Beyblade Burst Adventures

Waiting

In which Lui Shirosagi waits.

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Lui arrives at the airport half an hour before the plane is supposed to land. It's a while to wait, sure, but he couldn't stand just sitting at home anymore. He searches the airport for the right gate, the gate they're going to come through, and when he finds it he stands as close to it as the employees will allow him, and he waits.

On any other day, anyone would see Lui standing as still as a statue, scowling or baring his teeth in a grin, arms crossed over his chest with an air of superiority to him. Not today though. He's fidgeting, shifting his weight from one leg to another, swinging his arms at his sides, bouncing on the pads of his feet, fixing a stray feather on his boa. He's smiling, too, a smile not of malice but of excitement and joy.

Soon enough he can't stand in one place and starts pacing, in a line, in a circle, he just paces. He realizes he must look like a dog waiting for its owner to come back, but he doesn't care. Anything to make the wait easier.

Lui's mind is racing with thoughts of being able to see them, being able to hug them, to not be missing them anymore. Beyblade and rivalries and schoolwork will have to wait for a while, he'd be loathe to leave their side. Today he just wants to do whatever they wants to do, no questions asked.

He stops pacing when other people show up, waiting for the ones they love, too. Normally being around people and having to make small talk would get on his nerves, but not today. Today he feels... He feels like a different person, a better one. So he talks with the people he's waiting with about the weather, about who he's here to pick up, about where his parents are, but never about how much time there is left to wait.

The time the plane was suppose to land comes... And it goes with no change. No people filing into the airport and running into the arms of the ones who holds them dear. Lui knows that sometimes planes could get held up by little things, so he doesn't let himself worry. He just keeps waiting.

Lui tries to listen in as the employees at the airport talk to people on the phone, but they speak in hushed tones and shoo him away when he tries to get closer. He keeps waiting, bouncing a little on his feet and shifting around while others went to sit down. He can't sit, he doesn't want to sit, so he keeps waiting.

Other planes land just fine and people came pouring in through other gates. Lui watches as friends reunite with each other, sisters and brothers and siblings hug each other, wives hold their husbands, grandparents pinch their grandchildrens' cheeks, and a father picks up his little son and carries him out of the airport...

Lui keeps waiting, but he can't keep smiling.

The seconds tick on and on, and the minutes come and go, come and go. Lui remembers the few times they came home, how happy they had all been together and how much it hurt each time they had to leave again. He remembered how desperately he wanted to cry and beg them to stay, to stay with him until he was old enough to go with them and then they wouldn't have to leave each other.

But each time he felt that urge he pushed it down, reminding himself that their work was important, they were saving lives, and that he was supposed to be mature and responsible. He had to give them peace of mind that he could take care of himself.

He had to tell himself not to be selfish, no matter how much it hurt. He would wait patiently for them to come then, just like he's waiting patiently for them to come now.

Lui pushes down the memories that made his heart ache, trying not to focus on the painful past or the unbearable present. He wants to focus on the future, when he was with them, and they were home and having fun and doing things together like a...

He can't focus on the future, either. It makes the present that much more unbearable.

As Lui waits he nervously pets his boa, smoothing the feathers and trying to focus on the softness of it rather than the wait. It doesn't hurt so much to think of how he got it- it was a birthday present from them, that they came all the way home just to give him. He loved it so much, because it reminded him that they loved him, and that they didn't keep leaving because they didn't want him. They keep leaving because the work they do is very important.

If anyone tried to steal his boa, he'd chase them down and skin them, simple as that. Though it isn't a very pretty thought, it's better than focusing on the wait.

Lui can't stand anymore, he'd been standing here for over two hours and his legs hurt. He simply sits on the floor, waiting and waiting for that dang plane to land. The wait is becoming agonizing, and the longer he waits the more his mind started to race. He quietly curses his pessimism and buries those thoughts deep down.

An employee approaches the group of people Lui had been waiting with earlier, so he gets up and goes over to listen. She has a very important update on the plane, it seemes...

She begins to tell them about how they had lost contact with the pilots a little while before the landing time, and that they had sent a search party to look, and how they had just received news of what happened to the plane. Lui's stomach begins to turn as she gives them the news- something awful has happened to the plane, it's crashed landed in the ocean, and the search party hasn't been able to find any survivors.

There are tears and grieved sobbing, people crying out the names of their loved ones, begging some higher power to bring them back. But Lui doesn't say a thing, doesn't shed a tear. He's suddenly forgotten how to cry, all those years of pushing down his pain having made it instinct, even though he knows there would be no judgement here. No one would blink twice if he joined the group of crying people, decided to let out his pain and cry like the thirteen-year-old boy he is.

But he doesn't. All he can do is step away from the group and sit down. He stares at the floor blankly, his thoughts jumbled and his chest aching. He never thought in a million years this would happen to him, that his wait at the airport would end this way. That one of the many times he spent waiting at the airport for his parents to come home would end in tragedy...

He supposes that's how life is. You never think it will happen to you, but eventually it does. But why his parents? They were good people who did good things, neither man ever hurt a fly in their entire lives. They left Lui home alone a lot, but that was so they could go help people in need.

It isn't fair... That's the only thought he can pull from the tangled mess in his mind. It makes his eyes sting and it suddenly feels like someone stuck a million needles into his chest and his heart. The thought keeps playing over and over in his mind, like a broken record nobody will replace.

Lui suddenly realizes he's crying when something wet drips onto his hand, and it's his own tears. He doesn't fight it, for once, and lets the tears fall down, down, down.

He pulls his knees to his chest and buries his face in his arms, crying as he thinks of all the things that are now just memories. Hugging his parents and being held in their arms, his parents petting his hair and telling him they loved him, he'll never be able to tell them he loves them, either. Their smiles, their voices, their warmth- it's all just a memory now.

I should have asked them to not to leave me, cried and begged for them to stay, told them how much I needed them...

He keeps crying for a long, long time before he looks up and realizes the other people he'd been waiting with are gone.

Lui supposes he should leave too, go home and cry there, but it will never be the same, going home when his parents are... No longer alive. But he doesn't want to stay and he doesn't want to go, so what else can he do but stay where he is?

The only thing he can do is wait. Wait for someone to come tell him, "you have to leave, now," for someone to come take him home, for someone to come and tell him that his parents are still alive.

If waiting is all he can do, then he'll wait.