©2005 AlseGold
Title: My Beloved… Friend
Rating: PG
Pairing: MomoRyo. Sort of.
Disclaimer: > PoT. I want you so bad.
Warnings: Angst. SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 171. The title is supposed to be cryptic, and taken from 171. Personally I prefer it the story in the livejournal versions. The formatting here is difficult; I can't get the paragraph spacings to be big enough, save with the line breaks.
We lost our way a long time ago.
We were young and wild and free, and the world was at our feet.
You cried that day.
I didn't let you see me cry, and you didn't know.
You were the one who grew up first.
You had eyes that saw, and I—I had none.
You understood, and I didn't.
I meant to come back, and I kept running away.
Twenty-two years, and everything's changed.
I saw your niece today, when she was waiting for my son.
She called my son "Echizen".
He called her "Momo-sempai".
She has your eyes and your hair and your smile.
He has my eyes and my hair and my smile.
She looks at him the way you looked at me.
He looks at her the way I looked at you.
She was named for you.
I named him after you.
Kawamura Momoko.
Echizen Takeshi.
I went to the sushi shop today.
I met her there.
Kawamura-sempai's wife.
Mother of my son's friend.
– Your younger sister.
She did not have your hair or your smile.
But she gave their daughter her eyes.
Your eyes.
She came this evening to my house.
She bowed her head and she said:
"Have you seen my brother? He's been missing for twenty-two years."
I found my cap on a young man's head.
He was small and thin and strong.
He had big eyes like my boy—big eyes like mine.
He said a man in a wheelchair gave him the hat.
The man who gave him the hat was—crippled, in a wheelchair.
The man had violet eyes.
He said you told him it brought luck.
He said you told him it had been given with love.
He said you told him it held all your hope.
He said you told him you were giving him all your luck.
He said you told him you were giving it with love.
He said you told him you were giving him all your hope.
He said—
He said he knew where he could find you.
I found you in New Yokohama.
You must have been lonely there, all these years.
There were no flowers there.
No luck.
No love.
No hope.
Nobody has come to see you in sixteen years.
The caretakers said we were the first visitors.
I cleaned the dust.
I was your luck.
I put flowers there.
I threw away your love.
I brought your favourite burger.
I robbed you of your hope.
I will come every day now.
Though I know you aren't really here.
I know you're in a better place.
But this is all I have left of you.
They're getting married today.
Your niece and my boy.
She's a year older than him but no one remembers.
You were a boy and I remembered.
He's taller than she is now.
Do you think I would have been taller than you?
You would have cried if you were here.
Then you'd say that it was awfully hot in the suit.
Momo-sempai…
… you can see them, can't you?
Momo-sempai…
… I wish I could see you soon.
Momo-sempai…
… I want to see you soon.
But I know what you'd say.
"Echizen! What do you think you're DOING!"
My time isn't up yet.
So I'll wait as long as it takes.
That's what you'd want me to do.
It's all I can do for you.