Title: Hidden Smiles - Drabble #5: Letting Go
Word Count: 523 words
Author: Angel (wwwDOTdaunting-silenceDOTnet)
Disclaimer: Obviously, PoT doesn't belong to me.

"If I had known how to let go, maybe then, I would have loved you…"

Drabble #5 : Letting Go

Echizen Ryoma looked at the broken picture frame on his desk. It had been there for the past few months but the boy made no moves to clear the broken pieces off of his desk. He rarely used it, anyway. When his mother and his cousin offered to get rid of it, he refused. He wanted to leave it there. No, he needed to leave it there. Next to the broken frame was another one which was still new and fresh. While the other frame held a picture of Ryoma with a tall bespectacled boy, this one held the picture of him with a taller boy with fairer hair and a mole under his right eye. Ryoma was smiling in the picture too, but one could see that the smile was not as bright as the one he sported in the other photo. Ryoma compared the boys in both pictures and sighed.

He was so much like him. His tennis was something that some players would die for. He even had an air of elegance around him no matter where he went or what he did. He was respected by many, hated and envied by some, and admired by the rest. When he played, he could hit moves that shut people up; his skills made them gasp in awe. In other words, he was so much like him.

"Live. You have a bright future waiting for you."

Ryoma closed his eyes shut. When he was alone like this, those words he said would ring at the back of his head. He would remember the white walls, those white sheets and frail fingers closing around his hands. And then he would remember a pair of broken spectacles and a white tennis racket under his bed. He had taken those items as remembrance because memories weren't enough.

"Forget our forever. We don't have it anymore."

The fair haired boy had been there when Ryoma finally lost his cool and screamed in agony for the first time after a few months of silent grief. It was a week after that that Ryoma saw him in the boy. They went out and spent a lot of time together, but Ryoma found himself incapable of feeling the happiness he once shared with him.

"Let go, Ryoma. Let go, and create another forever with someone else."

That was when he thought he should stop things before it was too late for the other boy. He didn't want to lead him on when his heart was not in it. It would only turn out ugly in the end if they had continued.

"Why?" The other boy had asked. "Why can't you try to love me? He won't come back, Ryoma. No one can come back from death. Why can't you give yourself a chance?"

At that time, Ryoma had only looked at him and smiled sadly.

Picking the broken frame up, he solemnly and longingly gazed at the picture as if it held all the answers in the world.

"Nee, Kunimitsu… Would I have loved Keigo if I had known just how to let go?"

The question was left unanswered.