It's been a year since you lost the fight to cancer. I still come back to Ikebukuro like I think I might see you again. But it's just me your grave stone now, and that's all there ever will be. Hints of Shizaya. Drabble.

It's not raining like it was last year. The skies are somber and gray, but no tears have been shed. They remain restricted, much like my own. I know you told me to stay out of Ikebukuro, but I can't help myself. I still come back like I think I might see you again.

It's the clove of season, summer has died but autumn has yet to be born. It isn't hot but it isn't cold either, it was an in-between time, a gap in translation of one month to the next. It's September. You always liked September because you could wear your bartender outfits again. It's funny how much I know about you now that you're gone.

Not much has changed. Shinra's still annoying and Celty's still headless. Tom's still a debt collector. I'm still me. We all miss you. Some days more than others, especially today. It is the anniversary after all. I guess I can afford to be a little human today. Not that anyone's awake to see it. It'll be there and gone again. Just like you.

I try not to think of how you looked at the wake that I didn't stay for. I try not to think about how I never visited you in the hospital because I was a coward. I try not to think of you. It doesn't work of course. I don't want to remember you that way. I want to remember you full of rage and passion and strength… like you used to be.

Russian Sushi got a new paint job, by the way. I pass by unnoticed under the canopy of storm clouds. So much has changed. But I will never change. I bet that irks you. I hope it does.

I mean, it's stupid to miss someone you didn't even get along with. But I don't know, it was nice, you know, having someone you could always fight with. I think you would understand if you were still here. But you're not. I don't have that anymore. No one's brave enough to defy me or throw a vending machine anymore. I guess you were one of a kind.

There's nothing left for me in Ikebukuro so why do I return yearly? You've never been good to me, and every step I take in this city feels like it's borrowed. Just lately I've been feeling like I don't belong; like the ground is not mine to walk upon.

You're not coming back. Maybe I'll finally understand that fact next year. Maybe when I see your grave again it will finally sink in. It wasn't a big shock when you were diagnosed you know. It wasn't a big shock when you died either. It was inevitable. I guess you had it coming with all those cigarettes. It was just a matter of time. I don't know why I'm still so surprised. I don't know why I still don't believe it.

I don't know why I'm still on edge, waiting for you to howl out my name and then we can play our game again. Does that mean you won? Or was it a draw? I'll never know. I think I'll ask you when I see you again.

Look at me now; you must think I'm getting soft. Thinking these thoughts… thinking of you. But maybe I am ya know? Maybe I'm going insane. It's bound to happen someday. I talk to myself a lot. I talk to you a lot too. Never out loud. Sometimes you talk back, and you don't sound like how I last heard you. You don't sound like how I remember you either. You sound… peaceful… serene. Like your name.

We only converse when I can't sleep though. Is that why I'm staying awake all night these days? Or is just just to hear your voice again? But I'll never see you again. It's the worst feeling in the world.

I'm at your grave now. It's too early in the morning for the rest of the world, so I have you all to myself. Would you like that? Somehow I think you wouldn't. I don't stay long. Just enough to say a few words that no one will hear and think a few things that are all to myself.

Of course, just like I did last year, I lay a flower by your grave. It's Absinth. Separation and torment of love is what it stands for. I think it's fitting. You would probably disagree.

I've changed. I'm the same in a lot of ways and very different in so many others. These are my cold days. I don't think they will ever end.

I don't stay long, long enough to feel the earth breathe underneath my feet and the stirring of the city as it awakens. Not long enough to let tears slip. I'll never stay long enough for that. I'll keep moving and changing, but you, you will never change. Death is like that.

Which means I should be going. I don't like prying myself from your grave but I feel that if I don't I might never leave. Maybe someday I'll just give up. But not today. Maybe not ever; maybe I'll just keep going till I collapse, run myself into the ground… or catch a disease like you. I'm too young to be thinking about death, I'll be forever twenty-one. Death is a long way off.

Too bad it wasn't the same for you.

I pull myself together. I always do in the end. I'm leaving just as the storm clouds break and release a drizzle of rain. The rain is starting. I should have brought an umbrella. I let one, solitary tear slip because no one's around to see me and there's no difference in the rain. Only one tear is spent for you though. Someday maybe I'll find the strength to use all of them. Maybe never. I'm not sure.

I miss you Shizuo. I do and I don't.

But today I will grieve for you.

And I leave unnoticed under the cover of the storm clouds of this September.