Fandom: Slam Dunk

Summary: Behind the widest smile hides a grieving man... Beyond the saddest lost lives a loving memory which may drive a mourning soul to an ethereal way of overcoming the tears, the pain and a life steeped in lies...

Title: Will-o-the-Wisp

Author: Hana Rui

Genre: shounen-ai, angst, death-fic

Pairing: Akira Sendoh x Kaede Rukawa [SenRu]

THE DEAD

I have kept a close watch on him ever since that fateful night.

And not a single chance did I catch him shed a tear.

Not one. Never.

I never saw him sad, nor dazed, nor moping in a corner with a lost and devastated look on his expressive face.

Never did see how his normal life should've faltered, shattered by the massive emotional blow.

No such reactions.

Nothing.

Don't you love me anymore, Akira? Have you ever, truly loved me?

I'm about to depart the world completely. In about a couple of hours, I will have to go into the light and be gone forever. Gone without a trace. Gone without the tiniest bit of assurance that you really did feel something special for me. And that you still do...

Do you still love me? Have you ever, truly did?

Where he could be at this time of the night, I couldn't tell. I wouldn't even dare try.

I've gotten tired thinking, of following him around in vain. I'm actually starting to believe he will never ever care enough to spare a single minute of his terrestrial life mourning over me.

What use will it do, anyway? No matter how many tears are shed, a life once taken can never be given back.

It has lost its right to live on earth and is doomed to wait for another chance.

Another lifetime.

But the memories will remain, Akira. I will never be so cruel as to take them away with me.

Won't you even grieve for them, Koi? Won't you even reminisce the times you've spent with me? All the happy, wonderful pasts we have shared together?

Or have you already found someone else with whom you can reap new ones?

Happier and more wonderful times spent with someone of this world. Someone whom you can hug, touch, and talk to and actually get an earthly response.

Someone you can actually kiss without filling your lungs up with the choking airs of fruitless imaginings.

Someone alive and breathing.

Someone so unlike me.

And so like... him.

You have been spending almost all day of every week with your best friend. Gulping down a barrel of booze, strutting up a move… Basically frolicking at my absence. You seem to be having so much fun with him. So much that it has already wiped out all traces of my memory from your mind.

And it's only been forty days since that night…

My attention is suddenly caught by a greenish flicker of light dancing beside my tomb. The will-o-the-wisp-the one true companion I've had since I came over has appeared a little earlier tonight. And along with it comes the delusion, the usual desperate hope that you will finally come see me.

Of course, I know you never will. But, just as the will-o-the-wisp keeps re-appearing every night, so will that wistful thought come haunting me again and again...

Only to once again leave me at the break of dawn, in the brink of tears, with nothing but this feeling of numbing disappointment to accompany my despairing heart.

Until I get another chance of deluding myself at night. Drown myself once again in hopes of you visiting me as I watch the steady, heat-less burning of that delusional light.

Tonight, though, will be my last chance at that elusive miracle.

And it kills me the umpteenth time to think that my faith will never be enough to bring you here in time... To say goodbye.

Will I ever get to see you again?

THE LIVING

I stare unseeingly into space, hardly aware that I am cutting out all routes of blood flow to the cold, pale hand throttling the telephone receiver in a death grip.

Hardly aware that my ear is already getting incensed by the gratingly empty and repetitive sound of the busy tone.

Hardly aware of anything... at all.

In a flash of unsolicited retrospect, a sudden memory leapt into my mind. That conversation I had with him-my so-called best friend-in his very own living room on the night I took him home from a late-night gig.

Actually, it had been more of a confrontation than a usual genial chat shared between friends-one who genuinely cared, and one who seemed too lost to even notice.

"You've been acting pretty weird lately, Akira," I told him as I carefully laid his slightly drunk, heavy frame onto the couch.

"What do you mean, Kosh?" he asked with the usual wide smile plastered on his lips reeking of booze and loads of drunken crap. "I've always been like this. Happy, composed, adorable, good-looking..."

"That's exactly the point!" I found myself sputtering out, my voice latently packed with exasperation. "You're not supposed to be like this! I mean, it's been more than a month since Rukawa-"

"Since my Kaede went to Osaka!" he cut in abruptly, his tone dripping with vexing casualness. "He and his folks are on a bonding vacation. He will be back as soon as matters regarding his family are fixed. I thought I told you that already."

"Akira," my voice was softened with sympathy. "Kaede's not coming back. You know that."

"He told me he will be back, Kosh!" he retorted, instantly reaping up a dander and obviously unmoved by my concern. "What? You're calling my boyfriend a liar?"

"Dammit, Akira!" I countered in seething rage. Whose bubbles wouldn't be burst by such an unperturbed fury in the midst of me showing consideration for his well-being, his welfare? "Kaede's dead!"

"Dammit it, too Hiroaki Koshino!" he spat out, the pressure of his wrath springing him up to his feet. "Stop pestering me with that lie of yours! My Kae-chan is not dead! He's not—"

One crisp slap found its way to his face before I was even aware of what I was doing. I stared at him, stunned as he slowly turned his glowering eyes at me. "I... I'm sorry..."

"He will be back," he whispered in a voice that I almost missed. I watched on in silence as he languidly set himself back on the couch, a solitary tear tracing a distinct trail of bitterness down his cheek. "He never lies..."

It took everything I had to keep my empathic tears at bay. That was the very moment I saw the will-o-the-wisp burning atop my best friend's head. Mirroring all the lies he had been weaving out in there to keep the misery from gobbling him up whole. To keep those crystal beads of grief at the very back of his smiling eyes for the longest time...

"Let it go, Akira," was all I said. "Just... let it go."

And now, he is doing just that. He is finally letting go, just as I told him. But he is doing it in such a way as is opposed to what I meant.

As is opposed to all the divine laws of men.

Slowly, I replace the receiver on the cradle as a wanton tear bails out of one glazed eye. I feel the gravity of the situation crash my pounding heart to pieces as our recent conversation echoed like an unwanted music through my head.

"I will be gone a very long time, Kosh. Take good care of my house for me, okay."

"What do you mean? I'll-I'll come over."

"No, you shouldn't, you dilly-dallying slowpoke." There was something in his mildly jeering tone that somehow pacified the initial anxiety I felt, yet leaving the tiniest hint of apprehension in its wake. "I will be off the moment I put the phone down. I ain't giving you a chance at stopping me. Like I ever did, anyway!" His laughter was ostensibly forced, almost haunted.

"W-Where are you going?"

Silence, long discomfiting silence, before he finally replied in a voice trilling with subtle elation, an unmistakable note of finality... and resignation.

"To Osaka."

The words keep reverberating through my head even as I plop feebly onto my bed, my face set in an expression of mixed anger and agony. I knew what he meant the moment he said those words. I ain't the baka around here, he is! Or was-

"You're a fool, Akira." I find myself whispering into the wind in the midst of tears. "A big, fucking fool!"

I find it best to stay at home tonight. His house being an hour away from my own, I know I don't stand a chance at stopping him, just like what he said. He's right, after all. He has always been. And enraged and embittered as I am, I don't find enough strength and eagerness in me to charge at him and bonk some sanity back into his head.

I'm just his best friend, after all...

Who the hell am I to spoil his happiness?

THE DYING

I begin to feel an ethereal lightness. The very moment I felt the sharp piercing pain in my chest, I knew I was no longer part of this world.

I wonder if this was exactly how you felt when your body got crushed into pieces underneath that blasted ten-wheeler which mercilessly ran over your dad's car. That sleek, red SUV your dad promised to give you on your birthday. You said I was going to be the first person you'll take with you on your first drive around the district.

Do you know how much I have looked forward to that day? I missed a whole night's sleep just thinking about it. You and me together... Driving around town, talking about matters that concern us... You hurtling out some of your cold, jeering retorts here and there while I try my best to grate at your nerves with my eternal smile.

I remember you telling me once how it irritates you to see me smile.

"How can you do that all the time?" you asked over the big bowl of ice cream I bought for the two of us on one of our dates. Or rather, one of those evenings I went all the way to your school to force you to go out with me straight out of basketball practice. You never wanted me to call it a "date". You said it sounded awkward.

"Do what all the time?" I asked, casually scooping up a spoonful and shoveling it into my mouth.

"Smile." You kept digging idly into the ice cream as I took in my second big scoop. All the while keeping my eyes intently locked on you. Do you know how fascinating you looked to me when you talk? You hardly ever did, but when you do it just... delighted me. Like a kid seeing his favorite superhero come to life.

"What's wrong with that? Don't you like seeing me smile?"

You stopped playing with the ice cream and met my eyes squarely. "I do."

"Case closed," I declared before stuffing my mouth up with more of that frozen treat. I needed to keep my mouth busy to restrain it from sucking at your lovely lips instead.

"You smile at everybody, that's the case," you said with a hint of accusation, digging your poor spoon deeper into the slowly ebbing mound of dessert. "And everybody else ends up liking it, almost as much as I do. You'll smile up at a murderer and he'll think of raping you first before killing you. Given that the fucking murderer's straight! I hate it!"

My brows arched so high, they almost detached from my face and fell on the table. I could hardly believe the heights your imagination had reached just because you hated my smile. And that's only after you told me you liked seeing me with it!

Sometimes, I just found it hard and perplexing to try to understand you. But that's also exactly what has made me this attracted to you.

On that very night, over that bowl of ice cream I ended up eating alone, I suddenly found myself wondering if you ever thought of raping me whenever you saw me smile.

'Coz I knew I always thought of doing you whenever you come into view—glaring, glowering, frowning, sulking, even while wearing the blankest look on your face.

God alone knew what I would think of doing to you once I see you smile.

I planned on asking you during the drive you have promised to give me. Then, perhaps, even make you smile. And if we both get lucky and nasty enough, we could do a little demonstration in some secluded area of the district.

But, of course, I never got the chance to ask you, nor see that coveted twisting of your lips. You never got to know what God has in store for you... For both of us.

Your birthday has passed, Kaede. You never got the car. We never went on the drive.

Since the accident, I have been alone, merely forcing myself through the longest month in my life. Trying hard not to grieve over your death. Blindly believing the lies I have woven out to keep the tears at bay.

Not knowing that by doing so, I was slowly killing myself from within.

You said you would only be gone for a couple of weeks. You were supposed to spend your birthday with me. You have never breached on your word, especially not on me. So, after more than a month of waiting in vain, it finally struck me that something bad has happened to you.

Of course, I have always known that, but have always chosen to deny it. Now, however, I have finally decided to open my eyes to the scathing reality. The truth that everybody has been trying to force into my head...

You're dead. In a single snap of fate, you ceased existing in this world. Like a passing wind... An evanescent breath... A love I will never be able to see nor touch ever again…

But my heart has never stopped longing for a sight of you. It will never do.

I may never be able to work out a miracle, but if you're never gonna be able to come back to me, then I guess I will just have to come to you...

And I don't need much of a miracle to do that, do I?

I watch on as the crimson river of life drained from my body and slowly pooled around its immobile frame. It sure feels strange looking at yourself dying helplessly on the floor while you are left to stand in one corner, wondering momentarily how and why you got so suddenly detached from that familiar medium.

And then you become aware of the celestial buoyancy, leaving no more rooms for questions… Willing you to go and just flow with the wonders of it all.

I close my eyes tightly and allow a smile to touch my lips as I let myself be carried off by the lightness. I don't know how I know it, but I'm sure it's taking me to where you are. Where we could relive the passion, the undying affection that has wielded my heart to yours forever.

No more tears...

No more pain...

No more lies...

-ETERNITY-