Disclaimer: I don't own HYD or any of its characters I also don't own "Remember Me This Way" originally preformed by Jordan Hill from the "Casper" OST.
A/N: I know I've written a lot of song fics and I'm sorry but I go on a lot of Business Trips which keep me listening to a lot of music. This stuff just starts to nag at me until I write it down. Anyway, enjoy. Please RxR.
"I wasn't expecting you to come this year." I sat on the floor looking at the girl I had idolized for the better half of a decade. Her hair had grown back substantially since she had cut it last but she still looked different in so many ways.
"I've missed you Rui." She said finally. The words that I had been pining for finally spoken, cut me like a knife.
"I've missed you too," was all I could muster.
Silence befell the room again and I raised my knee to my chin. I searched for words to explain how I felt, but none came. We sat there for what seemed like hours before she raised her head to show the tears glistening the rims of her eye lids.
"Do you remember when I first left for Paris?"
"Yeah, I didn't want you to go."
I must have seemed so young and stupid to her, but I couldn't help how I felt; I loved her. We had an unspoken connection and even though she was two years older than me she never made it seem like I was a little kid. She respected me and made the loneliness I felt less desolate.
"You came to see me off and hid behind the pillars until everyone had left."
"I didn't need a media circus to tell you how much you meant to me."
"Meant…what a descriptive word, it is right up there with loved."
"No it isn't Shizuka, because I never stopped loving you, our love just changed."
Every now and then we find a special friend,
who never lets us down.
Who understands it all, reaches out each time we fall
you're the best friend that I've found.
I know you can't stay, a part of you will never ever go away,
your heart will stay.
I still remember how I felt standing behind that pole. I would sneak a glimpse of her smiling face and all I could feel was cold. My heart got colder with every step she took toward the boarding gate and I couldn't move.
"I asked you to stay." I started after thinking back.
"I wanted to, for you, but then I thought about it and I wasn't living my life for you. I was living it for me. I wanted to go, I wanted to grow up." She paused and again her head dropped in thought. "I almost didn't make it on the plane, did you know that?"
Rui looked at me with those mournful eyes again. Every time he looked at me like that it made this conversation harder and harder.
""I'll make a wish for you and hope it will come true. That life will just be kind to such a gentle mind, and if you lose your way, think back on yesterday. Remember me this way… remember me this way." When you called those words out to me I could barely breathe, it was so hard to hold back the tears." I looked up at the ceiling fan and watched it turn.
"If my mother hadn't pushed me on board I would have stayed." I watched as he looked away disinterested.
"I got the words from the song from the Casper Movie we used to watch together." He started leaning his head on his knee again. "I had memorized it so that you would think I was cool, but standing there watching you leave…I couldn't think of anything else."
"Everyday I went from photo shoot to photo shoot and from runway to runway. I did everything that everyone wanted of me and I slowly forgot what I wanted and adopted their beliefs for my future." I watched as his blank expression started to show a level of warmth I had never seen in his eyes. "It took me a long time to remember; actually it was you who helped me find my way."
He looked surprised to hear my words. "You wrote me an e-mail and without telling me anything about yourself I could see that you were changing. You were changing without me and I was still the same; still selfish and still immature to the ways of the world."
"I wrote you a lot of e-mails."
"Not like that one. You told me that you couldn't wait to see me again, that you loved me and that you would be there when I got back, that you would always be waiting."
I don't need eyes to see the love you bring to me,
no matter where I go.
And I know that you'll be there your ever more a part of me you're everywhere,
I'll always care.
"I remember that e-mail; that was around the time you won that Miss Teen of France pageant."
"Yeah… do you remember my reply?"
I could still feel the stinging in my eyes from when I read those words on the screen: "I'll make a wish for you and hope it will come true. That life will just be kind to such a gentle mind, and if you lose your way, think back on yesterday. Remember me this way… remember me this way."
"Yeah…" I started, but there was no finish. I just sat there staring at her.
"I thought you hadn't changed though, when you stood behind the pillars this time around." She had managed to sneak her head onto my lap. "It broke my heart to see you standing there not saying good bye."
"I didn't need to say good bye to you." I had wanted to step out and talk to her, but Makino's words were ringing in my head. Was I ok with her leaving? What if I never saw her again? Could I really live like that?
And I'll be right behind you're shoulder watching you. I'll be standing by you're side in all you do.
"I decided that if I lost you it would be my choice this time, not yours." I stroked the top of her head. "In Paris I just couldn't keep up. You had you're life there, and I was just an intruder. Then the rumors started to fly around about you and that guy…"
"There was no guy, just talk." She defended.
"I know, but what was I offering you other than my name." I couldn't help but sigh. "And then we had that talk that night about Makino. You kept telling me that you thought I was in love with her, and maybe you were right, but it felt like you were just trying to give me someone else to care for in your place."
He was right. I bit my bottom lip because for the first time I heard the words that had played around in my head come out of his mouth. I had wanted him to find someone else, not because I didn't love him, but because I could tell he was no longer in love with me. He loved me because I understood him, and because I had been a friend when he had desperately needed a compassionate shoulder, but he didn't see me as a woman, he saw me as a savior.
And I won't ever leave as long as you believe, you just believe.
I'll make a wish for you and hope it will come true.
That life will just be kind to such a gentle mind, and if you lose your way, think back on yesterday.
Remember me this way… remember me this way.
We talked the rest of the night and in the morning I left a different person. The entire time from when he left Paris until this night in Canada I felt guilty, because I thought he wasn't moving forward in his life. I worried that he was in a corner somewhere dying of depression.
I giggled as I heard the stories from him about protecting Makino after kissing her and almost getting her expelled from school, about Tsukasa wanting to move to New York to give him and Makino a chance to work on their relationship only to come back to Japan and fight with that aristocrat Amakusa over Makino's affections. I remembered seeing Makino in the Miss Teen Japan pageant, but it was interesting hearing about the back story that got her there.
When I kissed him goodbye I sat in the back of my car and realized, he's going to be just fine. He isn't the little boy he used to be. He was a man now, a loving and affectionate young man. I was almost sorry I was letting him walk out of my life, but I know that his feelings have changed toward me. I know I can never be anything more to him than a friend or a sister, and for that …I was very jealous of Makino's luck.