Absence Kills The Heart
Absence Kills The Heart
Disclaimer – I own nothing. The boys aren’t mine. Pokemon isn’t mine. The end.
A/N – Shishi fluff and angst in one fic! I’m having a field day! For the purposes of this story, kids can’t become Pokemon masters until they’re 14. Read, review, enjoy.
Now I’ve fallen in deep,
Slow silent sleep,
It’s killing me,
I’m dying,
To put a little bit of sunshine in your life.
-The Shining, Badly Drawn Boy
I-It’s funny sometimes...How you wish you could go back to the past. When you were little and you didn’t have any cares. I wish I could do that every day. My life is hell now. Sure, I’m famous. But fame isn’t everything. Sometimes, you need your friends...The ones you love...
I love someone. I could say it was a dangerous love, but that sounds like something out of a movie, passionate and exciting. Hardly. It was dangerous in a real life way. It was a deadly secret that could hurt us both if anyone found out. Of course, we didn’t know that. How could we, only being ten? I remember it all so clearly, the weeks, months, maybe even years that lead up to it. When I died...
* * *
“Shigeru, you little brat!” I didn’t know why Ritsu was so annoyed. All I did was draw a smiled face on her glasses. I thought it’d make her smile, she was always so grumpy. Ritsu was pretty new though. And I didn’t like her. Grandpa’s old assistant, Dan, was American, and he was cool. I liked Dan. He told good stories and knew loads of stuff. Ritsu was boring. She never laughed or smiled, and she wore stupid skirts. I hated Ritsu. “Get out, get out!” She whacked me with the back of her hand. “Go play with your stupid little friends, and don’t mess around in the lab!” She scooted me out of the door and slammed it in my face. I really hated Ritsu. I stuck my hands deep in my pockets and walked angrily down the corridor. I wasn’t really angry, but I did it anyway.
It was a pretty ok day. It was sunny, but looked like it was going to rain. I dashed down the path of the labs and pretended I was an aeroplane. I ran as fast as I could through the winding roads, and up the long dusty drive. I came to a screeching halt (with added sound effects) and knocked hard on the door. Ha-sama answered it.
“Sergeant Ookido reporting for duty!” I said, saluting.
Ha-sama smiled.
“I’ll just get him.” She called up the stairs and I heard someone come pounding down them. A scruffy looking boy in an old Pokemon shirt and ripped shorts came running to the door.
“Sergeant Ha awaiting orders!”
“Today’s mission,” I barked, pointing at an imaginary board, “Is to take down the enemy base, located at the lab!”
Ha-sama crossed her arms and smiled.
“What will I do with you two?” She sighed. “Off you go, and have fun.” I grabbed Satoshi’s hand and we ran off. “And don’t get into trouble!” I heard Ha-sama call.
“We won’t!” We cried in unison.
When the house was out of sight, we slowed down to talk.
“Why didn’t you come round last week?” he asked a little sadly.
“Grandpa grounded me for putting Pigeot feed in Ritsu’s shoes.”
“She probably deserved it.”
“Probably.”
He gripped my hand a little tighter.
“But I’d rather you came round mine.”
I blushed, feeling guilty.
“Sorry.” I said quietly.
He grinned at me.
“Well, you’re here now! So let’s go get revenge on Ritsu!”
“Yeah!”
We made our plans while we walked down, stuffing pebbles from the ground into our pockets. When we got to the lab, we looked the windows, and found Ritsu checking all the Pokemon were asleep in their pokeballs. I motioned to Satoshi to be quiet and we crouched down underneath the window. When I was sure she wasn’t looking, we both threw a pebble into the room. They made two little tapping noises on the wall.
“Hello?”
Satoshi stifled a giggle. We waited a bit, then threw some more.
“Who’s there?” Ritsu opened the door quickly, then shut it again when she saw no one was there. I threw in another pebble, then began hitting the wall with my fist, to sound like a heartbeat.
“Who’s there?!” She said again, panicking. “What do you want?”
Satoshi began breathing loudly below the window, and the overall effect was great. When we threw in a shower of pebbles, Ritsu screamed and backed against the wall. I tried very hard not to laugh, but Satoshi let a great howl slip out, and Ritsu froze. She stormed over to the window, and saw us.
“Get away you monsters!” She screamed at us. “You’ll be sorry! Wait till your Granddad heard about this!” She slammed the window, and we ran away to the park, laughing all the way. I didn’t care if I was grounded for a month; the look on her face was priceless.
We sat on the swings, still giggling, when it started to rain. The heavens opened up suddenly, and Satoshi grabbed my wrist, dragging me under the nearest bush. A crack of thunder rolled overhead, and Satoshi pulled me closer.
“I don’t like thunder.” He whispered.
Another huge rumble and he began to shake badly.
“Hey, it’s alright! Think of Ritsu’s face!” I tried to get him happy again. He smiled, but didn’t open his eyes.
“That was funny.” He said. I put my arm gently around him and shuffled even closer.
“It’ll be ok. The thunder can’t hurt you.” He hugged me tightly and whispered,
“Don’t go.”
“I won’t, Sato-chan, I won’t.” It just sort of slipped out of my mouth. I’d never called him ‘Sato-chan’ before. He didn’t seem to notice though. I think he was too scared.
* * *
Everything was ok until about a week later. Grandpa hadn’t grounded me; in fact he had taken me into his office and commended me! He even called Ritsu ‘a mean old cow’! I was really happy. I bounded down to Satoshi’s house, and again, his mum answered the door. She was nice, and hadn’t told him off much either. Then it happened. I wasn’t sure why at the time. In fact, I was one confused kid. Anyway, Satoshi came to the door, and I suddenly leaned forward as if to kiss him. I pulled back suddenly, realising what I was doing. He just blushed and stared at me. I think he was confused too, maybe even a little scared. We went over the park, but I never looked him in the eye once, and when we got there, we just sat on the swings in silence.
* * *
I didn’t go see him for a long while after that, and he didn’t come and see me, so it worked out ok. I hoped he’d forget. Just over a month later, I gathered the courage to go and see him. But just as I was getting my shoes on, the door bell rang. Since I was closest, I hopped to it, one shoe on, and opened it carefully, balancing on one foot.
It was him.
I fell back down onto two feet.
“Um, Satoshi, about-“
He shook his head, so I stopped. I noticed he was blushing like hell.
“T-to finish what you started...” He mumbled, then placed his hands on my shoulders and kissed me gently. It was possibly the happiest moment in my entire life, although at the time I was more than a little shocked. When he moved back, his face was as red as a tomato.
“Sato-chan...”
“If that’s not what you were thinking, I’m really sorry, I-I just...W-what did you say?”
“Sato-chan.” I said again, more defiantly. He grinned, and a tear slipped down his face.
“Can we talk about it?” I nodded, pulled on my other shoe, and shut the door.
We went to the swings again, except we held hands while the wind swayed us gently.
“I-I’d been doing some thinking.” He began suddenly. “I thought that’s what you meant to do, to kiss me. And I wasn’t sure I felt about that. After a fortnight, I began to miss you.” He looked at me sadly. “I didn’t want to lose my best friend. But I didn’t know if that’s what you were anymore.” This was heavy stuff for a 13 year old, but he had more to say. “I think on that day, I wanted you to kiss me. And I wanted to kiss you back. But I couldn’t bring myself to admit it. I only realised this morning. And...And that’s what I think.” He finished as abruptly as he had started. He looked at the floor and swung his feet back and forth. “If...If that’s not how you feel, I understand.”
I stared at this boy before me. Were we too young? No, a few of my other friends had girl and boyfriends. Boys, we were both boys. But he was...he was just beautiful. The sun lit up his hair, his blush tinted his cheeks, his face, his hands, his everything was just perfect. So I took his chin in my hands and kissed his perfect lips. His fingers wound around my neck, and although we were probably too young to deepen it any further, we lingered like that for a long time. When we finally pulled away, he rested his forehead on mine.
“Sato-chan,” I whispered. “I think I love you.”
* * *
From then on, life was perfect. I had my Satoshi, and next year, we could both join the Pokemon League. Next year. But I was really excited. So was Satoshi. Sometimes he would come round the labs and we would go to my room and spend hours just talking about Pokemon. And sometimes, he would come and we would lie together on my bed, our arms around each other, just happy together.
I think May knew. I was pretty sure I saw her come in when we were like that, but she didn’t say anything and went out again. She smiled a lot at us. Yeah, I think she knew, but I don’t think she minded.
Grandpa...He found out a little differently. And acted a little differently too. He sort of...walked in on us while we were kissing. We practically flew apart, and he breathed very deeply and asked what we were doing. It was pretty sort of self explanatory, so we sat there going
“Er, um, we were...er, just...we, um...”. He wouldn’t talk to Satoshi for a few days. But he got used to us holding hands and acting all lovey around the labs, so he became alright with it.
Ha-sama was very happy for us. She even said we were very cute together. So that was good too. I began to think my life would be like this forever, that Satoshi and me would go off and be Pokemon trainers together, and then we’d buy a house of our own and share the rest of our days in each others company. What a life that would have been.
But something always goes wrong, always. And something went wrong in my life.
My parents came.
* * *
I didn’t tell them. Not on purpose, just because I didn’t. So when they found out, it was the worst possible way. They were unprepared for anything and everything.
It was a week into their month long stay, and Satoshi was round at the labs. They’d noticed him come round nearly everyday, and I don’t think they liked him very much, but they didn’t say anything. We were in my room as usual.
I barely even noticed them come in.
Satoshi was sitting in my lap, kissing me passionately. He had his hands around my waist. I had one arm round his neck, and one caressing his hair. And we were moaning. God, why did they have to come in then?
My mother screamed. My father made some noise that can best be described as a roar. He charged at us and hit Satoshi hard. He banged his head forcefully against the wall. My mum was now sobbing in the doorway. Dad was shouting all manner of swear words at us, then he grabbed Satoshi by the neck, dragged him always the way downstairs and threw him out the door. I watched out of the window, tears streaming down my face. My father punched him violently, and he collapsed on the floor. Then he came pounding back upstairs for me.
“WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU DOING?!” He slapped me across the face and I cowered against my bed. His eyes were flaring, and in that moment, I was truly scared. I glanced back out of the window. Satoshi couldn’t hear anything.
“LOOK AT ME!” He whacked me again, and Mum cried out. He whirled round and pointed his finger threateningly at her and growled, “You stay out of this.” He turned back to me. “You...you fucking fruit...” He was so mad he could barely speak. “We’re leaving.” He said, managing to compose himself a little. “And you must stay here. You will not leave the lab. You will be taught at home by your grandfather, and you are FORBIDDEN to see that...that thing,” he spat, “ever again, do you hear me?!”
I nodded weakly. I couldn’t do anything else.
* * *
Everything he said happened. I wasn’t allowed any contact with the outside world. I learned more about Pokemon in those ten months than I had in my life before. Satoshi didn’t try and see me. I wondered if my parents had had a little ‘chat’ with him and his mother as well. I dreaded to think. I missed him, his touch, his lips...I wanted him so bad it hurt some nights. I would sit upstairs and cry and May would comfort me, but there was nothing she could do. She was too scared. The only reason Grandpa was going through with this all was because he didn’t want me hurt again. He was like my real father.
But there was a light in my despair. After a very big argument between Grandpa and my parents, I had been allowed to go on a Pokemon training journey for three years. Three years only. I didn’t care. If I gave me the chance to see my beautiful Satoshi again, it could have been a month.
And so the day came, and I got dressed up and went down to the leaving ceremony. I was so happy, I thought I would fly. But like I said, something always goes wrong. And I must have been the single unluckiest person in the world.
My father was there.
He glared at me menacingly. I avoided his gaze as much as I could, hiding behind people, glancing round for Satoshi. But he wasn’t there. For a moment I thought he’s done something terrible to him, hurt him so he couldn’t come, or worse.
But there he was, running down the road. My face lit up. My father took a step towards me, and grabbed my shoulder hard. It hurt. I knew I couldn’t do anything. So I pretended. It hurt me, it hurt him, but I pretended I didn’t know him. He looked shocked. But he played along. After I got my Eevee and drove off, I cried into my hands. But I knew I’d see him again. It would be ok. It would be alright....
* * *
I wish I could go back and make that day right. I should have gone and kissed him and told him it was aright, that I was there again. But I didn’t.
I did see him again. With a girl. He was talking to her, and his face lit up when he did. Like it used to when he talked to me. And I ran away like the fucking coward I am.
I haven’t got any reason to live with him gone. If I’ve lost him, I’ve lost everything. He was my flame, my love, my everything. He’s gone. And I didn’t even get to say goodbye. Some say absence makes the heart grow stronger. Is forever absence? Because that’s how long it’ll be until I see him. Absence isn’t good. It’s death. And it’s killing my heart.
