by Shiraume

(November 15, 2004)

God, he’s back again. I resist the urge to groan, and your laughter rings in the empty space next to me as your cool lips brush against my ear. You always ignore him anyway, you whisper.

“…Please don’t do this to yourself.”

But you know… your voice is a ghost of a whisper, cool wind brushing past my ear. He won’t go away if you ignore him enough. Cold fingers trace up my forearm playfully, and I’m half-tempted to smack your hand away.

Except that would never work, would it?

“…and he’s not doing well, either. We can’t have both of you like this…”

You can’t make him go away by ignoring him. Your whisper finds its way to my ear, insistent. Icy prickles dance up my spine, startling me. After all, you always ignored me. There is a lilt of amusement in your voice, and I shiver.

But I didn’t go away. The ring of your voice is real this time, clear, and my head whips around to look for you automatically. And as always, you are not here.

“You haven’t been eating, either.” I finally force my attention back to my friend – my only friend? – who is staring at me with concern in his eyes.

“I just don’t feel like it,” I tell him, and sigh inwardly when I see his eyes light up at such a simple response. He talks to me even when I don’t respond to him, trying to draw me away, away from memories, away from you.

But he can’t, can he? You laugh softly in my other ear, breath cool against my skin, except I know you can’t have breath. Not anymore.

Now you’re just being mean. I hear the pout in your voice. If I could see your face, I imagine I would see an uncharacteristic pout replacing the usual, gentle smile. If I saw it, I would think it an expression that suited Kikumaru a lot better.

I turn to look at you, and as always, look at empty air. I hear you always, in my sleep, in my waking hours, everywhere I go, but I never see you. I don’t know what scares me more, that I hear you like this, or that I’m sorry I don’t see you as well.

That’s funny. You never saw me when I was still…

“Shut up,” I say aloud, and he looks at me with surprise.

“Uh, did you say something?” he asks innocently, as if he did not hear me. As if he thought I didn’t know what he was thinking. He would say I was being uncharacteristically impatient, brusque.

I’m just being honest. Why shouldn’t I be? You’re not here anymore.

Are you sure about that?

No, I am not sure. I never was. I never knew where I stood, with you.

And now you never will. You sound reflective, not teasing. So you would drive yourself crazy with a room full of…well, me?

“I know I’m crazy,” I say aloud, and he flinches. I wasn’t even talking to him, but it’s just as well.

“You know you’re not crazy,” he tells me patiently, his eyes full of compassion and kindness. “You’re just grieving. We all are.”

I laugh. It startles him, I can tell. As close as he is to me, he has never heard me laugh, either.

“No, I just hear him. Everywhere,” I tell him, voice just a little shy of hysterical. “I hear him even now, you know.”

“Stop it,” he whispers. I had forgotten. He was close to you, too, wasn’t he? Closer than I ever was to you, at least in public. After all, he cares about everyone on the team.

It’s not like you to be forgetful, you whisper, teasing and disapproving at once. Or thoughtless, you add, almost as an afterthought.

In the meantime, he has collected himself, pushing aside his own pain in favor of mine.

“You can’t destroy yourself over what happened. Not even over…him. He would never have wanted you to do this.” He sounds so pained. His last words are but a whisper. A pang of regret seizes me and I reach out to touch his hand, only to stop myself and grab a glass of water instead. I never used to offer gestures of comfort or support before. Doing so now…how would that help?

It might help if you stopped lying to yourself, you know.

“Tell me,” I say quietly, reflectively, “if he doesn’t want me to ‘destroy myself,’ as you put it, then why do I keep hearing him?” I know the last part was vicious, and I feel another pang of guilt as he flinches again, the remaining blood draining from his face.

“You don’t. You just think you do, because you can’t let him go. Because you don’t want to lose him,” he replies at last.

Spoken like a true psychologist. I should have known Oishi would turn out to be a psychologist when he started whipping out personality tests for the team. I laugh again, and he looks away as if he cannot bear to look at me.

“You might try telling him that,” I say when the last of my laughter dies out. Then, I calmly take a sip of water from the glass in my hand. Instead of flinching as before, he gets up abruptly, walking to the door. I can’t be sure whether I’m relieved or disappointed.

You’ve been trying to get rid of him, you realize.

Was I?

“…How’s your shoulder?” He doesn’t turn back to look at me as he asks. I automatically reach for my left shoulder with my free hand. It doesn’t hurt anymore. It hasn’t, not since the...accident.

There, I can say it to myself now.

Took you long enough.

I grit my teeth. “It’s fine.”

“…the Nationals…”

“We’ll win the Nationals,” I say firmly. “With or without him,” I add, voice quieter. His hand on the door trembles, but he nods, once.

“Will you be ready by then? The team needs you.”

“I’ll be ready,” I assure him – myself? – and wish I felt as confident as I sounded. I take another sip, but the water tastes bitter, acrid in my throat.

“Echizen –”

“Don’t say that name!” I nearly scream, and he starts, turning to face me with surprise clear on his face. “I don’t want to hear about it,” I manage to say with a little more restraint this time, my knuckles white over the glass I’m clutching with both hands. He looks at me with that pained expression that says he understands everything. But he doesn’t. He wasn’t there. He didn’t see – doesn’t know –

Really? But neither do you.

“…I’ll come by again later.” He walks out without looking back, and I’m glad. I drain the water and set the glass back on the table beside the bed. I can’t stand his sympathetic glance. Not now.

You mean, not ever. Your breath is closer again, next to my ear. I can almost see you leaning closer to speak, a playful smirk on your lips. You would always draw closer than decency should allow, invading personal space, speaking in low murmurs that made ears strain to catch the words. You would angle your head just so your breath would brush against the cheek, the ear, ruffling the hair around the earlobe.

And you would never do any of those again. All because of him.

It’s easier to blame him, isn’t it? Easier to make it his fault.

“It is his fault.” I mutter stubbornly. I’m glad Oishi left. No one is here now to give me strange looks if I talk to you. You laugh softly, just behind my ear, the same way you always do.

So you never ignored me? Never pretended I didn’t exist because I just didn’t fit into your neat, ordered life?

“I respected you –”

Which isn’t the same thing. You can’t deny it, can you? You’ve always ignored me, until you didn’t have to anymore.

I don’t answer. I don’t know what to say. There was no part of me that said, “I will wait until we are both in high school to engage in a relationship.” I always just assumed there would be enough time, after the Nationals ended, after the high school entrance exams were finished. Enough time to tell you how I felt about you, and then you would tell me how you felt about me, and we would be able to make up for all the lost time, the time we both had dedicated to the team…

But now, I will never have a chance to tell you. You will never know. All because of him. You’re gone because of him, and it’s all his fault!

Do you regret it now? Your voice is softer, but not gentler. With you, I’ve long since learned to tell the difference.

“Yes.”

Did you love me?

“…Yes.”

Cold lips brush against my neck and I shiver again.

Do you love me even now?

“…yes…”

Sleep, you tell me, and your cool hands are now gentler, softer. It’s difficult to sleep with ghastly hands caressing my hair, massaging my temples, but I eventually manage to fall into a dreamless sleep.

Finis