Cinnamon

By Kay

 

Author's Notes: IMPORTANT: SPOILERS.  Huge spoilers.  This is END OF THE SERIES stuff that you probably don't want to know until you've seen it, or already read about it.  ^_^;;  This is your only warning-- don't say I didn't give it.

. . . I have no idea where this came from.  It's horribly written, I get the dreadful feeling Eiji's managed to work his way Out of Character, and I hate it.  But it's a BF fanfic.  And it's a finished one of mine, actually.  So. . . damn it, someone has to see it.  ^^;;  Shounen ai hints-- of course.  I wasn't going to, but.  . . STUPID TEMPTATIONS. . . 

. . . right then.  Enjoy the angst and stupid I-Shouldn't-Be-Here metaphors!  Wheeee. . .

Disclaimer: I don't own Banana Fish.  If I did, the ending would have involved lots of rainbows, kitties, and undying declarations of love.  ^^;;  Well. . . kinda. 

 

----

"Ash. . . he's dead, Ei-chan."

 

It felt as though someone had ripped a gaping, empty hole straight through my chest.

 

"I'm so, so sorry. . . ."

 

At first, it was a faded, distant sort of pain.  Like you were drifting through a dark tunnel of water, sightless and senseless.  Deaf to the world and its reality.  Endlessly floating in a black abyss, weightless from the freedom of pain or thought.  It was quiet, always deathly silent and frigid, but there was only the vague imprint that you were hurting.  A mere memory of fragile, frozen glass on an infinite landscape.  Insignificant.

 

It was an absent sort of soul-shattering realization.  The mere surprise of finding a deep paper cut on your finger from a while ago.  The knowledge that somewhere along the line, the paperwork you were looking over, something went wrong.  But you forgot to notice it until the blood began to spill, and the wound stung as the crimson shade fell.

 

It was starting to hurt.

 

"Ei-chan. . . speak to me, are you. . .?"

 

I don't know anymore.

 

It feels like my mind has been knocked around, bruised and violated.  Like my gunshot wound is aching, hollow and upset at the wind blowing through it.  Why didn't it hurt like this three hours ago?  Such is the transition from my deep tunnel of water to the surface--the sunlight's burning my eyes.

 

I feel like I should cry.

 

Ibe-san left.  It seems like he was never here--the room is untouched by his news, but the owner is not.  If this were as dreamlike as it feels, I would want to wake up from the nightmare I can feel creeping up on me.  You can't wake up from reality, that's why it's so hard for people to bear sometimes.  My mother said that before, when I was young and naive.

 

I am sure now, she felt pain like this once.

 

"Eiji. . .talk to me."

 

I couldn't three hours ago.  I know it was three hours because the clock is ahead of what it was then.  Three hours.  Forever.  A moment to ruin it all.

 

Ibe-san was concerned three hours ago.  I think he still is--he went to make tea.  I can hear rattling sounds in the kitchen, deep and heavy sighs.  The waffing scent of cinnamon and apple is warm and welcoming, but my mind refuses to acknowledge it.  Why should I?

 

I don't like cinnamon.  It's a strong spice, overwhelming and sharp.  It makes my tongue curl in on itself, so I never put it in tea unless I have to.  But how could anyone know that if I haven't told them?  It's something so little, so unimportant.  Friends know these things.  Did I ever tell Ash, some warm sunlit morning over breakfast, somewhere in our conversations?  Thinking about it hurts my mind, the memory's recoiling from me.

 

I don't like cinnamon. . .but somehow I can't work up the energy to get up and tell Ibe-san to put something else on.  And it would be ungrateful, too.  Not important.  I can take some cinnamon.  Easier than getting up from the sofa... that's hard.  I feel like a lead weight now that I'm surfacing from the gentle, freezing space of suspension.  There's no tunnel of water here, no relief, just the searing sun through the windows and the smell of cinnamon constricting me, until my eyes squeeze shut tightly, and I feel the urge to hold my breath--

 

No, breathe.  Breathe.

 

"It's okay to cry. . . .  I'm here."

 

I know.  I know it's okay to cry.  I've done it enough times to slowly become less ashamed of it.

 

Somehow, it seems this great, final hurt is far greater than any other.  So wide, so overwhelmingly bad, that tears won't come.  Crying would belittle the sensation, bring it down to a natural level of acceptance.  My eyes hurt.  My head hurts.

 

I think my heart hurts, too.  If it's still there.

 

Wondering over that thought, it's hard to tell.  My ears feel deaf and numb, blanking out the external and internal world.  I might have a heartbeat--a fractured, gasping one.  Or it may have disappeared altogether, having lost part of the reason for its existence.  He was. . . important to me.  Many things are, but somehow, he worked his way to the top of the list, paling the rest of the world with his ways.  It feels like I've lost a huge part of myself, half the puzzle is gone.

 

Just . . . gone.

 

"He's gone, Eiji. . . ."

 

I know that.  I know that.

 

Somehow, it's still hard to believe, that's all.  Grieving seems almost unnecessary, inappropriate--he's always been so alive.  What is Ash Lynx without his will to survive?  What am I without his will to survive?

 

It seems strange.  Foolish.  Insane.  He wasn't afraid to die, but he didn't want to.  So why is he gone now?  Unfair.  It brings a bitter tang to my throat, acidic.  Maybe I do need cinnamon, strong enough to wash away the taste, the feeling.  Of course I knew it would hurt.  No one would have expected it not to.

 

After all, hadn't it been natural to have my entire world thrown upside down suddenly, without warning?  Wasn't it normal to feel like my breath was too fast, too tight in my lungs, until it would fade altogether into nothing?

 

I was going to die, from that pain. . . .

 

But I'm not, am I?  You can't die from nothing.  There's always a reason.  I don't want to know why he's gone, not the details, not really how.  Something deep inside of me, sick and grasping for reason, tells me I'll end up blaming myself even more.  I don't want to hear Ibe-san tell me how it happened.  I don't want to know it was my fault, even though somehow, I already do realize it.

 

Why did I have to leave him alone?  Why did I have to leave at all?

 

"Ei-chan, I'm here for you, it's okay.  You'll get through this. . . ."

 

Ibe-san didn't say it, he murmured it, low and soft and gentle, three hours ago, comforting.  Far too gentle.  Like he thought I was going to break, so fragile.

 

Would I break?  It seems like there's nothing to break for yet, anyway, like this entire episode is a dream.  The three hours of absent clarity.  Maybe I could sleep now, on this very sofa, and I'd wake up--it would be my bed in the apartments we shared instead.  And Ash would still be in his own bed, endlessly sleeping, and the sun through the windows would turn his hair into golden strands of sky.

 

Wistful thinking.  The kind that hurts.

 

The world seems so empty without you, Ash. . . .

 

"Do you want me to get your mother?  Eiji?"

 

I don't know.

 

Part of me wants her--Mom, fussing and warm, soothing away the hurts like she did when I was a child.  She was the one who taught me everything I know, the person to brush my tears away.  When I slipped and fell on our hardwood floors, a gangly kid, she was the one who knew how to make things all right again.  I shared my every laugh, smile, fear, and hurt with her throughout my life.

 

But I don't know if I could share this hurt with her.  Not for a while, at least.  It's too fresh, too hard to handle with someone else, and comfort is not what I need.

 

This hurt is my own.  He was my own.

 

What do I even have left now?  Countless lively photographs of his face in every expression I could manage to capture, but never nearly enough to reveal him.  A few mementos of our time together in New York.  A lifetime of memories.

 

Not nearly enough for me, never enough.  How could it be?  Knowing him, just being a part of his life, was all I thought I ever wanted.  My friend, the one I understood and saw for the real person he was. . . .

 

Now, it seems like it wasn't enough.  As though I missed something.

 

"Are you going to be alright here, alone?  Ei-chan?  I'll be right back, I'll get you some tea. . . ."

 

Am I. . . going to be alright here. . . ?

 

Alone. . . .

 

I don't know anymore, Ash.  When I was with you, it seemed like all I had to listen to was the present, because that's where you were.  All that mattered was getting out of our situations alive.  What I should make for dinner.  How you rolled up your sleeves if they were long, whenever you were on a computer.  Ways to make you forget horrifying pasts, promised revenge, and what was coming.  Things that made you laugh, pure and without bitterness or sarcasm.

 

Now, the future is stretched in front of me.  And it is so, so empty and so very, very lonely. . . that I don't even want to look at it until it ends.  Hating it is the only thing I can manage to do right now.

 

There's just going to be one bed now.  No one to complain about my cooking.  Waiting up at night isn't important anymore, because no one will walk through the door.  Too many echoes to listen to in my head, and no one to say the words.  No need to tell anyone I don't like cinnamon in my tea.  No more worrying, a heavy silence where a teasing voice once filled the air.  No light, nearly inaudible footsteps, even when he doesn't realize he's covering them.  The newspaper will always be mine, no one else will want to read it.

 

And all the fond smiles and irritated scowls will fade in my mind until nothing's left.

 

Nothing but pieces and flashes of him.

 

"Ash. . . he's dead, Ei-chan."

 

Yes. . . yes, he is.

 

And I'm already alone.

 

And he's not coming back anymore, is he?

 

Not now, not ever, not in a lifetime or two.  I'm going to wait here forever, and even then I don't know if he's going to come back.  Didn't I promise I'd wait always, though?  It's hard to remember right now, hard to tell up from down.

 

Ibe-san enters the room quietly, holding a delicate cup that's so strongly scented of cinnamon that it could probably crush it.  His face is soft, sad--he looks no different than three hours ago.  I wonder if I've changed at all yet. I feel like I have, in some small, insignificant way that holds no relation to my outward features.

 

I wonder if Ash liked cinnamon.  I think I may hate it, with all the passion and fire rapidly dying within me, I swear I hate it.  But he might have loved it.  If he were with me, he may have loved it, and that would have been enough.  More than enough, really.

 

Because if he had loved it, I would have learned to love it.

 

And because I could have learned to love it, I know I loved him.

 

The crash of a tea cup.  It's crushed.  Arms.  Pain.

 

"Ei-chan!?  Ei-chan. . . shh.  That's right, it's okay to cry. . . ."

 

I hate cinnamon.

 

Owari