Unfathomable

34.

Thirty-two years later

Madara:

The grass was turning emerald green again after a long winter of browning. The sound of it underneath my shoes was pleasant to the ears, like a whisper, almost like a humming. Not that I heard it much, mind. My hearing was deteriorating at an alarming rate. I hated it. I hated growing old.

Lucas had loved growing old. I would never forget once when he came running to me from the bathroom, shouting of joy, exactly one year after we'd met.

"Madara! Madara!!" he'd exclaimed happily.

"What?" I had said, alarmed.

"Look!"

He pointed to something tiny at his head he was holding between his thumb and index finger. "A... Hair?"

"Not just any hair! It's grey! It's my first grey hair!"

At first, I'd thought he was mocking me. Who got excited over that? But then, I realised he was serious, and started to mock him instead.

"That's not grey, you fool. That's your usual blonde."

"Is not!"

"Is too!"

"Is not!!"

I'd shut him up with a kiss.

I smiled now at the memory, and mindlessly put a hand to my own hair. As opposed to my brother, mine was still long, but it was grey as well. I had grown fond of it during the years. And it didn't heat up as much under the hot spring sun that was scorching on top of my head as my black hair had done. I turned my face up towards the sun and decided a sorbet would be nice. I went to the local ice-cream stand and bought a cone of raspberry and lemon sorbet, then went to my favourite bench. I came to the pond, and saw a figure sitting in it. I had to squint my eyes as my eyesight had become poor and I was too stubborn to get my glasses out of my pocket, but there was a figure sitting there, feeding the ducks from a loaf of bread he tore into smaller pieces. The figure was tall, slender, with a long coat and long hair that hadn't greyed and seemed to be extremely well taken care of judging by how softly it blew in the wind.

"Well, I'll be damned..." I murmured.

I walked slowly to the bench, my pace not what it used to be now I was sixty-five. I didn't look at the figure as I approached, and he ignored me. Well, why shouldn't he? To him, I was just a stranger, an old man coming for a rest at the same bench as him. I sat down slowly, feeling pain in my knees that was so familiar to me now. All of those years skiing had taken its toll on them, and they hurt when I sat down and stood up. But I had been very careful with warmups and cool downs as I grew older, and my doctor said I was lucky to not be any worse off. And I didn't mind it. I wouldn't change all that skiing for anything in the world.

I sat down in peace, eating my ice cream with the transparent plastic spoon and sensing rather than watching the man next to me feed the ducks, a polite distance between us. He still hadn't looked at me. The ducks were coming to me now, seeing I was eating something that they desperately wanted, not knowing what was good for them.

"They seem to want some of that sorbet", the man said, still not looking at me.

"Looks like it", I answered.

"Is it good? I consider getting some. But ice cream tends to hurt my teeth nowadays so I need to be selective and only eat what's finest." I could hear the undertone of sarcasm in his voice. It made me smile.

"It's delicious", I said.

Then, he turned to me, and his tearing of the loaf of bread stopped. I could feel him stare at me. I kept looking out over the pond, eating my ice cream, smiling to myself.

"... Madara?"

"Hi, Hashi."

"Oh, my God..."

He kept looking at me. I kept looking at the pond. Eating. Smiling.

"Is that... Is that really you?"

"No, it's another extremely good-looking old man with long hair in Cornwall." Hashi seemed taken aback at this, but then, he burst out laughing. His voice hadn't changed one bit. "How are you?" I asked him.

"I'm good, thank you. How are you? And how are Izuna and Tobirama?"

"They're fantastic", I smiled. I knew Hashi had lost contact with Tobirama almost at the same time as I had asked Hashi to leave.

"You still live in the same house?" he asked.

"Yes."

"... Alone?"

I turned to look at him, and I donned a serious expression. "Nowadays, yes."

"Do you... Want to explain?"

"I was married to Lucas - you know the man from the time we first met you were so jealous of? - for twenty-five years."

If he was surprised by this, he hid it well. "You separated?"

"No. He died."

"Madara, I am so sorry."

"Don't worry. It was a few years ago now. I..." Apparently, a few years weren't enough because I could feel tears well up in my eyes. "Gosh, I am so sorry." I dried my tears. We had been so good together. So. Good. "He had an aortic aneurysm. The doctor investigating the cause of his death suspected he had Marfan's syndrome. The aneurysm burst. He died within thirty seconds. It was the worst thing I had ever witnessed."

Hashi scooched a tiny bit closer, but still maintained some distance between us. "I am so sorry", he repeated.

"Thank you", I said, suddenly shy, looking away and smiling a little.

We were quiet for a while. I finished the sorbet and started feeding the cone to the ducks. I wasn't sure you were supposed to, but I felt bad for them.

"Madara..."

"Mmm?"

"I am sorry." I looked up at him. "For what I did. For what I became."

"Oh, no..." I put my hand to his cheek. It was paper-thin, wrinkled, but his stubble still cast that greenish shadow on his face, his brown eyes still glittered with mischievousness and trust. It was still him. "Hashi, no. I never blamed you. Not once. I did what I had to do. But I was never angry."

Hashi swallowed, and lifted his hand to place it on mine, still on his cheek. "Thank you, Madara."

"You're welcome", I whispered.

We kept sitting next to each other, two old men with their entire life's story to tell, yet not telling each other much, just sitting there, watching the ducks as the sun started to set, changing the light cast on the surroundings from an icy blue to a soft orange, enjoying the warm spring breeze.

"I need to go soon", I said after a few hours. "I need to get home to take my medications."

Hashi smiled a little. "Yeah... Age, huh?"

"You want to meet for coffee tomorrow?"

Hashi looked up at me, a surprised expression on his face, his eyes large and glittering, as if unable to believe what I had just asked. "Y-yes? Yes, please!"

I smiled warmly at how giddy he seemed to become. We decided on a time and place. "You better get that sorbet before the ice-cream stand closes. And I'll see you tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow", Hashi answered softly.

And I turned out, walking away with the soft breeze around my ankles, the orange glow of the setting sun warming my scalp, as it did my soul, unable to digest that I'd met the love of my youth here, on this day, the whole situation making my mind spin off all my life's events that led me to this moment, how unfathomable everything truly was, how brittle, how built up of little circumstances allowing every life-event to play out exactly like they are supposed to.

I was looking forward to coffee with Hashi tomorrow.

End.