Madara:
2 years previously
Nobody should have to do this.
I stood in the rain, clad in black suit pants and a black winter coat. I was holding an umbrella, but to no avail; my hair was already drenched.
Nobody should have to bury their eighteen-year-old little brother.
I hadn't cried during the ceremony. Not even once. All my tears were already spent, had been spent since the doctor came out to us in the waiting room in the hospital.
"I'm sorry..." the doctor had said.
I put a gloved hand on the white lacquered coffin that had been covered in red roses. It felt strange, that it would be buried and covered in heaping layers of sand and dirt and gravel. I looked at the hole in the ground. It was so deep. Is it really necessary?
"See you, brother", I said.
And I turned to leave, unable to watch as they lowered my little brother's body into the ground to be devoured by the earth.
"See you, Izuna."
Present time
Madara:
I was sitting on my bed in my room, going through a thick law book that was part of the course literature. Tomorrow, it would be my first day of lectures. I had spent all weekend moving into my new student room and only had the evening to prepare. Next to me in bed, I had a dish of rice with crispy tofu in a peanut sauce that I had cooked and was eating at slow pace with a pair of chopsticks.
And I finally found the part I was looking for.
The part about drug crimes.
I was drawn to it in a way I suspected wasn't healthy for me.
"I'm sorry..."
I took a piece of tofu, put it in my mouth whole and chewed.
"He died in the heroin overdose."
My family had asked for his medical record, and I had read the note from the ER.
"The patient was found without a pulse and no breathing by his brother. Paramedics arrived 12 minutes after he was found. CPR was commenced immediately by the brother. The paramedics took over upon arrival. A substantial amount of stomach contents were sucked out of the patient's airways in the ambulance. Asystole upon arrival to the ER. Resuscitation continued for forty minutes before it was discontinued and the patient was pronounced dead."
We had known Izuna was a heroin addict. He had tried it when he was sixteen when he got together with his first girlfriend, as she was into it and he loved her. And after that one time, he was hooked.
He could disappear for days on end, not only from home but from school as well. Before that, he got the highest marks in all subjects in school and was a model child. Everybody had loved him. But nobody loved you like I did... We were all so proud of him, and heartbroken when he got addicted. There seemed to be nothing, absolutely nothing we could do, and that helplessness had gotten me into a deep depression I still was in the midst of.
Speaking of depression...
I took a Prozac pill and swallowed it dry, and continued reading about drug crimes.
Stop looking at me... Please, stop looking at me.
I hugged my laptop in its bag close to my chest, trying to hide behind it. I always carried it in my arms, despite having a backpack, because it made me feel safe. It was a habit I developed because people always stared at me, as they did now I was walking down the corridor of the law building of the university for my first day of lectures.
I couldn't blame them, really. I was aware I looked quirky. When I was a teenager, people always blamed me for wanting attention for my looks, and there might've been something to that. But now, at the age of twenty-three, that wasn't the case. I had lost all of my teenage-confidence, while being unable to feel comfortable in any other clothing than the alternative ones I always donned. If anything, since Izuna died, I wanted to blend in, to go unnoticed, to be left alone. But my looks worked against me. I had a very sharp, masculine face with quite prominent bags under my eyes, which became even more protruding when I hadn't slept well, which was most nights. I dressed in dark clothes, usually skinny black jeans and large sweaters and scarves, which stood out now in particular when I was walking down the corridor of the highly regarded law school, where most students wore expensive shirts and jackets and looked incredibly posh.
But what stood out the most was probably my hair. It reached my tailbone, and was thick and course and cut in so many layers, it stood out in all directions. It was pitch black and had a way of catching the light that caused it to glisten.
"Look at the ghost", I heard a posh man that was probably a few years older than me say loudly to his group of friends so that I could hear, making them laugh. I huddled even more, hiding my face behind the long strands of hair framing my face. But there was one thing I didn't miss, even if I only saw it out of the corner of my eye.
One of the men in his friend group wasn't laughing with them.
I increased my pace to get away from the laughing. What happened to you, Madara? I used to never tolerate this kind of shit. I used to always stand up for myself, which usually cast anyone trying to mock me so off-guard that they shut up. But that was before...
That was before my little brother died. That was before I couldn't save him.
Since then, I'd clammed up. I couldn't quite pinpoint as to why. It was just the way it was.
In my distress, I didn't notice a pillar in front of me and walked straight into it.
"Ouff!" I exclaimed, at the same time dropping my laptop that was luckily in its case. I heard laughter all around me. I was so embarrassed, so completely mortified I had to stand for a while hiding my face in my hands. Fuck me...
And suddenly I felt it.
A ginormous presence beside me.
The presence bent down and picked up my laptop, handed it to me.
"You should look where you go", a deep, a little raspy voice said kindly. The voice was warm, and very male, like honey with chunks of beeswax still in it.
I looked up from where I'd hidden behind my hands and just stared.
He was taller than me, probably two metres, muscular but lean. He was dressed in a light blue shirt that he hadn't tucked in, and dark grey suit pants. His hair was long, as long as mine, but that was the only resemblance between our hair. His was soft, dark brown and evenly cut.
And his face. It was beautiful, strong yet delicate in a way, as if someone had chiseled it out of stone but polished it to a perfect smoothness. He had a low forehead, a v-shaped hairline, large, kind eyes and well-shaped eyebrows. His nose was thin, matched by his lips, and he was clean-shaven.
But most of all, I recognised him as the man who hadn't laughed when his friend mocked me.
I was dumbfounded, just stared up at him, unable to reclaim my laptop that he was reaching out to me. But he didn't seem bothered by this. On the contrary; he got an amused smile playing on his lips. Probably used to both boys and girls being starstruck by him and no wonder...
"Take it! I won't bite." I tentatively reached my hand out. "At least not hard."
I was taken aback and stopped in my tracks. He just laughed and shoved the laptop into my chest, where I put my arms protectively around it. I promise I won't drop you again.
"By the way..." He put a large, warm hand on my shoulder. I flinched. He didn't care, but leaned forwards and put his lips close to my ear. "I don't mind me a cute ghost..."
And he turned and walked away with confident, long strides.
Hashirama:
I had instantly taken note of him.
Of course I had. Everyone did.
My first reaction wasn't attraction, but curiosity. Was he lost? He didn't look like a law student, or have the poise of one. All around me were men and women feigning confidence and a posh status that I had seen through long ago, but that didn't take away the fact that these people radiated importance. But this boy was... Different. It sounded tacky, but that was really the best description I had. He was medium height and lean. He currently wore a pair of ripped, black jeans, a dark grey hoodie and a pair of heavy, very fashionable black boots. He had some curious-looking bags under his eyes that prevented him from being conventionally beautiful, but I'd never liked conventionally beautiful anyway. But what struck me the most was his hair. Wow... I found myself fantasising about laying next to him, pulling my fingers through it over and over...
I heard one of my friends point at him and laugh. The others in the group joined. And that sensation struck me yet again...
It had started early on when I became a law student. It was a deep sensation of discomfort in the pit of my stomach, telling me I shouldn't surround myself with these people. That I didn't want to surround myself with these people. I had changed so much during the first year to blend in with them, and succeeded. I was enormously popular, but I noticed the more popular I became, the unhappier I was deep down. I couldn't shrug the feeling off that these people weren't real but were just wearing a facade, just like I was. And the thought of them being real, of them actually well and truly showing their true selves and this was it, was even more terrifying than the thought of all of us just faking it. If we were faking it, at least there was something else behind it, something that was perhaps and hopefully more genuine.
I didn't laugh with them, and my heart bled to see how he huddled his laptop bag. That boy have seen things we have no idea about...
And when he walked into the pillar and dropped his laptop, I didn't think twice before I went to him.
Judging by how large his eyes became when I went to help him, he wasn't used to people being kind to him. God, he was even more beautiful up close. He had a small, sharp nose, a pointy chin and luscious lips. His eyes were large, and framed by thick, black eyelashes. He even had some freckles across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. His eyebrows were thick but incredibly well-shaped. I saw he had a thin layer of a glittery powder across his cheeks, but no other makeup. He smelled fantastic of a caramelly cologne.
He looked so lost, but I hoped he wasn't.
I hoped he was in law, so I would see him again for the entire year I had left of my own education,
I hoped he was in law, because God knew this place needed some real people.
And this boy was real.