Oneshot - You Can Come Back Now
Title: You Can Come Back Now
Pairing: Ueda/Guess
Rating: PG
Genre: General
Summary: The garden of the heart he sang about in Ai no Hana turned out to be more real and more important than anyone could have thought.
YOU CAN COME BACK NOW
Lying on the grass and staring up at the sky, a sky with barely a cloud, so blue and bright. Damn but it felt peaceful, so peaceful, almost like you could fall asleep any moment. His feet, in his sandals, the grass curled up over the fronts and teased his toes, but his feet were braced on the ground, so his legs, his calves, in his knee length shorts weren’t touching the grass. Maybe a t-shirt and a hoodie was too much for this weather, it was so warm. Settling one hand under his head he flexed the fingers of his other hand, which lay against he grass. Soft and prickly at the same time.
Wait…when did he come to a park or a garden or…for that matter, when did he even come outside, or was he already…? Where was he before anyway?
Suddenly feeling a little less peaceful he sat up abruptly and found himself lying on a circular patch of grass, surrounded by a circle of small plants, flowers, were those…poppies? Purple poppies…he hadn’t seen flowers like that in any park or garden in Tokyo before…
“You’re not in Tokyo right now Tatsuya,”
Surprised and confused he leapt to his feet in the middle of the circle and turned a half circle, coming face to face with…
His mouth was open, like he might scream, on some level he really wanted to scream, but it caught in his throat and stuck there and he was left gaping at the person before him, the person who couldn’t possibly be before him.
“W-Why…?” he swallowed thickly, trying to force out his voice.
“Why are…why am I looking at-?” a raised eyebrow, an all too familiar raised eyebrow.
“Yourself?”
Himself.
With black hair and black jeans with boots and a black tank top and a grey cardigan, but the same face.
He stared, wide-eyed, speechless, confused, scared…and breathless, like a crushing weight had fallen and was pressing on his chest, forcing his lungs down, compressing them, so they couldn’t open enough to let the air in.
“What the hell is happening?” his voice was hoarse; the other him sighed and looked at the ground, pushing his hands into the deep pockets of the cardigan.
When the other version of himself said nothing he glanced around and found himself once again shocked. He had never been here before, or had he? Didn’t this place seem somehow familiar…?
“You know this place well enough,” his own voice came to him suddenly and he looked back at the other him, meeting his own deep black eyes half hidden by black bangs, just like his were now half hidden by brown ones.
“You should know it, you made it,” now he was well and truly confused. He might have ‘grown up in a greenhouse’ as people were fond of telling him, but his family had never had a garden like this, not this big, not with these plants, and he’d never had anything to do with it.
“You made this place, you planted very flower, took care of the garden, you still do, it’ll come to you,” he stared back at himself, then suddenly down at what he was wearing, his dress sense hadn’t changed very much in the last two years, but he remembered that cardigan, remembered where he got it and when…
And suddenly he glanced down at the flowers surrounding this circle of grass he had found himself lying in. Looking around he saw flowerbeds and bushes all around and un-paved paths winding through them all, there were pots and greenhouses and gazebos trees and ponds…
He had made all this? How? When? What did this mean exactly?
“Look at these flowers Tatsuya,” his other self folded his arms and nodded pointedly at the circle of poppies surrounding him.
“Think of a time when you went in circles and it seemed like everyone was wearing a mask, hiding what they felt because they were sure that would fix things,”
He stared in shock at the figure before him and then down at the flowers, with the marks on the petals like scary faces or crudely fashioned masks, and turning he followed the circle, turning on the grass, until he wasn’t sure which flower he had fixed his gaze on first.
“I…I remember,”
“Selfish bitch wasn’t she?” glancing up he saw his other self was smirking. His smirk, the same one had had been wearing just yesterday, or was it this morning…?
She was…she was a selfish bitch…self centred and inconsiderate, but she was funny and generous and smart…
“And you wanted it to work because you - excuse me we - didn’t want to give up on her, but going in circles with her, especially when you were the only one putting in any effort into the relationship,” he stared at himself, dumbfounded as he remembered that time, a little over two years ago. He hadn’t thought about it in so long, there had been others since then, and others before, it wasn’t a relationship that should have stood out from the others for any reason…
“You planted these poppies, with their scary masks that try to draw attention from what they really look like, in a circle to mirror the way you really saw you relationship,” he looked up at the face that reflected his own perfectly as he looked almost wistfully down at the flowers.
This other him stooped and crouched beside the flowers, holding a single delicate petal up with the tip of his forefinger.
“You…really are me…from that time?” the other him, with black hair and a melancholy cast to his expression, looked up before standing and shoving his hands into his pockets again.
“Yep, you, from that time, I’m the you that planted these flowers, dug the soil, planted the saplings she gave you and tended them until they grew up, they haven’t changed, you tend to your memories, you don’t let them wither, all the flowers and plants here are still alive, but there are some that are a little more vibrant than the rest,”
Tatsuya blinked in confusion.
“Really? There are?” there was that raised eyebrow again, his raised eyebrow.
“You would know best Tatsuya,”
“Wait, slow down, why don’t I remember what flowers I’m growing right now? Why don’t I remember who gave me the seeds? What happened?” his other self only shrugged. Then his gaze slid over Tatsuya’s shoulder and he smiled knowingly as another voice, or rather the same one, came to him.
“Your past can’t tell you your present, Tatsuya,” spinning in his purple circle he blinked in shock at a third rendition of himself.
This one looked more like him, just after he had gotten his hair died and cut, similar to the way it was now, but a little longer and a little darker, and the clothes were…winter clothes, boots, jeans, a long sleeved t-shirt that looked in much better condition and a much more vibrant colour than it had been when he had pulled it out of the washing machine two days ago. And a thick dark grey cardigan with a hood, and the black hat he had worn during a filming of cartoon KAT-TUN a while ago.
Again he found himself speechless as this third self smiled and waggled his fingers cheekily at him. Looking back and firth between his two past selves he looked from their relaxed postures to their easy smiles to their clothes and hair. His posture, his smile. His clothes and his hair.
“When are you from?” his other self wasn’t paying attention properly, he was looking out over the flowerbeds and the bushes and ornaments and trees, and squinting at he gazebo over by the big pond.
“Wow, it got a little bigger since I was last here, so nostalgic, some of these flowers, so nice to be here again,” he smiled gently down at the simple flowerbed that followed the curve of the path that led away from them and towards the pond in what looked like a curved rectangle…that sounded like such an oxymoron.
Blinking he took in the flowers growing in this particular flowerbed. Or rather the bushes, small rose bushes, yellow roses, cabbage headed on healthy green bushes that reached up as far as his other self’s hips. Shifting his gaze to his face he saw that faraway, slightly wistful look, just like the one the first clone had been wearing. He glanced back at his black-haired self, who was also watching the third arrival as he reached down and cupped a single flower in his palm, carefully avoiding the thorns.
“We must have been psychic or something back then,” he said with a soft laugh. He looked back up, meeting Tatsuya’s eyes.
“Remember? He was so romantic when we first met him, he was fun and sweet and in the end it turned out he had some pretty sharp thorns,” biting his lip he thought back and remembered that person, who had seemed great at first, and who had been able to make him feel great, and then suddenly he changed.
“To be fair, he had some issues, things going on in his life, with his family, he wasn’t just purely an ass,” the other him smirked again. Tatsuya shook his head.
“Why am I here? Why are you here?”
“You know why, we can’t tell you, we’re just here to…help,” he looked back and forth between his other selves again.
“You’ve already figured out where you are right?” his black-haired self stepped forward, his arms still folded and stood at the second clone’s side.
“He knows, he created this place, he wrote about it, sang about it,”
“That was a song! Just a song!”
“No, not just a song, you created this place in your heart and you wrote a song about it, no matter what you sing about after that his place still exists because it existed before the song, we just didn’t completely realise it,”
Tatsuya shook his head and stepped carefully over the purple poppies and onto the hard path, turning in circles, following the paths with his eyes and finally heading down one that passed an oak tree.
“Not everything here is a flower, what isn’t a flower is probably a friendship, a family relationship, something like that, that tree represents Eri,” Tatsuya spun back to face himself again before staring up at the tree.
He remembered, when Eri was just a puppy he had taken her for a walk on a cool day in autumn and when they had walked through he park they had stopped near and oak tree to play, Eri had chased the leaves as they fell.
“I remember, but…I don’t understand why I’m here…” there it was again, that feeling in his chest like someone was sitting on him, or something was pressing down on him, cracking his ribs and squashing his lungs.
Shaking his head he turned and continued to follow the path, he heard the sound of his other selves’ footsteps following him.
Soon there were more small trees in clusters on either side of the path and there were more flowerbeds and ornamental arrangements and patches of grass surrounded by plants and a tunnel of vines and leaves and tiny white flowers, sprinkling petals into his hair like sugar.
Then, ahead of him, was a greenhouse, but before that was a slightly winding path, lined with…
“Sakura…” he breathed.
The flowers he had stopped planting just before he wrote the song.
“You remember these right?”
The same voice of course, yet he knew, from another person, another him. Slowly, and more calmly this time he turned his head to see himself leaning against one other trees, his arms folded, petals falling into his hair.
“Didn’t I wear that outfit to perform the song in?” his other self grinned and nodded pushing off the tree, reaching up to ruffle the petals from his hair, but more only fell to replace them. Soft pink against rich brown.
“Have you remembered yet?”
“What? This flower? Of course, it was the hardest to plant, the one I wanted to grow the most, and the hardest one to walk away from,” smiling sadly the other him shook his head.
“Not the flower Tatsuya, I know you remember that, or rather him, have you remembered why you’re here?” Tatsuya blinked and bit his lip, looking back the way he had come, from one face to the next, to the next, at all three of them.
“I don’t understand how I’m here, this place is supposed to be a metaphor, a place in my head, it doesn’t really exist!”
“This is your head place Tatsuya,” the third self said, leaning back against his tree again.
“My what?” The first, with the black hair, rolled his eyes,
“Sure, that makes sense all by itself,” he muttered.
“Fine, you explain it, we’re all the same person, you know what will and won’t work, I’m trying to go slow,”
“He doesn’t have time for slow!” the second self chose this moment to interject.
“Yeah, but if you go too fast you’ll overwhelm him and push him over and he can’t stay here, he has to go back,” It was Tatsuya’s turn to raise an eyebrow, were his past selves arguing with each other? And what were they talking about anyway?
“Look, this makes no sense, I have to be dreaming, this place isn’t real!”
With that he walked away, back down the path, towards a small pond ringed with red and grey bricks, like a patio. There were bushes around it, and growing right beside it were a cluster of huge white flowers with waxy petals. Lilies.
“Ah~, it’s been so long since I was here!” a soft voice, his voice again, was suddenly beside him. Brown hair, almost blonde. A long time ago.
This fourth version of himself swung his legs slowly in the water, watching the water ripple around his legs. His jeans were rolled up and his long sleeved t-shirt covered his hands almost entirely as he smiled at the water before looking up and their two sets of black eyes met.
“This one was so long ago, do I remember? I think I do, just about…”
“We were kind of naïve on that one,”
“I’d never been with a guy before, I’d only had one girlfriend before that,” he almost couldn’t believe he was having a conversation with his past self, sitting on the edge of a pond beside a huge cluster of shining white lilies.
“Two,” another voice from behind them signalled the arrival of the other three, the younger brown-blonde-haired version of himself turned and waved to them as they came and stood beside them where they sat.
“A week of holding hands in elementary school so doesn’t count!” the him with sakura petals still littering his hair smirked.
“Yes it does, at least according to that little field of wildflowers over there,” he said pointing. The self with his feet trailing through the water craned his neck to see and smiled.
“So nostalgic,” he whispered.
“Why do you all keep saying that? Nostalgic, so long since you been here, why is that?” the four of them glanced at each other, then back at him.
“We are the exact selves from the times when we planted the flowers, once you move on a new self tends the flowers, usually we’re not here, it’s just you, the current you,”
This was getting more strange and confusing by the second…and yet he was beginning to understand. This place he had forged in his heart, this garden full of the avatars of his relationships, both romantic and platonic, friends, families, those he had once loved, somehow he had come here…for real? And the selves of the past who had taken care of all those flowers for years, for some reason they were her with him now, trailing their feet in the water, brushing pale pink petals from their hair.
Why?
“Why am I here? Why are you here? How did I even get here? Where was I?”
“It was a split second of thought that brought you here and it could be a split second of thought that dictates whether you stay here or go back to where you’re supposed to be, to the person you’re supposed to be with,”
“I don’t know who that is!” Tatsuya ran a hand through his hair.
“You do, you’re just blocking it, you’re scared because of what sent you here,” Tatsuya, caught of guard turned and blinked up at the self in his black hat, whish he kept fiddling with and adjusting.
“What sent me…?”
Of course, he wasn’t here for no reason, there had to be a reason he was here, wasn’t that how it usually happened in dramas or movies right? Something had happened to knock him clean into his subconscious, that would explain this crushing breathless feeling that was once again wrapping around his chest and cruelly pressing down like a metal vice.
Think Tatsuya…you know what happened, you just don’t want to remember…
“Why would I send myself here?”
“You wanted an out, you were scared and you wanted out,” Tatsuya looked over at his other self, still slowly swinging his legs to and fro.
“Of a relationship?”
“No, no, not truly, you won’t want out of this one, surprisingly enough,”
“Now I’m totally stumped,” the first other him, with the black hair, crouched beside him, resting his forearms on his knees.
“No you’re not, think, what happened, what were you thinking?”
I’m scared…I don’t know what I’m doing…I think I’m going to die…
He sat up suddenly looking wildly at all four of their calm faces in sudden panic.
“I’m not dead am I?”
“No, not yet,” Yet? It was coming back, suddenly; the images were flooding through his mind and in front of his eyes.
“There was a crash…we were…walking…a car swerved …” glancing up Tatsuya looked from one alternate self to the next and all four nodded and smiled at him. His other self from two years ago, his face framed in black gave him a thumbs-up.
“Keep going Tatsuya,”
There were images and sounds and voices. He felt a tug in his chest, not the same as the crushing breathless sensation, it was different, it wasn’t his lungs, it was his heart.
Almost subconsciously he said something, a single word, a name…
“What was that Tatsuya? Say it again,” he blinked and looked up at his other self, one of them, which was he looking at…?
“I-I don’t know…I can’t,”
“Yes you can, think,” Tatsuya rubbed at his temples and looked up at the sky. He could hear the voice, a specific special voice, the name was there, he couldn’t quite…
He stood up suddenly, the sounds in the back of his mind were getting louder. He turned and looked at the path that led back past the sakura trees, then at the four faces, his own eyes, watching him with reassuring smiles. The self by the pond stood slowly, shaking the droplets from his legs and slid his fee into white sandals. That was all the signal he needed to se off back toward the trees and the path to the greenhouse.
On that path, dappled sunlight and undulating shadows swimming on the hard dirt path, streaked rays of yellow light slanting through the branches, a flood of it pooling around the glass walls and roof at the other end of the path.
He glanced back at the four of them, and they nodded.
“You’ve got it Tatsuya, go, now,” he couldn’t tell which one of them had said it, but he trusted them and turned back to the sakura lined path, running towards the greenhouse, the light getting brighter as he neared it.
As he reached the door, grasped the handle and pushed the light seemed to flood the air around him like glowing liquid and all he could see was white…
Then black…
Then he heard rain…
And cars…
And there were red and blue and white lights…
And he heard voices…
“Tatsuya, come back!”
He knew that voice…
“Tatsuya?”
Knew it well…
“Tatsuya!”
“R-Ryo…?” his chest hurt, his throat was burning, speech was torture, where…what…?
The car, it had been raining, they were walking and it had started to rain, so they bought cheap umbrellas and carried on walking, they crossed over a bridge and a car swerved on the wet road and rammed into the lamppost, the post had toppled and they hadn’t reacted fast enough, the top of the pole, the light fixture had hit him head on and pressed him to the ground by his chest and the impact between the pole and the ground had knocked him unconscious.
“Tatsuya, stay with me, the paramedics are here, you’ll be fine okay? Tatsuya? Stay with me!” but he couldn’t, his head hurt, his chest was wailing at him, and he was suddenly very tired…
Lying on the grass and staring up at the sky, a few wispy white clouds he could follow with his eyes, this felt peaceful, and the music in his ears only made him feel like he was sinking deeper into the grass, the sunlight warming his skin.
Suddenly nimble fingers plucked away the earphones and he sat up with an indignant yelp.
“Aw, give them back Ryo,” he said, his voice exasperated as he fell back on he grass, slinging an arm over his eyes.
“Little narcissistic to be listening to your own songs isn’t it?” Tatsuya slid his arm off one eye and shot half a glare at Ryo as he sat on the grass beside him.
“I like that one, I think I actually did a good job of it, and it’s important to me,”
Ryo held one of the earphones to his ear for a moment an unreadable expression on his face as he listened for a few moments.
“The things you say…they were real?” Tatsuya sat up and stared out over the park in front of him. The hospital had released him yesterday and he had convinced Ryo the previous night he was well enough to go out for a while today, he needed to see the sky, feel the grass, listen to the breeze. He had craved the park the entire time he was in hospital, he had told Ryo what he had seen.
“They were, that place, the garden, is real, for me at least, it’s a special place to me, so this is an important song,” Ryo looked over at him and looped an arm around his shoulders, dragging him closer.
“Is it true now?” his tone was light, but his meaning was clear as day.
“Yes, that garden exists for me, and there are flowers there that keep growing, every day that I’m with you,” Ryo looked down at him and stroked his hair, staring into his eyes, taking in the easy smile and calm expression.
“They’re still growing?” Tatsuya nodded and rested his head on Ryo’s shoulder.
“I don’t want to move on from you, I want your flowers to keep growing,”
Ryo smiled and tipped his head towards Tatsuya’s, watching the movements of the delicate lace clouds overhead.