Hopeless Cause

I’m enjoying a cup of tea before I get on with my other chores, watching the clean laundry wave slightly in a light, cool breeze, when Sano wanders in. His looks have been unusually despondent lately, but as yet I haven’t been able to get him to tell me why. Today he seems even more cast down than before, sighing as he sinks onto the porch beside me, and looks as if he hasn’t slept well the last few nights.

I return his unenthusiastic greeting, and that I can do so with “Good morning, Sano” is another indication something is wrong; usually we don’t see Sano here until the afternoon. I don’t delay in asking him, though I doubt he’ll be any more forthcoming than he has been the last few times I’ve inquired.

“I don’t know,” he replies somewhat dully. When he sees me patiently waiting for elaboration, he sighs again and goes on. “I mean I really don’t know. I don’t know if I’m going crazy or what.”

He doesn’t appreciate being pressed to explain his feelings, so I simply wait. And since I’m sure he never had such consideration from him, maybe that will invite him to open up to me.

“It’s been months,” he says in a tone of protestation, as if responding to some conversation we haven’t actually had yet, then adds more softly, “Five months.”

I don’t correct him out loud; picking at Sano’s inexactness is something he would do. Four months and twenty-five days is close enough to five, at any rate. And at least now I have a general idea of what’s bothering him. I’m not exactly shocked.

Sano sighs and mutters, “I just wish I knew if this is normal, or if…” And he shakes his head.

I want to shake him, to insist he tell me what’s wrong, to demand, “Why could he always get you to literally shout out what you were feeling, but I have to sit through your uncertain mutterings and head-shakings just to get a hint?” But I won’t do anything of the sort; I won’t be like him. Still, I can’t bring myself to say nothing, so after several moments of silence I prod gently, “If what is normal, Sano?”

“That I can’t stop thinking about him,” he finally admits. “I knew it would stick around for a while — I know that’s normal — but I figured it would stop eventually… but it hasn’t.”

I want to sigh. I want to tell Sano that he isn’t worth thinking about and that, normal or otherwise, such obsessing isn’t healthy or wise. But at the same time, I want to be supportive of my friend like he never was. So I merely ask politely, “What kind of things do you think about him?”

“I can’t stop going over every little thing we said…” he replies, staring hard at the ground. “And then how I feel about it keeps changing. One minute I’m justifying something one of us said, and the next I’m blaming it for everything that happened. Is that normal?”

Is it normal to try endlessly to untangle the dynamics of a relationship that was destined from the beginning to be twisted and confusing? But while he might be more than willing to write Sano’s efforts off as pointless and tell him to find something better to do, I won’t be so callous. “So you are trying to assign blame?”

“Well…” I don’t think he would have gone on if I hadn’t asked. Why can’t he confide in me? “I thought I knew exactly whose fault it was back then, but now… goddammit…” He’s speaking with a little more energy than before as the emotions associated with his thoughts creep into his words. “First it’s mine, then it’s his, then it’s neither of us, then it’s both… there’s no right answer.”

I know the right answer: he was always the unreasonable one, and the only thing Sano did wrong in leaving was putting it off for so long. But somehow I don’t believe expressing that opinion so forcefully will encourage Sano to continue; I must remain relatively impartial. I can’t help asking, though, “Why do you blame yourself at all?”

He shrugs. “Little things. I keep thinking if only I’d said this or if I hadn’t done that… even when I’m pissed as hell remembering something he said or did, something inside me still wonders, What could I have done different? That’s not normal, is it?”

The whole thing wasn’t normal, Sano. Your attraction to him, your interaction with him, the way he treated you — none of it was normal. It would be so easy to open my mouth and just tell him all of this, tell him this and more, what I’ve wanted to for so long… but I won’t. There’s a time and a place for disparaging bluntness — something he needs to learn — and this isn’t it.

“But it’s not just that kind of shit, all about how it ended.” Finally Sano seems to be willing to go on without my prompting him. “It’s like something in my head still thinks we’re together, because everything I do, practically everything I just see, like walking down the street, I’m thinking of telling him about it before I even remember I’m not going to be talking to him anytime soon.”

He very rarely tells me about things he sees walking down the street, and he talks to me all the time. Am I surprised? Not particularly. Close to miserable? Yes.

“And I’ll think things… just stupid shit, the usual stuff I think whenever… and even though I know what he’d say if I told him — god, and it wouldn’t even be nice — I still want to tell him. Is that normal? I mean, it’s been five fucking months and I’m still wanting to tell him fucking everything…”

Him fucking everything and me almost nothing. Is that normal? Is it normal for a man to ignore his best friend — somebody who’s always there for him, would do anything for him — and throw away all his effort and thought and affection on someone who never deserved or appreciated it?

“And I remember things just out of the blue, and they affect me way the hell more than they should. The other day I remembered some funny conversation we had once, and it made me laugh ’til I was crying… or I’ll suddenly think about the last time he kissed me, and–” He turns away as he breaks off abruptly, obviously unwilling to tell me what reaction he had to that memory. I’m not sure I’m entirely disappointed he didn’t continue. There’s a part of me that wants desperately to know that kind of physical detail; it’s largely overridden by my politer side, but there’s no denying it’s there.

“And you know I’m a pretty happy guy most of the time,” he goes on, perhaps a little too quickly, “but every once in a while if something goes wrong, why the hell is it him I keep thinking of going to? Lately it’s been building up worse than usual. I’ve been trying to ignore it — that and all the rest of it — but I can’t help feeling like it’s just not normal to be thinking all of this after this long. I mean, at first, sure, but still?”

He pounds his face against his fist, and with his elbow propped on his knee and his leg drawn up so his foot can press against the porch pillar, his body appears strangely cramped and contorted — though perhaps it’s more his emotional state giving that impression.

“Tell me I’m not going crazy, Kenshin.” He looks up at me now almost imploringly, and I can see how much this really has him worried. “Tell me this is normal.”

If ever I wanted to call my friend an idiot, this is the moment. That he can be so utterly blind, both to what’s in his own heart and what’s right in front of him… He almost deserves to be ridiculed. But of course I won’t. It’s completely reprehensible to call the person you love an idiot, and I won’t be like him.

“Yes, Sano, that is all quite normal…” I take a deep breath, steeling myself, before finishing the statement. “…if you still love him.”

Sano is staring at me now, his mouth open slightly as if he was about to make some further point and suddenly has no breath left to say it with. His face, rather than red with the blush I was expecting, is actually a little pale. “I don’t…” he stammers. “I never… It wasn’t…”

My smile feels more patient and sad than teasing. “Yes, you did, Sano,” I tell him gently. It’s hard to continue, desperately hard, but I’m not the type that neglects to mention important details to his associates. That’s something he does. “And I think you still do.”

“But he…” Sano has gone even paler, and the fact that this concept is such a shock to him tempts me more than ever to apply that affectionately insulting epithet I know perfectly well Sano is only willing to receive from him.

And this is, quite possibly, the most painfully difficult thing I’ve ever said. “Sano, I would be very surprised if he does not love you in return.” Even if he doesn’t deserve to, I don’t add. Even if he barely has any idea what love is. Even if he could never come close to returning the kind of love you’re capable of. I would be very surprised, because anyone who knows you and doesn’t love you is completely insane.

“But… but it’s been five months,” Sano protests, and now I can hear, to my sorrow, a tone in his voice that is something like the beginnings of desperate hope. “He hasn’t said anything…”

“And neither have you,” I remind him quietly. I can’t go so far as to make a suggestion; from my very soul I’m aching to advise him to give up, to forget, to move on, to live down the emotion he’s finally recognizing, but after those few words I keep silent.

Sano stands abruptly. “God dammit…” he mutters, more to himself than to me, but I can read the purpose in that purposeless exclamation. I think I know Sano better than he ever could, and I can hear the self-castigation in that curse. He wonders why it took him so long to see; he wonders how badly he’s wounded the person he’s only just realized he loves; he wonders if it’s too late.

He turns to me at last, and his eyes are full now of pain and determination. At first he has nothing to say, and neither do I, so for several moments we stare at each other in silence. And, somewhat guiltily I must admit, I can’t help hoping that while our gazes are thus locked and Sano is in this mood of perception, he’ll somehow begin to notice at last how I feel. My emotions are mixed when, unsurprisingly, he doesn’t.

“Thank you,” he says intensely.

I can only nod, even as he turns to leave me.

Do I hope it won’t work out? Do I wish him failure in his endeavor, to see him back here within an hour even more unhappy than before? No. Unlike him, I don’t hold grudges. And I know a hopeless cause when I champion it. Still, I wouldn’t complain if this heaviness, this dark turmoil in the back of my head, this uncomfortable pressure on my heart were to abate somewhat.

With a slight sigh I stand and glance around the courtyard. Life goes on, after all; I suppose I’d better get started with the rest of my chores. But I do turn again before going inside and watch Sano walk away with a much lighter step than when he approached.

“Ahou ga…”

This story was for 30_kisses theme #4 “Our distance and that person.” I’ve rated it .