Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Laura Marling's "Alas, I Cannot Swim", her song "Ghosts" from said album, Eyeshield 21, nor Skype. I do not profit from any of these stories.
CLAY
Ghosts
Juumonji frowned. That wasn't Sena's nose, was it? Had it always been so squat? So pugish? No, it was cute and buttonish; it lead up to sweet-as-chocolate-brown eyes that always reflected love, even over Skype video chats from the U.S. when said eyes had also been strained from the distance and worry that Juumonji would grow as far distant emotionally just as physically.
A small, tender smile crept across the blond's face then, as he remembered his lover's unconditional affection. He leaned back, then, from his labor and, instead, picked up one of the many photographs that were scattered over his smudged coffee table and regarded his departed partner. Yup. Button nose.
"You seriously… it's not alright, Kazu-chan." A voice drifted from the now-open door.
The tender smile soured. He hated it when his friends showed up out of the blue; it usually ended up with confrontations like this.
Scowl still firmly upon his face, Juumonji swung around on his rotating stool to address Toganou.
"I'm expressing myself," Juumonji waved the unoccupied hand airily, "The councilor told me to, you should be happy."
Toganou hovered in the doorway uncertainly, clutching a bag of take-away and watching his childhood friend carefully. "Well, yeah, but, I think she meant, you know, expressing grief."
The scarred student shrugged indifferently. He knew he should feel bad that Toganou and Kuroki had come all the way from Tokyo to support him after Sena's death, and he knew he should be more considerate, considering they were still hurting too from their friend's death, but why should he show grief for someone he didn't consider dead?
"I don't want you going crazy at nineteen!" Toganou snapped, reading Juumonji better than any book thrown at him in high school.
"Why don't you just go over to Mamori's and stare at the chair that Sena used to sit in and group hug and cry on each other's shoulders." Juumonji retorted lazily, and turned back to the terra-cotta bust of Sena that he was sculpting. Eventually he'd have to make Sena a body too, but the trickiest part, in his opinion, was capturing the beauty, the childishness, the mischief, the innocence, the love, the determination, the Sena-ness of his face.
"Asshole." Toganou hissed. He couldn't believe his best friend, mocking the unofficial headquarters of the former and current Devil Bat team member support center. "You utter asshole." He yelled, launching the boxed lunch at Juumonji's head, even more pissed when his best friend batted it to the floor.
He held in screams of anger at Juumonji's lack of grief, cries of fear that Juumonji was slowly descending into madness—evidenced by the coffee table piled thickly with photos of Sena from every possible angle, and some, perhaps, more… intimate photos among them, and the life-sized bust of Sena that Juumonji preferred to work upon in secret, despite the moist canvas he draped over it when he knew someone was coming over, an imagined-furtive desire to re-create his lover, badly hidden in a corner of his living room—and trembled at his helplessness, trapped in his own grief and unable to pull Juumonji out of his.
"Why do you even bother with this bullshit?" Toganou asked after a long pause. "What? Do you believe in everlasting love? You believe that you and he were destined for each other?" He ridiculed cruelly as he watched Juumonji frown and sort through the handful of photos he'd picked up from the table in an attempt to figure out how to capture Sena's nose. Juumonji glanced up briefly, his frown deepening, before shaking his head in a clear dismissal and returning to the pictures.
"I may not have given him my full attention, but even half-aware, I know I saw him leave with tears streaking down his face." He told not-Toganou, and picked up a small, polished rock to smooth Sena's nose.
"You know he's just driving you mad." Not-Kurita warned, with tears in his eyes. "We all loved him too; he was my third friend ever. He's the one, with Hiruma-kun, that brought us all together, but we know we need to move on, we need to honor his memory, but not live for it."
"You really think you can bring him back from the dead? What makes you so special that you don't have to suffer what the rest of humanity has to suffer? Why are you so special that you get a second chance?" A not-Yukimitsu asked from the couch, and settled previously ignored course-work on the table. "Just give up and get back to class, honor his memory by excelling, not by chasing magic."
"He was fucking hot, I'll give you that." A not-Agon drawled from where he was picking though the photos for the nudes. "But necrophilia is fucking gross, just go pick-up some pussy." He goaded.
Juumonji resolutely ignored them – the voice of compassion, coaxing him, the voice of reason, persuading him, the voices of torment, taunting him. That bastard could throw what he liked at Juumonji, but the scarred lineman wouldn't fall to his knees and give up. He knew that the demons were only here to pull him off task, to prevent him from saving Sena, to steal his soul for reneging on the deal.
Instead, the tender smile once again spread across Juumonji's face, this time, a perfect match to the one being slowly sculpted across Sena's.