Chapter 10

The flowers were fresh-cut red roses, as they usually were.  As usual he split them between the three graves; two large, and one small one in the middle.  There was no one else to put flowers on the graves, and the flower-bringer knew that man he was honoring would want them to be shared.  As usual he stood and stared at the graves for a time, collecting his thoughts about them and the world at large.  And as usual he bowed to each grave before leaving, saving his friend for last.  He walked away as the setting sun illuminated the last grave he had bowed to for the last time before it sank below the hills.

Benjamin Mathew Hawthorne

Born to be a great man,

Died a great man.

The sun already cast shadows on the date of birth and of death, obscuring them, but Blues knew it had only been a few weeks since Benny had died.  Now he lay in eternal rest, beside his wife and son, like he always wanted to be.  Blues had done all he could, making sure there was enough money to send Benny’s body back home to be buried alongside his family.  He knew it couldn’t make up for the man being dead, but he hoped that somewhere it counted for something.

Blues wandered around the graveyard a little more before leaving, his gloved hands shoved into his pockets.  Now that Deirdre was gone to make her own way in the world and Rock was back home, his apartment seemed big and empty.  It had gotten to a point where he had almost decided to go back to roaming, but the thought of having nothing to come home to bothered him now, like it never had before.

The sun was gone now, and the darkness was creeping up fast.  Blues left at last, his light fading on him faster then he expected it too.  But when he landed, he wasn’t in his apartment.  Instead he found himself on a hill outside of Dr. Light’s lab, looking inside through a large window that hadn’t been there the last time he had seen it.  So that’s what they did with the big hole in the wall, he thought with amusement.

Through the window he could see Rock, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, stretched out on the floor, teasing Tango with a sock, who was not taking the bait.  Roll was knitting nearby and Dr. Light was reading a book, with Rush curled up at his feet.  For a moment the scene made something in Blues’ lower abdomen twist painfully, but he repressed it before the cause of it could make itself known to his brain.

Blues turned away, having seen enough.  He walked slowly down the hill, still dreading returning to his apartment.

“Wait!” 

Blues turned, startled at the call, to find Rock running up to him, Tango tucked under one arm.  Blues briefly thought about running, but for some reason, the impulse that had been so strong only a few days before wasn’t there now.

“Konnichi wa, Rock,” he greeted.  “Good afternoon.”

Rock skidded to a stop in front of Blues and bowed in greeting.  “Konnichi wa, Blues.”

“What brings you barreling out here, Rock?”  Blues smiled.

“I saw you through the window,”  Rock explained.  “Please, Blues, I need to talk to you.  Will you let me do it?”

“Why don’t you come with me?”  Blues suggested.  “I knew the perfect place.”

 “Why’d you pick up here?”  Rock asked, swinging his legs back and forth.  “So you could push me off if I got on your nerves?”

“What, never had a heart-to-heart on top of a skyscraper before?”  Blues teased, refraining from swinging his legs.  Tango was sitting on his lap, and he was afraid the motion would cause the cat to dig his claws into Blues’ calves.  It was not an experience Blues wanted to have.

“Well, yeah,”  Rock admitted.  “Where are we?  It’s so dark here.”

“Somewhere in America,”  Blues answered.  “Can’t remember where at the moment.”

Rock studied the lights of the surrounding city.  “It’s so beautiful.  It’s like the cities where we live, expect not so crowded.”

“It’s not a very big city,”  Blues admitted.

For awhile nothing but silence passed between them.  The noise of the city below was muted due to the height of the skyscraper, yet it was enough to fill the air between them.

“Do you still hate me, Blues?”  Rock asked suddenly.

Blues was silent, thinking about it.  “Do you still think I want to kill you?”

“No,”  Rock said after thinking about it.

Blues nodded his acceptance of that.  “I don’t hate you, Rocky.  I…  I now realize I was wrong to do so to begin with.  Will—can you forgive me?”

“Yes,”  Rock looked at him.  “I forgive you, Blues.”

Blues let his breath out, not realizing until then that he had been holding it.

“Blues?” 

“Yeah?”

“Is that why you attacked me when we first met, because you hated me?”  Rock went back to swinging his legs back and forth gently.

“Partly,”  Blues acknowledged.  “During my wanderings, I heard rumors of Wily gone nuts and trying take over the world.  When I came back, as my luck would have it, the first person I ran into was Wily.  He tried to win me over to working for him, by telling me everything from the truth to outrageous lies.  Wily knew perfectly well I hated his guts, and the feeling was mutual, but he knew I was the best chance he had to taking you down.  And…  he got to me.  I believed him, although I knew he wasn’t trustworthy.  Even after I learned what he had really been up to and returned you to Dr. Light, I still continued to work for him to earn his trust.”

“Until you rescued Calinca Cossack,”  Rock injected.

“Yeah,”  Blues laughed.  “It wasn’t until then that he realized I had been playing him for a fool.  He liked me even less after that.”

“And Papa?”  Rock knew he was pushing it, but he had to know.

“I still have issues with Light, Rock,”  Blues shook his head.  “Issues that will take a long time to resolve.  But I’m not going to murder him, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“No…”  Rock said.  “I’m not.  But I suppose…  I understand.”

Tango chose this moment to rub against Blues’ chest in an attempt to get the mysterious robot to pet him.  Blues did so, muttering,  “I thought you hated me, cat.”

“Tango hasn’t been his normal self since you left,”  Rock said.  “He’s been moping around all the time.  He wasn’t even tempted to steal Rush’s sock the other day!”

“You miss Deirdre?”  Blues asked Tango. 

The cat shook its head and stared at him with wide eyes.

“I think it’s you he misses, Blues,”  Rock said, smiling a bit.  “We had a talk, Tango and the rest of my family, and if you want him, he’s yours.”

“Mine?”  Blues stared at Tango in shock.  “But I thought he didn’t even like me!”

“Like I said, Tango’s a pretty good judge of character,”  Rock chirped brightly.  “He wants to stay with you.”

“Is that true?”  Blues asked the cat.  Tango nodded vigorously.  “Well, then, if he wants to follow me around, I guess I can’t stop him.”

Rock let out a cheer as Tango purred loudly in Blues’ lap.  “I knew you’d take him!”  Now you won’t be so alone anymore, he added silently to himself.

His fate settled, Tango leaped off Blues to explore the rest of the skyscraper’s roof.

“Oh, I see,”  Blues mockingly shook a fist at Tango.  “All that rubbing up against me was just you kissing up so I’d take you!  Well, I know your game now, cat.  It won’t work next time!”

Rock laughed hysterically as Tango twitched his tail in Blues’ direction, otherwise ignoring the threat.

Blues sighed and lit a cigarette.

“Why do you smoke, Blues?”  Rock asked, wrinkling his nose in disgust.  Tango made a noise as if to agree with Rock.  “It is a dirty, human habit, if you’ll excuse me for saying so.”

Blues felt a tinge of anger at the mention of human habit and regarded the cigarette for a minute.  “You know what?”  he asked.  “You’re right.  It is a stupid habit.  I just picked it up to get on people’s nerves, really.”  He flicked the cigarette out into the air and pitched the rest of the pack with it for good measure.  “There.  Happy?”

Rock solemnly watched the pack fall to the ground.  “That’s called littering,”  he pointed out.

“Well, you’re just never satisfied, are you?”  Blues tackled Rock and pushed him backwards onto the roof.  The two wrestled a bit, until Blues began to tickle Rock unmercifully.  “Had enough yet, Rocky?”

“Yes, cut it out!”  Rock howled, nearly paralyzed from Blues’ attack.  “You’re the only one who calls me Rocky, you know,”  he said when he had recovered.

“Would you rather be called Rock-Head?”  Blues asked.  “Or Rocks-For-Brains?”

“No!”  Rock protested.  “Rocky’s fine.  I like it.”

“Good,”  Blues smiled.  “Although I think Rock-Head fits you better.”

“Does not!”

“Tango!”  Blues called.  The cat obediently ran over to him.  Guess he really is serious about staying with me,  Blues thought.  “Time to go, squirt.”

“Ahhh…”  Rock whined.

“Now don’t do that,”  Blues admonished.  “You’ll see me again, I promise.”

“Really?”  Rock’s eyes lit up.

“Really,”  Blues nodded, touching his shoulder.  Rock closed his eyes as the familiar feeling of teleportation surrounded him.  When he opened them again, he was in front of the lab.  Neither Blues nor Tango was in sight.

“See you again, brother,”  Rock whispered.  “Good luck to both of you.”

  Dr. Light studied the numerous pictures on the walls of his study and sighed.  He then went rummaging through his various cabinets and desk drawers, tossing aside papers, odd bits of bolts and nuts, and even an old pair of reading glasses.  He finally found what he was looking for in the last drawer he examined: a large envelope with DRN: 000 written on it.

He opened it and let the continents spill out onto his desk.  Official papers, small vid-disks, and a bunch of Dr. Light’s own personal notes fell out.  Last to come out was a medium-sized picture.

Dr. Light picked it up and looked at it.  It was a picture of Blues, back when they had first created him.  He was dressed in sneakers, jeans and a red t-shirt, and wore a pair of sunglasses over his eyes.  His arms were folded and he was wearing a mysterious half-smile on his face.

The day the picture was taken was one in which Blues was being especially uncooperative.  Dr. Light couldn’t convince him to remove his sunglasses and no matter how many times he told Blues to smile, he only managed to get the strange little half-smile Blues so frequently now wore.  Dr. Light had saved the best picture out of five tries, had put it away and forgotten about it.  Until now.

He carefully slipped the picture into a frame and hung it on the wall, right next to a picture of the all the household.  Now he had pictures of his whole family on the wall.  It made it seem more…  complete, somehow.

It wouldn’t account for much, Dr. Light knew, but at least the next time Rock saw it he would smile.  And maybe…  maybe someday Blues would see it and smile too.  Dr. Light could only hope.

Owari

(The End)

Author’s notes:  Hello, minasan!  I thought I’d put my Japanese to good work while writing a story based on the original Japanese side of everyone’s hero, Mega Man, but along the way it developed and ran amuck in several different directions that I wasn’t planning on!  However, I hope it still achieved its purpose (what that was I can’t remember at the moment) and was entertaining and all that jazz.

I owe a big thanks to Blues and Wytwolf for putting up with all my annoying questions about proper usage, Tango’s gender, and such.  I owe another big thanks to Tanzie Tea for writing a story that inspired me to do mine, as well as a thanks to Catalyst for posting my stuff to begin with.  One last thanks to Knightblade, Chibi Anubis, and my friend Chee for reviewing it and pointing out any stupid spelling/grammar mistakes.  Oh, and another thanks to my Nihongo sensei for answering all my last minute questions on the last day of class.

The street scenes are taken from my experience in Japan.  I did see a window with Doraemon (the blue cat thingy Rock was looking at) on it.  The lights do make a sound when they change, so that blind people know when to cross.  And yes; it is extremely crowded in the streets.

The story of Deirdre is an Irish tale, one that I have read several times, but you’ll have to forgive me for being a little unsure on the name of the man she ran off with and the type of tree that grew on her grave.  I think they’re correct, but I’m not sure.

Hopefully, all the meanings of the Japanese words I used were clearly understood or explained in the fanfic, but here’s the list of words just in case.  Also, some words have different meanings when used on different occasions, like sayonara, used between people when they won’t be seeing each other for a long time, or saying it formally at the end of class.  I put the explanation that fits in the situation the word is used in the story.

Papa — Dad.  I didn’t italicize it because it’s also an English word (yes, the Japanese use this word too…)

-Chan—a suffix.  Used for close friends or siblings younger than yourself

Ohayo gozaimasu—Good morning.  Ohayo is the short form of it.

Itai — Painful.  Kind of like saying ouch…

Gomen nasai — very, very sorry.

Minasan — Everyone

Arigatou— Thank you.

Sayonara—Farewell.  Used in this case when someone won’t be seeing the person again for a long time, if ever. 

Ja, mata—See you again.  Not as severe a good-bye as sayonara. 

Eh?—Not strictly Japanese, although they say it all the time.  The kana (letter) for it is just the one for ‘e’.  Like “huh?”

-Hakase—A suffix for an expert or someone with a doctorate.  It is sometimes added to the surname of a person with a doctoral degree instead of sensei as a title of respect roughly equivalent to Dr.

Nihongo—Japanese.

Sensei—If you even have to ask what this is, then I’m not telling you.  Go watch some karate movies.