Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ My Shinigami, My Hamburger ❯ The Eighth Day ( Chapter 28 )

Chapter 28

"The Eighth Day"

It was more difficult to be driven from his former home the second time, to take that long, dark journey across the Acheron with an awful sensation of déjà vu hanging overhead and your toes in a thin puddle of water in the bottom of Charon’s low, hollowed-out wooden boat [1]. It was an experience Shinigami had hoped to never have again, but inevitably it had come, and now he sat the nearest to the bow, elbows resting on his knees and chin hanging, keeping his dispirited distance with a passion. Hiding himself behind an unnatural silent streak and his fully restored wings of black silk, the God of Death found himself once again homeless and staring into the cool, dark waters of the River of Woe, and what an appropriate name it was.

At the opposite end sat the silent mother in a pristine white kimono. She watched her son sit motionless moping and generally drooping, depressed by one blow after another. And as she watched, more and more she was starting to feel his pain. How long could he honestly stare into that damn water feeling pity for himself? It frustrated her to no end. Why he didn’t just break down and cry? At least then he’d have it all out of his system and finish this ridiculous fixation on worthless mortal, she thought as she impatiently folded her arms and watched the back of his head. Twitching her lips into a frown, she managed to let out a huff of air without opening her mouth and unleashing a tirade.

She wasn’t a completely heartless mother—she knew that egging Shinigami on after he’d lost his precious Arrogant Mortal and then had been denied going home again was not the best thing to do at the moment. So, the Goddess of Love held her tongue and hoped for her son’s quick recovery, so that she wouldn’t have to watch him mope around for days.

Behind her towered Charon himself, ferryman of the River of Woe. Tall and obscure, drenched in Reaper-like robes from head to toe, he served as the unemotional and unspeaking witness to this, guiding the boat across the water with one hidden hand wrapped around a pole as if they were taking a tour of Venice and he was their eerie gondolier.

He had been waiting silently at the shore when the misfit Angel of Death and his mother had come from Hades’ main chamber in defeat, once again condemned to live a life drifting from realm to realm, never fully accepted and always longing for a better place. And what was worse, he had also warned them that if Shini could not secure a mortal caretaker of his own, then Hades would assign him one and neither him nor Iria would have absolutely any say in the selection process. Shini’s face had crumpled long ago, and it only saddened a little when he heard the news. He was the first to turn around and leave, after giving the Lord of the Underworld a compulsory bow. Iria had stood fast for a few more moments, trying her best not to gape and demand an explanation, stammering to hold her tongue, and in the end simply narrowing her eyes poisonously at him, bowing stormily, and stalking out after her son. And, with one in silence, and one cursing beneath her breath, they had boarded the ferry.

The banks of the Acheron were dark and jagged walls of marbled black stone from which hung fang-like stalagmites, dripping the same black water that filled the river. They were distant and if you looked up suddenly you might catch a glimpse of something or someone moving among the shadow, of lost souls forlornly trailing the boat from the shore. Shini stared back at the skittering shadows and wondered if they felt as bad as he did, glimpsing the glowing eyes that constantly followed, blinking and pleading silently. He felt sorry for them, whoever they were.

Finally, he sighed, and dropped his gaze back down to the still, marble-black surface of the river. He cautiously reached out his hand to skim his fingertips across the top, leaving a trail of ripples behind as they moved toward the distant, misty bank on the otherside.

Eventually, Iria spoke up, her arms folded and her tone somewhat grim, though her eyes didn’t quite match the sentiment as she watched her son. "So, Shini, where do you want to start looking? Now that you’ve gone through the Shrinks—I tried to protect you from it, though, god knows—you can hide your wings and we can stay on Earth to find your new caretaker. Where would you like to go? London? Paris? Or maybe somewhere like New York? You know, if you just work on your English just a little more, I’m sure you’d fit in just fine there."

The Angel of Death’s fingertips remained skimming lightly over the water’s surface and he didn’t even blink, still gazing quietly out into the black gleam. That was a ridiculous question, considering how quickly Shini answered it, as if it were an obvious one. "Tokyo."

Iria’s growling voice snapped back at him immediately. "Shinigami, you know that you absolutely cannot—"

Shini pulled his hand from the water and turned his head to glare over his shoulder, a face so sour and defiant she swore he had stolen it straight off the Arrogant Mortal’s face, stubborn little scowl and all. "That’s what I want," he asserted again, his supernatural violet eyes simmering with fire. "And that’s the only place I want."

"You want that mortal, you mean," she replied bluntly, and received only a silent, narrowed stare in return. Her mischievous son’s normally talkative jaw remained firmly set in that expression even when she returned it with a fearsome look and was compelled to get her feet by her swelling frustration and anger. "Thirteenth Son of Shinigami, young man, I have had it with your behavior [2]! I am not going to let you go back to him! I’m not fucking dealing with him again! If you insist on defying me just one more time or even think about that arrogant jackass again, I’ll have his memory erased so fast his little bloated head will spin clean off!" she threatened.

The shouting echoed eerily off the high, hazy ceiling of the underground cavern and every shade and lost soul lurking curiously in the water and shadows slunk away at the unwelcome noise [3]. But, sitting at the bow of the low, wooden boat with his toes in cold, black water, the Angel of Death remained unaffected, wearing an expression cut from stone. He looked at his mother standing, fully ruffled, at the other end, and calmly repeated himself.

"I want to go to Tokyo."

Heero stepped through the door and listlessly shoved it shut with an arm, kicking off his shoes and letting them fall haphazardly to the floor. As the newest sigh emptied his lungs, his back slumped against the door for a moment and tilted back so that he let his aching head rest against the wood for a moment. He closed his eyes and opened them again with a dull enthusiasm. The panels of the ceiling greeted him silently, and moments after that, he became aware of an unwanted houseguest. The cinnamon smell of the Shinigami met him at the door like a lonely pet, taunting him as it brought back the same memories he had left to try and escape.

The problem was that he had to return here, and he knew how long those memories would linger in every room. Like it was possible to ever forget reaching out and being touched by divinty, possible to just shake off the encounter and forget it in a day, a month, or even a year. Discouraged by that thought, it wasn’t until after he had opened all the windows, dug out all his mother’s old candles from a dusty cabinet and lit them, until after he had dragged himself to his bedroom, pulled the covers from the mattress, changed every sheet and pillowcase and even flipped the mattress in hopes of getting rid of that scent that he stopped and replayed it in his head.

The problem was that he had to return here, to a house filled with ghosts and laid thick with traps of old memories. The idea of moving out hit him after he had laid down on his newly made bed and, inevitably, inhaled another deep breath of cinnamon. He lay there, his dark hair still disheveled and splayed out on the bare mattress, and consulted the ceiling overhead. "I can’t leave," Heero muttered. But then he squinted and looked almost distressed. "Right?"

He sat up and consulted the rest of his soundless room, all the while inhaling more and more the scent he had so desperately tried to escape. The answer he received was an automatic no—he had grown up here and, as lonely as he had been spending his youth in empty rooms, he couldn’t abandon it. His parents had lived here, and to leave was to discard their memories altogether. Eventually, he would forget. It wouldn’t be the first week, or hell, even the first five years, but it would fade. He’d forget the sounds of his mother tinkering in the kitchen and his father testing Youkai’s growling engine out in the driveway, the exact feeling he got when he woke up in the middle of the night as a child and came downstairs to see his mother in the living room, lit up by a candle with a book in her lap, what his father had talked about with him on the roof as they looked over the neighborhood.

But he would remember what Shini had said on the roof, he’d remember the warmth of his hand, the sleight of hand he’d taught him, and even the sleepy expression on his face just instants before he plummeted through a solid roof. He’d remember the exact shade of his wings, the puckered frown he’d make when he was wrong or ashamed, and the curious flicking of his tail. He’d remember the strange pattern of speech, the mischievous smiles, the impossible scent of cinnamon he carried about, the animus ultionis that had tried to kill them both, and what he’d been able to do—it was even possible that a mortal could forget seeing a god exercising their power, especially when it had been to save him. Long after the details of his family had faded into time, Shini would be crystal clear in his mind, he knew—and he would still exist for him in the afterlife, now that he had seen that it apparently was there.

Was it even possible to escape from a god, to ever really get away, now realizing that Shini was the only one he really had left and he’d be forever haunted, unable to take a step in his house without some memory linking him to his husband and the dysfunctional family they had created. When he took a step back and removed the memory of Shini from the equation of his life, he saw an old, empty house filled only by an old, empty man waiting for Death but dreading him all the same.

He realized that he actually missed the troublesome devil—and he’d probably never see him again. That was the point when he felt his stomach drop out from under him and the full force of his mistake hit home. He let out a sigh as he bent grievously forward, resting his elbows on his thighs as he fisted his hands in his hair and cursed himself out for his stupidity, feeling a headache coming on strong. More like a freight train, he thought sourly to himself.

Heero Yuy moved like a ghost through his house for the remainder of the afternoon, without rhyme and without reason, only occupying his body while his mind sequestered itself to think over just what he had done, and to cope with the growing sense of lonesomeness that came with it. His headache leveled off after some time to just a steady discomfort and he wasn’t about to let it get out of control. He stuffed his laundry hamper full and left it. He half-heartedly made and ate instant noodles and left the bowl in the sink, only half-finished. The coffee machine sputtered; he shut it off. The noise in the neighborhood swelled when a couple living nearby could be heard arguing; he trudged mechanically about, closing the windows. A dog barked loudly from across the street at nothing people could see; Heero wandered to the living room with a drained expression and looked out the window and watched the old man stagger outside at the obtrusive sound.

Bent cruelly by time and mocked by old age, he was a crooked old man, his shoulder and back forevermore out of alignment and awkwardly hunched. He came out in the narrow yard where the mixed dog trotted back and forth, kept on a short chain. His wispy remains of hair encamped over each ear twisted and turned in the slighest breeze, but more noticeably his face was set into a stony, scowling expression of perpetual disapproval and his wrinkled mouth opened up to snap at the dog. Though his body seemed impossibly bent and stooped, he managed to catch up with the tawny dog and throw a scolding hand at his nose as he barked again at seemingly nothing.

It was like looking in the mirror years into the future, Heero thought, knowing that he’d given his own version of a similar look to the Shinigami. He grimaced a little. "But I wasn’t like that to him, was I?" he muttered to the empty house, trying to convince himself more than anything now, suddenly feeling guilt tying a knot in his stomach.

As soon as that hand struck that muzzle, it yelped lowly, keeping its jaws close, and slunk away from its master as far as its chain would allow it. The dog crouched low to the ground and watched with wide, fearing eyes until the old man grumbled at him, swore at him, and began his trudge back inside. The scorned animal slunk around the nearby tree with tail firmly tucked between its legs and kept out of sight, and Heero felt as bad as if he had hit the poor thing with his own hand.

For him it symbolized much more than a punished dog.

They were sitting on the roof, watched by the moon. "Mmmmm, that sounds good," he had hummed into his shoulder, eyes closed serenely. "You promise?"

And then, only days later, there he had stood in front of him, tears running down that vulnerable expression. He had hesitated, and the Angel’s face had just wilted before his eyes and turned away. It was the last he’d seen of him—the last he’d ever see of him.

The guilt became too heavy to stand as soon as he saw the old wife standing in the doorway, waiting for the stooped, sour-faced old man. He drew closer and saw that she didn’t like the harsh treatment of the dog, but her face opened in a warm, accepting smile, and Heero could see she loved him nonetheless, just knowing that he was an irritable old thing and knowing it didn’t change her affection for him. All the air had left him and he wondered where it had gone. He felt choked, trapped, and alone.

Meanwhile, the old man across the street had stepped inside and the wife had smiled at him as she reached out to shut the door after him.

Heero’s body, now somewhat used to his mind wandering off on a lonely whim, moved his legs so that he stepped backwards and then turned to leave the living room.

His feet walked without him. They took him somewhere, and he didn’t care where. His walk turned into a run down the hall, and as soon as he reached the staircase, he realized the ghost of his ex-husband’s memory would be waiting for him upstairs, it was following him from the living room—hell, it was right in front of him, crying on the steps—and he collapsed onto the second stair. His back slid down the wall and eventually he came to rest, sitting with his aching head bowed.

The empty, quiet house was filled with one, soft sound it had not heard for years, save for the previous, dramatic night. From the staircase, it slowly moved from room to room, filling the air, and the sound grew stronger and stronger as the time wore on. It moved into the lifeless living room, into the lonely bedroom through the open doorways, filled the shell of a home.

Heero’s back arched away from the wall as he hunched over, pushing the palm of his hand over his eyes and choking back another muffled but wretched sound. His lips were pursed together, but he soon let out a rushed, sobbing sigh and tried to choke it back, bringing his other hand up to hide his face to will it to stop. He brought up his knees a second later, sniffling, and rubbed furiously at his eyes. He only succeeded in turning his face another shade red and spurring on his unexpected emotional reaction. He took in a sharp breath, making no outright sobbing sounds, but knowing they were there and waiting for him to crumble.

As he sat there, trying as hard as he could just not to cry and not to remember the Shinigami’s crooked smile, he didn’t feel like a child—he felt like he had never emotionally grown up at all and he would only grow old in an empty house. All because he was afraid of growing too attached, but still afraid of being alone. He’d been stubborn and stupid. Again he felt the sting of horror he had upon his mother and father’s death, felt the old demons in him tearing free of their mental holds and overwhelming him again. And at the front of the pack, stood his husband, watching him with eyes that had seen so many more years with him and filled with their own heartbreak.

The arrogant mortal sat on his staircase and held back the tears he’d never wanted to cry for years for what seemed like an eternity, until the feeling was spent and he leaned back, flushed red and rubbing his eyes dry again. He sighed, then started rubbing his eyes again with the palm of his hand a few seconds later. A weak chuckle escaped him. "I wonder what Shini would think if he saw me like this," he mumbled, giving a final sniffle and a drained smile. The next laugh came out strained, almost sobbing, and he tiredly laid his arms over his knees to rest his chin on them, hiding his face beneath his disarrayed hair.

He sighed again, this time without any of the humor. "She was right. Of all the people, that maniac woman was right," he mumbled in complaint, knowing there was no one to hear it. For another few, silent minutes, his head remained bowed tiredly, until his eyes wearily lifted and a familiar red thread caught his attention, glinting on his pinkie finger.

[1] I was having trouble deciding on the river for the setting. I mean, I think the River Styx is more accurate, but I’ve seen different sources say completely different things… so, I decided to go with the River Acheron. Oh, come on, isn’t the River of Woe totally appropriate?

[2] Shini’s whole name didn’t seem to evoke that same feeling of, "Oh, shit, I’m in trouble," when Iria yelled at him, not like when you have a more human one, like, say, "John Rupert Doe!" (don’t ask me why John Doe’s middle name is going to be Rupert, it just is…)

[3] Shades are creatures in Hades that are basically what their name suggests, just shadows. I don’t have a lot of other information on them, though ^_^.

A/N: Okay, so I told you there'd be only one more chapter of My Shinigami, My Hamburger, but you'd like to see more, anyway, right? Well, don't fret any of your heads, because I'm only three hundred words or so of finishing the very last chapter. Together, I thought it was getting a little long, I wanted to draw out the tension a little more if I could, I wanted to get out a chapter right now, and it's also neater to have Arc I be Chapters 1-29 and then Arc II can be 30-whatever. You know, a nice even number. So, keep on your toes, there should be another installment just about tomorrow--and it's the finale (for this part, at least)! Thanks to everybody--oh, I almost forgot!! There's this gorgeous fanart drawing for Chapter 27 by the talented Korilin which I absolutely adore. Try http://korilin.deviantart.com. I'm so excited about it, go check it out! Thank you!