Yosuke "ᴀᴄᴛᴜᴀʟʟʏ ᴀғʀᴀɪᴅ ᴏғ ᴘᴇɴɪsᴇs" Hanamura (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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insurmountable2015-09-17 05:34 pm
punchesyu) wrote in insurmountable2015-09-17 05:34 pm
Entry tags:
Epilogue
I always thought for the longest time that my life would be worth something if I was special to someone. We talked a lot that day, and I figured out a lot of things about myself, back then. I finally realized that that wasn't true at all; that just being here already made me special. I still remember looking out over Inaba from that hill with him, thinking I had things all figured out. Hell, I even told him he was special to me. You shoulda seen the look on his face. Not that it was funny or anything. It was peaceful, you know, the kinda warm glow that really puts you at ease. And, well, I was happy. I thought I understood the relationship we shared with each other. He was my partner, through and through. No way would 'best friend' cut it. It was a lot deeper than that. We'd been through hell and back together. Well, with everyone else too, but there was a certain kind of kinship between me and him. Something I knew I wasn't gunna find anywhere else. And no matter what, wherever he ended up, I knew we'd still be partners until the very end.
It's been four years, five months and eighteen days since then. But I haven't forgotten a single detail. I can't.
The alarm clock in here is seriously annoying. You'd think that this high-tech sci-fi outfit would at least be able to put in an alarm that doesn't want to make my ears bleed. But I still get up ass-early in the morning for battle simulations, workouts and some way rigid training every single day. Sometimes I just wanna pretend I never heard my alarm and sleep in, until I remind myself why I came here in the first place. All it takes is that one image in my head, and I'm up and ready.
It took a while to get used to this place. It's like straight out of Star Trek or Star Wars or something. And man, don't even get me started on the weaponry this place is packing. I'm pretty sure it could blow up a planet if they launched everything at the same time. It's like living in a really sweet, giant metal RV the size of Japan, only with all those cool lights that line the floor in some places. I even have a computer that projects from a wristband, complete with a light generated keyboard and monitor! Hah, and the bridge lets you see light years in front of you! All these transparent monitors hang right in front of the main window, which is nothing but stars and planets whizzing by your head. Dude, I want to show everyone from home how cool this place is. Looking out the window, seeing every star in space...sometimes, we'll fly right by another galaxy. I'd only seen pictures of them on Earth, but it's something else when you get to see it up close and personal.
I wish he were here still so we could look at the stars together. I really think he could appreciate the view.
That's why I'm here. Well, part of it. I've got other reasons too, but if I'm going to be honest, it's for him. Because that day...I'll never let it go. Not until they've been stopped. The work is hard, the hardest I've ever done in my entire life. Everyone here is great, except for the one guy who is seriously creepy. He keeps telling me that I'm way too metro to be into chicks, and I try to get anyone else as a partner for exercises. It's like dealing with Kanji's shadow, only worse because I can't make him go away. But that's besides the point!
I made a promise. He asked me to go home, and I did. It hadn't taken long to get to the rendezvous point, after putting on the helmet and getting the HUD up on the back of the visor. I still remember that part of it was hard to see, because blood covered the inside. But I was too upset to care. And I was too concentrated on making sure I didn't lose him on the back of the cycle we'd used to get out. They really had the place hidden and locked up- I hadn't even known I'd gotten there until this big ass door lifted up from underground to let me drive down a ramp that was poorly lit. Talk about James Bond. There was a small team waiting, and a lot of it is blurry. People asking me what happened, and a couple of men took his body and tried using a standard galactic defibrillator to get his heart going. But I knew that wasn't going to work. I could only stand there and stare on blankly while they did everything to try to save a guy that wasn't going to wake up. I ended up on a stretcher, because some of the medics were worried my insides got torn up too because of the blood on my mouth.
And well, they weren't wrong. Everything on the inside was torn to shreds. There were times I thought I was imagining it, because I'd never felt a pain like that my whole life.
At least they had the decency to keep the body around long enough to ask me about it. They had his records on file, so they knew who it was. But I guess the commander spoke to him about me before they'd shown up in Vista to extract me, and knew how important it was. I sat in this whitewashed, boring room for forever until the commander came in and started asking me questions.
"Yosuke Hanamura?"
"Yeah. That's me."
"It's good to see you made it out safely. I know what you experienced was difficult, but you must understand that is the nature of those who take on that responsibility."
I couldn't believe that was what he was trying to offer me for condolence. I stared back at him with disbelief before I blew my stack.
"What the hell?! You seriously expect to come in here and give me that kinda bullshit after I just watched him die?! The hell do you know about losing someone to scum like that?! Waltzing right in here and opening the wound more!"
I knew I was crying again by then. I remember he glanced back with a stone expression. Now that I look back on it, he probably lost a lot of people, and did a damn good job of hiding the same pain that I was feeling. But after a while you come to accept that risk. I think I accepted it the minute he drew his last breath in my arms.
I knew what I had to do.
You know that cryogenic deep freeze crap from the movies? It's totally a thing around here. I wasn't leaving him on some weird ass planet. I'd asked if there were anyway to get him back to Earth so there could be a proper funeral. I figured his parents, Dojima-san and Nanako-chan would appreciate it if at least the body was there, instead of millions of light years away deteriorating into the dirt. So they froze it up and flew me home. Of course, we couldn't get back to Inaba in any kind of stealthy way. At least they managed to hide the transport ship well enough that every government agency all over the world didn't freak out because aliens landed. But I sorta needed them to help explain to my parents, our friends and his family what exactly happened. They didn't exactly believe it at first, but then they also had a three-foot tall purple haired muskrat and a half-man half-plant with opposable thumbs come and sit down to explain things. My mom sorta fainted. Dojima-san pulled his gun on them at first, and I had to work him down before he created some kinda war between humanity and whatever the hell their race is called.
At least Nanako-chan was chill about it. She and the purple rat hit it off pretty well, after I explained they were friends. Sometimes I can't believe how shy she is with new people, but I guess I can't really blame her this time. Meeting aliens isn't exactly what you'd call normal on Earth. After Dojima-san calmed down, we sat down in their living room at the table and I had to recount the painful events of that day. I left a lot of it out, but they got the gist.
"That kid..." Dojima-san sounded so exasperated and tired. You could hear the sadness in his voice. "I told him to keep his nose out of things that are too dangerous for him. And now..."
I don't think I've ever seen a detective tear up like that. Nanako-chan's eyes were wide open, like she didn't understand or something.
"Big bro...he's...gone?"
How do you tell a little girl that her big bro died saving his stupid partner from psychotic aliens? Even putting it like that sounded cheesy as hell.
"Yeah. He's gone," I answered. She looked back at me with those innocent eyes, and I felt like daggers went through my heart.
"Does that mean...he's with mom? In Heaven?"
"...Yeah. That's exactly where he is, Nanako-chan."
The funeral was as you'd expect it. His parents came home from overseas, and it was held in Inaba. We all had our turns to say our piece, and I tried to keep mine as short as I could. I don't think he'd want me to go up and give this big long speech about him. And even if I did, I don't think I woulda been able to get through the whole thing without breaking down. Not gunna lie, Kanji was the one that really had the attention, with all that tough guy talk he does. Short, sweet, and humiliatingly to the point. You don't go telling people how much ass you're going to kick! We're at a funeral, you idiot! And don't even get me started on Teddie's. All he did was hug the mic and wail, scream and cry. Not that I could blame him, but seriously! Man, you weren't even there! At least the girls managed to get through it, though Rise really struggled. I was surprised, since she's an idol and all.
Looking down in that hole in the ground for the casket drove the nail in hard. I found myself staring at it as it was being lowered, and I wasn't sure how long it was until Yukiko put a hand on my shoulder. Everyone else was gone, even his parents. It was just me. She actually came back, probably knowing that I was still here.
"Yosuke-kun."
"...Right."
After that, the days seemed to blend for me. I went back to school, at the insistence of my parents. But that's not what I wanted to do. We argued a lot over it. I wanted to go back, to go help the people who were still enslaved against their own wills. The wills of people that were forcibly changed into someone they weren't. They'd given me a card, a small communicator that was paper thin that I could signal when I was ready. It sat on my desk, and I looked at it whenever I was in my room. I thought about it at school, and couldn't concentrate. My grades dropped like rocks, and they were already at rock bottom. I couldn't take it anymore. I'd been having nightmares for weeks straight. I almost dreaded going to sleep at night, knowing I'd wake up screaming again from the same scene that would play out vividly in my mind every night. Some nights were better than others, because I could at least lie back down and fall asleep after an hour. But sometimes, I'd end up crying myself to sleep. I know, it totally sounds like I'm being a huge baby. But I couldn't live with myself knowing that I wasn't doing anything. I felt worthless sitting there, letting that crap happen. The same stuff that ended my partner's life.
I called Naoto, to ask her opinion. Maybe I was calling her because I wanted some kind of official police opinion or something. I wasn't sure. She gave me a pretty straight answer, exactly what I suspected from her. It was probably what I wanted to hear.
"If you're going to go, please be careful, Yosuke-senpai. What we know of the enemy is very little, and you run the same risks that senpai took on when he undertook the task of saving your life. He would not want you to senselessly throw your life away. And you want to go alone."
She was concerned. I knew that if given the chance, everyone would want to come. But I can't let them get dragged into this too.
"Yeah. This is something I gotta do. He laid down his life for me, and I can't let them get away with this. I'll do whatever it takes to take them down and free the rest of those people. And so that they can't ever do this to anyone ever again."
I finally told my parents that I'd had enough. That I called them and they were sending a shuttle to get me. They were furious, but they are my parents. They care a lot about me, and I know they were afraid that what happened to him would happen to me too. But this was something I had to do. Everyone else understood. Rise did like, the cutest thing ever.
"Take them down! Just promise me that you'll come back in once piece. And for incentive, when you get back, I'll give you a private concert! Risette's here, and ready to go!"
How come it took this to get her to do something like that for me?! And why does she have to be so damn cute when she does it?! It's enough to drive a man insane! And of course, Teddie begged to go.
"Whaaaaaa???? What do you mean I can't come? This bear has enough bearpower to teach those guys a lesson for what they did to sensei! Rawr!"
"Dude, cut it out! What the hell is bearpower even supposed to be anyway? Can it!" There was no way I was letting him tag along. He'd screw everything up! Chie had to be a pain about it too.
"You're seriously going by yourself? What are you thinking, Yosuke?"
"Hey, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. You don't have to rag me about it."
"Just don't do something stupid and get yourself killed!"
She seemed to calm down a little bit, and looked up at me softly.
"Go get 'em. For me."
I will, Chie. I'll get them good.
I boarded the streamlined ship about twenty minutes later, waving to them all as I left. To be honest, I was scared out of my mind. He must of been scared too. Going into it knowing the dangers. There were times during the rigorous training where I thought I should just give up, that I wasn't going to be able to do this. Going to bed so sore that I couldn't move a muscle and then waking up to be even more stiff really takes it out of a guy. Plus getting interrogated even more about why I was captured in the first place. Something about certain people having special souls or some weird shit like that. At first, I thought it was going to be tough explaining how myself along with my friends had the power to go inside the TV and summon our Persona. Those scientists thought it was pretty interesting, and asked me if I'd be up for a series of tests. At first I said no, but they said they might be able to figure out a way that I could use my Persona in the real world.
I probably would of said no again. But if I had Jiraiya with me that day, he might still be alive.
So I said yes.
Alien technology is seriously kick ass, and I can hardly believe even now that they really did manage to hook some kind of nanochip into my brain that lets me call my Persona. Complete with the spinning card and all! But it wasn't long after some of the experiments that my first mission came. I'd done so much work up to this point, it had been months upon months of endless training. I was scared, angry and excited all at the same time. My first chance to really rip these guys a new one. But it's just like they say, war is glorified. This wasn't like fighting Shadows. They knew we were coming. They'd prepared the best they could for it. It was a outdoor concert, and the place was crawling with those creepy blacksuited guards.
There was a point where I thought it was the end. But I had these words inside me that kept me going. That helped me to keep a level head where I normally would of panicked. The card floated down from the sky, into my open palm held in front of me as I crushed it to reveal my true strength.
I believe in you, Yosuke.
It was a successful rescue. But not without its hardships. Half the team was wounded and one of the victims ended up in critical condition. More missions followed, some successful, some not so successful. I've lost track now of how many I've been on. But no matter what, I don't give up, even when it looks bad.
Because I think that day, he passed on part of himself to me. I'm a lot calmer these days. It might be because of everything I've seen in the past five years or so. But I believe that before he died, when he kissed me, I got a lot more than just a farewell. In fact, I don't think that was a goodbye at all anymore. He's still here, alive in my heart. Guiding me when I need it. Keeping me grounded through any tough situation. I used to always ask myself what he would do. Now it's second nature, not even having to have a passing thought.
And now, I finally understand, what it is to really be special to someone else. And how special he was to me. It sucks that I never knew what I had right in front of me the entire time. Too caught up on girls and trying to land a girlfriend constantly. I wonder how that made him feel, if it hurt him, and how long he cared for me that way. Why didn't he ever tell me? Not like I don't know the answer to that one. I hope he's happy, wherever he is now. And that he knows I'm doing all I can to help here.
I've been standing on the bridge now for some time. I bet I look stupid, staring into outer space, literally. I should go before the commander catches me wearing my uniform like this. I kinda keep the jacket completely open, so you can see the entire undershirt even though it's supposed to be zipped up. Heh, he gets on my ass every time he sees me. But I don't care. I kinda like the look. Reminds me of someone. It reminds me of you.
Yu. I love you and I miss you.
It's been four years, five months and eighteen days since then. But I haven't forgotten a single detail. I can't.
The alarm clock in here is seriously annoying. You'd think that this high-tech sci-fi outfit would at least be able to put in an alarm that doesn't want to make my ears bleed. But I still get up ass-early in the morning for battle simulations, workouts and some way rigid training every single day. Sometimes I just wanna pretend I never heard my alarm and sleep in, until I remind myself why I came here in the first place. All it takes is that one image in my head, and I'm up and ready.
It took a while to get used to this place. It's like straight out of Star Trek or Star Wars or something. And man, don't even get me started on the weaponry this place is packing. I'm pretty sure it could blow up a planet if they launched everything at the same time. It's like living in a really sweet, giant metal RV the size of Japan, only with all those cool lights that line the floor in some places. I even have a computer that projects from a wristband, complete with a light generated keyboard and monitor! Hah, and the bridge lets you see light years in front of you! All these transparent monitors hang right in front of the main window, which is nothing but stars and planets whizzing by your head. Dude, I want to show everyone from home how cool this place is. Looking out the window, seeing every star in space...sometimes, we'll fly right by another galaxy. I'd only seen pictures of them on Earth, but it's something else when you get to see it up close and personal.
I wish he were here still so we could look at the stars together. I really think he could appreciate the view.
That's why I'm here. Well, part of it. I've got other reasons too, but if I'm going to be honest, it's for him. Because that day...I'll never let it go. Not until they've been stopped. The work is hard, the hardest I've ever done in my entire life. Everyone here is great, except for the one guy who is seriously creepy. He keeps telling me that I'm way too metro to be into chicks, and I try to get anyone else as a partner for exercises. It's like dealing with Kanji's shadow, only worse because I can't make him go away. But that's besides the point!
I made a promise. He asked me to go home, and I did. It hadn't taken long to get to the rendezvous point, after putting on the helmet and getting the HUD up on the back of the visor. I still remember that part of it was hard to see, because blood covered the inside. But I was too upset to care. And I was too concentrated on making sure I didn't lose him on the back of the cycle we'd used to get out. They really had the place hidden and locked up- I hadn't even known I'd gotten there until this big ass door lifted up from underground to let me drive down a ramp that was poorly lit. Talk about James Bond. There was a small team waiting, and a lot of it is blurry. People asking me what happened, and a couple of men took his body and tried using a standard galactic defibrillator to get his heart going. But I knew that wasn't going to work. I could only stand there and stare on blankly while they did everything to try to save a guy that wasn't going to wake up. I ended up on a stretcher, because some of the medics were worried my insides got torn up too because of the blood on my mouth.
And well, they weren't wrong. Everything on the inside was torn to shreds. There were times I thought I was imagining it, because I'd never felt a pain like that my whole life.
At least they had the decency to keep the body around long enough to ask me about it. They had his records on file, so they knew who it was. But I guess the commander spoke to him about me before they'd shown up in Vista to extract me, and knew how important it was. I sat in this whitewashed, boring room for forever until the commander came in and started asking me questions.
"Yosuke Hanamura?"
"Yeah. That's me."
"It's good to see you made it out safely. I know what you experienced was difficult, but you must understand that is the nature of those who take on that responsibility."
I couldn't believe that was what he was trying to offer me for condolence. I stared back at him with disbelief before I blew my stack.
"What the hell?! You seriously expect to come in here and give me that kinda bullshit after I just watched him die?! The hell do you know about losing someone to scum like that?! Waltzing right in here and opening the wound more!"
I knew I was crying again by then. I remember he glanced back with a stone expression. Now that I look back on it, he probably lost a lot of people, and did a damn good job of hiding the same pain that I was feeling. But after a while you come to accept that risk. I think I accepted it the minute he drew his last breath in my arms.
I knew what I had to do.
You know that cryogenic deep freeze crap from the movies? It's totally a thing around here. I wasn't leaving him on some weird ass planet. I'd asked if there were anyway to get him back to Earth so there could be a proper funeral. I figured his parents, Dojima-san and Nanako-chan would appreciate it if at least the body was there, instead of millions of light years away deteriorating into the dirt. So they froze it up and flew me home. Of course, we couldn't get back to Inaba in any kind of stealthy way. At least they managed to hide the transport ship well enough that every government agency all over the world didn't freak out because aliens landed. But I sorta needed them to help explain to my parents, our friends and his family what exactly happened. They didn't exactly believe it at first, but then they also had a three-foot tall purple haired muskrat and a half-man half-plant with opposable thumbs come and sit down to explain things. My mom sorta fainted. Dojima-san pulled his gun on them at first, and I had to work him down before he created some kinda war between humanity and whatever the hell their race is called.
At least Nanako-chan was chill about it. She and the purple rat hit it off pretty well, after I explained they were friends. Sometimes I can't believe how shy she is with new people, but I guess I can't really blame her this time. Meeting aliens isn't exactly what you'd call normal on Earth. After Dojima-san calmed down, we sat down in their living room at the table and I had to recount the painful events of that day. I left a lot of it out, but they got the gist.
"That kid..." Dojima-san sounded so exasperated and tired. You could hear the sadness in his voice. "I told him to keep his nose out of things that are too dangerous for him. And now..."
I don't think I've ever seen a detective tear up like that. Nanako-chan's eyes were wide open, like she didn't understand or something.
"Big bro...he's...gone?"
How do you tell a little girl that her big bro died saving his stupid partner from psychotic aliens? Even putting it like that sounded cheesy as hell.
"Yeah. He's gone," I answered. She looked back at me with those innocent eyes, and I felt like daggers went through my heart.
"Does that mean...he's with mom? In Heaven?"
"...Yeah. That's exactly where he is, Nanako-chan."
The funeral was as you'd expect it. His parents came home from overseas, and it was held in Inaba. We all had our turns to say our piece, and I tried to keep mine as short as I could. I don't think he'd want me to go up and give this big long speech about him. And even if I did, I don't think I woulda been able to get through the whole thing without breaking down. Not gunna lie, Kanji was the one that really had the attention, with all that tough guy talk he does. Short, sweet, and humiliatingly to the point. You don't go telling people how much ass you're going to kick! We're at a funeral, you idiot! And don't even get me started on Teddie's. All he did was hug the mic and wail, scream and cry. Not that I could blame him, but seriously! Man, you weren't even there! At least the girls managed to get through it, though Rise really struggled. I was surprised, since she's an idol and all.
Looking down in that hole in the ground for the casket drove the nail in hard. I found myself staring at it as it was being lowered, and I wasn't sure how long it was until Yukiko put a hand on my shoulder. Everyone else was gone, even his parents. It was just me. She actually came back, probably knowing that I was still here.
"Yosuke-kun."
"...Right."
After that, the days seemed to blend for me. I went back to school, at the insistence of my parents. But that's not what I wanted to do. We argued a lot over it. I wanted to go back, to go help the people who were still enslaved against their own wills. The wills of people that were forcibly changed into someone they weren't. They'd given me a card, a small communicator that was paper thin that I could signal when I was ready. It sat on my desk, and I looked at it whenever I was in my room. I thought about it at school, and couldn't concentrate. My grades dropped like rocks, and they were already at rock bottom. I couldn't take it anymore. I'd been having nightmares for weeks straight. I almost dreaded going to sleep at night, knowing I'd wake up screaming again from the same scene that would play out vividly in my mind every night. Some nights were better than others, because I could at least lie back down and fall asleep after an hour. But sometimes, I'd end up crying myself to sleep. I know, it totally sounds like I'm being a huge baby. But I couldn't live with myself knowing that I wasn't doing anything. I felt worthless sitting there, letting that crap happen. The same stuff that ended my partner's life.
I called Naoto, to ask her opinion. Maybe I was calling her because I wanted some kind of official police opinion or something. I wasn't sure. She gave me a pretty straight answer, exactly what I suspected from her. It was probably what I wanted to hear.
"If you're going to go, please be careful, Yosuke-senpai. What we know of the enemy is very little, and you run the same risks that senpai took on when he undertook the task of saving your life. He would not want you to senselessly throw your life away. And you want to go alone."
She was concerned. I knew that if given the chance, everyone would want to come. But I can't let them get dragged into this too.
"Yeah. This is something I gotta do. He laid down his life for me, and I can't let them get away with this. I'll do whatever it takes to take them down and free the rest of those people. And so that they can't ever do this to anyone ever again."
I finally told my parents that I'd had enough. That I called them and they were sending a shuttle to get me. They were furious, but they are my parents. They care a lot about me, and I know they were afraid that what happened to him would happen to me too. But this was something I had to do. Everyone else understood. Rise did like, the cutest thing ever.
"Take them down! Just promise me that you'll come back in once piece. And for incentive, when you get back, I'll give you a private concert! Risette's here, and ready to go!"
How come it took this to get her to do something like that for me?! And why does she have to be so damn cute when she does it?! It's enough to drive a man insane! And of course, Teddie begged to go.
"Whaaaaaa???? What do you mean I can't come? This bear has enough bearpower to teach those guys a lesson for what they did to sensei! Rawr!"
"Dude, cut it out! What the hell is bearpower even supposed to be anyway? Can it!" There was no way I was letting him tag along. He'd screw everything up! Chie had to be a pain about it too.
"You're seriously going by yourself? What are you thinking, Yosuke?"
"Hey, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. You don't have to rag me about it."
"Just don't do something stupid and get yourself killed!"
She seemed to calm down a little bit, and looked up at me softly.
"Go get 'em. For me."
I will, Chie. I'll get them good.
I boarded the streamlined ship about twenty minutes later, waving to them all as I left. To be honest, I was scared out of my mind. He must of been scared too. Going into it knowing the dangers. There were times during the rigorous training where I thought I should just give up, that I wasn't going to be able to do this. Going to bed so sore that I couldn't move a muscle and then waking up to be even more stiff really takes it out of a guy. Plus getting interrogated even more about why I was captured in the first place. Something about certain people having special souls or some weird shit like that. At first, I thought it was going to be tough explaining how myself along with my friends had the power to go inside the TV and summon our Persona. Those scientists thought it was pretty interesting, and asked me if I'd be up for a series of tests. At first I said no, but they said they might be able to figure out a way that I could use my Persona in the real world.
I probably would of said no again. But if I had Jiraiya with me that day, he might still be alive.
So I said yes.
Alien technology is seriously kick ass, and I can hardly believe even now that they really did manage to hook some kind of nanochip into my brain that lets me call my Persona. Complete with the spinning card and all! But it wasn't long after some of the experiments that my first mission came. I'd done so much work up to this point, it had been months upon months of endless training. I was scared, angry and excited all at the same time. My first chance to really rip these guys a new one. But it's just like they say, war is glorified. This wasn't like fighting Shadows. They knew we were coming. They'd prepared the best they could for it. It was a outdoor concert, and the place was crawling with those creepy blacksuited guards.
There was a point where I thought it was the end. But I had these words inside me that kept me going. That helped me to keep a level head where I normally would of panicked. The card floated down from the sky, into my open palm held in front of me as I crushed it to reveal my true strength.
I believe in you, Yosuke.
It was a successful rescue. But not without its hardships. Half the team was wounded and one of the victims ended up in critical condition. More missions followed, some successful, some not so successful. I've lost track now of how many I've been on. But no matter what, I don't give up, even when it looks bad.
Because I think that day, he passed on part of himself to me. I'm a lot calmer these days. It might be because of everything I've seen in the past five years or so. But I believe that before he died, when he kissed me, I got a lot more than just a farewell. In fact, I don't think that was a goodbye at all anymore. He's still here, alive in my heart. Guiding me when I need it. Keeping me grounded through any tough situation. I used to always ask myself what he would do. Now it's second nature, not even having to have a passing thought.
And now, I finally understand, what it is to really be special to someone else. And how special he was to me. It sucks that I never knew what I had right in front of me the entire time. Too caught up on girls and trying to land a girlfriend constantly. I wonder how that made him feel, if it hurt him, and how long he cared for me that way. Why didn't he ever tell me? Not like I don't know the answer to that one. I hope he's happy, wherever he is now. And that he knows I'm doing all I can to help here.
I've been standing on the bridge now for some time. I bet I look stupid, staring into outer space, literally. I should go before the commander catches me wearing my uniform like this. I kinda keep the jacket completely open, so you can see the entire undershirt even though it's supposed to be zipped up. Heh, he gets on my ass every time he sees me. But I don't care. I kinda like the look. Reminds me of someone. It reminds me of you.
Yu. I love you and I miss you.