair to the side adjacent from them, across the table from the window. Beside Dukorou, across from Ayuko and against the window, was an empty chair. They had never used it to hold their things however, even on days when their table proved too small to hold all their stuff.

Luckily for them, today was not such a day.

Dukorou sat quietly, one hand on a book he held in front of his face, the other loosely around a silver spoon which he used to scoop cold ice cream into his mouth now and then, not once tearing his eyes away from whatever it was he was reading. Rouji, who had finished his ice cream already, sat happily eating a couple of red bean buns, his closed book abandoned on top of some of Ayuko's. Ayuko himself was reading a book intently, much more so than Dukorou, his brows furrowed in concentration and his ice cream remaining untouched for minutes now. Dukorou looked up from his book in time to see his friend twitch. He let out a mental sigh.

Three...

Two...

"Aaah--!"

"--Aaah!" joined Rouji, startled. Dukorou returned to his book with a hardly imperceptible shake of the head. Rouji stopped screaming-- some dozen seconds after Ayuko did-- and made a face at his smaller friend. "What's wrong with you? What's the shouting all about?"

Surprisingly, Ayuko wasn't laughing.

"It's this--this--this thing! I don't understand any of it!" Ayuko whined. Neither of his two companions were really surprised with it though. "All these computations and stuff, how am I supposed to understand all these weird symbols?"

Rouji leaned over the table, trying to look at the title of the book Ayuko was reading. Straightening, he then grinned, like he had thought of a great idea or something. "Can't help you there, buddy, sorry. But why don't you ask--" he stopped abruptly, a frown forming on his lips. What name was he was going to say again? He couldn't remember.

Dukorou looked up from his book, thinking Rouji was pointing at him, but the larger male's half-raised hand was directed at the empty seat next to him instead. One blond eyebrow arched gracefully, and it didn't take very long for Rouji to notice his own absent-minded gesture. His arm dropped abruptly to the table with a dull thud.

"Hey..."

The baseball player turned to the other brunette seated at the table, smiled, and shook his head. "Why don't you ask...Rokua to help you?" he finished his earlier statement, sounding uncertain even to himself.

"Yeah...right," Ayuko replied, sounding just as unsure. Rokua was bright, but Dokorou was better than her in math. He was a good teacher too. Still, Ayuko couldn't help but think that there was someone else...

Three pairs of eyes strayed to one of the two empty seats, the one that was not Rokua's. And, they wonder, 'What is it doing there..?'

Dokorou hoisted his drawstring bag over his shoulder and started for the dojo's entrance. He stopped just right outside, looking around and allowing the familiar feeling of slight pain to wash over him when he saw no one. He was quite used to it by now. Each time he would anticipate someone by the door waiting for him to walk with him home, but would never find anyone there. He himself didn't know who he was expecting to see however, so it really didn't make any sense altogether.

Before he came to Japan, Dokorou had been an empty child. He was so void of life that anyone who saw him would come to worry for him. He didn't care for any of them however. In fact, it would be more accurate to say that he didn't care for anything or anyone at all.

But that all changed when he moved with his family to his father's home country, and he met Ayuko, Rokua and Rouji. He was never a sociable child, but something about those three had immediately drawn him to them. It was as if he had found a missing part of himself. Living had never felt better after that. Ayuko, Rokua and Rouji were his first--some would say only--friends and he felt extremely blessed to have them.

Still, there remained that sense of loneliness. He knew that the others felt it too, but considered himself enduring the worst of it. While his three friends made sure never to leave him out of anything, he still had this odd sort of detachment towards them. Even when they were together. Dokorou figured that it couldn't be helped. Ayuko was best friend to both Rokua and Rouji, and held their bond, the one he couldn't seem to share, well.

Not that they hadn't tried. Ayuko, Rokua, and Rouji-- all of them had tried to name him his or her best friend. Dokorou had politely refused each in turn however. Three was always a crowd (and in Ayuko's case, four was already a congregation) and while the three of them seemed to get along well, he didn't think himself fit for a three-man relationship like theirs.

And, really, it just didn't feel right to have one of them as his best friend...

He came across the article that morning, and by accident really. The picture had caught his eye, and he was done with the first paragraph before he even realized what he was doing. Dokorou didn't usually read the news. If he ever had the unusual urge to know what was going on with the rest of the world that he rarely paid mind to, he would switch the TV on or go over the internet. Most likely the latter. While the ignorant would say that the net is full of trash, he considered the media even worse. They let out so many things. So many unnecessary things.

This guy eloped with this girl, this man's house burned while this one got robbed, this woman found her husband cheating, this boy...

Oddly enough, the article he found so interesting was one such kind of news, one that really didn't concern most of the rest of the society. Including himself. But Dokorou borrowed the paper from his father, right before excusing himself from the breakfast table. His mother asked if he was alright as he stood up and he shook his head. He felt fine, but he too didn't know why his voice sounded choked like that.

Once inside his room, he threw the paper open on his bed and laid down on his stomach. He read the article again and again, like he couldn't believe what it said. A part of him didn't want to believe it.

The boy he saw on the paper was named Soukekyu and, while he looked younger, was the same age as him. He died two days ago, during a held-up at a local convenience store. He sacrificed his life to save the store clerk, a young girl named Naflan, who he didn't even know. A modern day hero. The small newspaper article was all the recognition he would ever get however.

Dokorou turned the paper to look at the picture again. Soukekyu lived in the same city as him, but he was certain he had never seen the guy in his entire life. Never. He didn't even know his name or his age until he had read the article. He didn't know the boy, he didn't. So he really shouldn't feel so lost after reading of his death. He really shouldn't be bothered that Soukekyu had left already. He really shouldn't feel pain he had never known until now in his heart...

Serious dark eyes stared back at him from the picture, short black hair peeking from underneath a red bandanna. He watched the photo blur before him for a second, and then something moist smudged the image of the boy's brown jumper. His hand raised to his cheek, and he was surprised to find it wet with tears.

He really shouldn't be crying like this...

-END-

Disclaimer: I don't own CrushGear Turbo.

Author's Notes: Craptastic, huh? I haven't written anything for so long...Anyway, the idea (and basic plot) of this fic is, sadly, not an original of mine. I wrote this after reading the Saiyuki fic "The Missing Fourth". If you're a Saiyuki fan, then I highly recommend reading it. It's short and very, VERY angsty.

T5 - Incarnation

Kouya - Ayuko (sounds like a girl's -.-)
Kaoru - Rokua (sounds like a guy's -.-;;)
Jirou - Rouji (um...sounds cool? xD)
Kuroudo - Dokorou (sounds kinda strange O.o)
Kyousuke - Soukekyu (sounds kinda strange-er O.O)

Lan Fan - Naflan (flan...yummy :))