[FIC] The things..

Title: The things...
Characters: Undefined
Rating: G
Wordcount: 2.128 & 2.544 & 464
Summary: There are so many things to regret.
A/N: The very general idea of this fic came to mind as I reread one of my stories and saw a line that captivated me. It got stuck in my head from that day on, but I didn't do much with it. Then yesterday I was reading someone else's fanfictions, had an incredible weird moment of emotional-ness and then I felt the urge to write something myself.. It actually turned out much happier than I had in mind when I started, but less happy than I wanted it to be by the time I finished. So yah.. It's somewhere in-between-ish.. It was originally supposed to be a one-shot but then people complained so I wrote another shot and an epilogue. OTL

- - - - -

The things..
..he never knew

It started when they were young. Being the children of two best friends, they saw each other almost every day. It was only natural for them to grow up to be best friends as well. From the moment they entered kindergarten, every single day was spent together. When either of them was lost, all one had to do was ask the other, for they always flawlessly knew where to find each other.

Being together at all times brought fights along as well. A lot of them even. They would bicker about everything. From Barbie being prettier than Ken or not, to who was allowed to get a cookie first. Every decision made was preceded by a giant discussion that could sometimes even reach to the extent of pulling each other’s hair or yelling so loud that even teachers from other classes would worry about them.

He would always win the fights. Of course. All it took was a cute pout and anyone involved would be on his side, scolding her for being so mean to him. If it was one of their mothers, they would take him to the tea table and treat him like the most precious thing on earth. At such times, he would always send her a self-assured smile, before turning away from her.

She made ugly faces at him that he never noticed.

As they grew up and moved on to primary school, their fights lessened, even though they still stuck together like glue. They were still the best of friends, even though they made other friends in school. Still, every important moment was shared by only them. She was there to celebrate with him when he got his first pet and he was there to cry with her when they flushed her dead goldfish through the toilet.

They were their class’ best students, getting top marks at every test and beating the average level with ease. Yet when other people came by, they would never find them doing homework. The two of them would always be playing games somewhere in the house or the backyard. Never would one find them trying to stuff the material in their head. Learning, for them, was having fun.

From the moment on that they had been taught how to read, they would read each other the fairytales that their mothers had read to them and he would laugh over how silly they were. She would then get angry at him for laughing at the princes on the white horses whom she loved and admired so much. He would then laugh at her even more and the book reading would become a full scale tickle war. When they were done laughing, he would tell her that princes were ridiculous.

She imagined him to be the prince that he never was.

High school brought with it a lot of surprises. During the first two years they were still in the same class, still getting the best marks out of everyone and beating the average level with ease. But as the third year came, he took up the life of a trainee at a music company. Suddenly she found herself being alone in class more often than not, with the empty chair next to her that screamed his absence. It was weird at first, but she soon got used to it and simply hung out with other people from her class.

They still met up often outside of school, as he lived only a street or two away from her. He would always tell about his life in the company. At first he had only gotten jobs of cleaning the floor, but after a while, he would tell her stories of passing by famous idols and getting to know other trainees. She would always be just as excited about everything as he was himself, and when he would tell her about the pranks they pulled on each other, his mischievous grin and sparkling eyes would always make her able to imagine it perfectly.

Of course the people at school knew about him becoming a trainee with a chance of being famous in the future. As she reached her last year of high school, lots of girls were swooning over him and they would give her letters to give to him, because they knew how close she was with him. She would do as the girls asked and give him tons of letters every Friday evening. At first he would still take the time to read them, but after a while he didn’t bother anymore, telling her that he thought those love letters quite ridiculous.

She wrote letters to him that he never read.

As university started for her, his debut came. They hardly found the time anymore to see each other, but still kept in contact through e-mails and calls. Their friendship did not fade away, nor did it whither. It was safe to say that they were maybe even closer than ever, as he came to her with lots of his hardships that he didn’t want to burden his members with. He told her about them too and about how they were such good friends, but he never failed to reassure her that she was still his best buddy ever.

University for her passed by in a whim. There was a very troubled period during the time of the car accident his band was involved in, but when everything turned out to be alright, her life became better again as well. She would pass her exams with ease and skip from year to year as he skipped from album to album. She would tell him stories about her life in university and he would tell her how much he envied her sometimes for having such a normal life.

Every time a new album of his came out, she would be one of the first to buy it, often having pre-ordered it already long before. He would always send her a version signed by all the members, but she would still buy one herself anyway, to support him. She would be there at every concert close by, to cheer him on even though he didn’t see her in between the other fans. They would always be on the phone after a concert and he would tell her about the amazing feeling it was and how he wished she could be there with him.

She encouraged him with cheers that he never heard.

About five years after his debut, she finished university, leaving it as a newbie doctor with a fancy diploma. She moved to the big city and took up a job in one of the hospitals there, soon getting a reputation as a good doctor and often being called for emergencies. At the same time, there were some troubles in his band and it came to a point where the members had to enlist for their army service. So they did and he went.

She didn’t hear from him a lot in those two years.. The occasional letter that would end up on her doormat and the even more rare e-mail every now and then with updates about life in the army were the only things she got from him. Yet the absence only made the friendship stronger. The day he came back from the army, would also be the day he visited her new house, taking her out for dinner and sleeping over in her guest room. That same night she was called out for another emergency, leaving him to wake up all by himself the next morning.

Life took a turn for the better after that. He would call her often again as he resumed his idol activities, visiting many TV programs and variety shows. When the remaining twelve members of his band came out with a new album six months after the last one came back from military service, it was only normal for her to be the first to pre-order a copy. At times when he came to visit her, he would often hug her and tell her he was glad that he had a friend like her and that he wished she would have a wonderful life.

She faked smiles for him that he never saw through.

From then on life seemed to go in overdrive. Months passed like raindrops in a downpour and nothing much special happened. His band stayed active for another decent amount of years, making him mid-thirty by the time they decided to each go their own way, keeping contact nonetheless. His ‘own way’ lead him to her house first. When he told her the news she felt the same mix of relief and disappointment that she knew he was feeling too, but she congratulated him anyway and cooked him dinner.

After that day he would come by occasionally in between his variety shows and acting schedules. The times he was with her were times where she would always hope that no one would beep her up, yet it still happened sometimes. Whenever it did, he would give her an understanding nod, tell her he would clean up the mess and let himself out. A few hours later, she would get a phone call from him, informing about the emergency and if her patient had made it. She would mostly be able to confirm this, but when that wasn’t the case, he would tell her that sometimes such things happened and that she had to be strong.

In the evenings, she would return to an empty house. The dishes would be done, her bed would be made and the coffee machine would be ready to make coffee, but it would still be empty. At such evenings she often felt the weight of being alone and would go to bed early, just to escape the silence that hung in every room. Yet sleep would not find her that early and she would lie awake for a while, thinking about her life and how it seemed so incomplete.

She cried tears over him that he never dried.

When his mother died, she went over to the burial together with her parents. As he bowed his head, holding back tears that he thought he wasn’t allowed to cry anymore at his age, she went over to him and wrapped her arms around his trembling body. He didn’t respond when she did so, but after the ceremony was over and everyone had left, he broke down in her arms, bawling like a little kid. She held him as he let out years of feelings kept inside, stroking his back in reassurance.

When her mother died, he came to the burial as well with his father. She did not hold back any tears, nor did she cry, because she had known for a long time that her mother was getting old. Yet when the ceremony was over and she had sent her father home, making sure that everything was fine there, she came home to see him waiting for her on her doorstep. He walked inside with her, set on making coffee for the both of them. He seemed to wait for her to cry, but when she offered him a cookie, he started crying instead, making her rush over to hug him and tell him it was alright, that her mother had lived a good life.

Whenever he had a bad day, he would come to her, and she would comfort him and tell him things were going to turn out fine. He would always blindly believe her, the way she blindly believed him. After gushing out his worries at her feet, he would feel drained and empty like he had always done at such moments, so she would place him on the couch and turn on the television to watch a random movie with him. At such times, he would rest his head on her lap as if he was still a little kid and she would absentmindedly stroke through his hair as she watched the television.

She showed him the love that he never felt.

And he never did. He never noticed her jealousy when others hugged him. He never was her knight in the shining armour, ready to take her away to a happily ever after. He never read the wonderful words she had used to express her love for him. He never heard how she encouraged him with all her heart. He never saw how fake her smiles were when she tried her best to be happy for him. He never dried her tears when she cried a river for him. He never felt the love she had for him in her heart.

She cursed the things he never knew.

- - - - -

The things..
..he never did

From the start on things had been the way they were. Seeing that their parents met almost every day for silly reasons, they would of course be together every day as well. It was only normal for them to become friends, just as good friends as their mothers had been. It even came to a point, somewhere during their years in kindergarten, that he would always be able to tell exactly where she was, for he knew her too well and knew what places of the building she liked to visit.

But as much as they were friends, she could be a terrible pain as well. She would disagree with him on everything and he had always had a hunch that she disagreed with him just to not have to agree. So what would normally be nothing, would always turn out to be the greatest of dilemmas for them and they would bicker over it until their discussions erupted into yelling and physical fighting. It would sometimes scare the adults watching over them.

He would always win the fights. Which wasn’t so hard to do. First of all, he was a boy, so he was stronger. Secondly, he could always retort to using his puppy eyes on the people who came rushing to pull them apart. They would then scold her and, when they were at home, one of their mothers would scoop him up and bring him to the tea table, cooing and pampering him. He would always show her a self-assured smile and she would make an ugly face at him when she thought he wasn’t looking.

He never stuck out his tongue at her like he wanted to do.

As time passed, things changed. They grew up, started to go to primary school and somehow she didn’t always disagree anymore. Not that she started agreeing with him at all times, but much more often, and when she still didn’t agree, the fights wouldn’t be as heavy as before, more yelling words, less pulling hair. They stuck together as friends in school too, but did also meet new friends. Yet he never failed to seek her out to share things with that mattered most in his life. Like when he got a new pair of roller blades, she was the first one apart from him to try them out.

Being in class with her meant having fun every day. They would turn their learning subjects into the most hilarious things ever by changing silly words or making stupid remarks. Their teachers would always scold them for being so loud, but still smile fondly because they never really disturbed others and always had the best marks of their class. It wasn’t hard for him to learn, as he enjoyed making the exercises and didn’t have to exert himself much to remember the material.

Besides, at home, they would always make games out of learning. Like when they were supposed to read more often, they would just read each other bedtime stories as they slept over. She would always be excited when the princes on their white horses came by and scooped up the princesses to take them away. He would laugh at her for that, telling her how ridiculous those princes were and which idiot would ever want to ride a white horse, because everyone knew they got dirty the fastest. After their tickle war, he would tell her that princes were ridiculous and she would show her adorable pout, making it obvious that she thought differently.

He never scooped her up and took her away like he wanted to do.

When high school came, he got into a difficult time. There was his dream of becoming a singer or dancer, yet it was hard for him to try and leave her. It took him until the third year to decide for his dream and soon after, he successfully got accepted into a music company. At first it was weird, being in a new place without having her by his side. He always felt a little lonely when he turned around to find her not being next to him. Yet after a while he got used to it and started to become friends with other trainees in the company.

He still saw her often, though, when his hours of training in the company were over and he went home for the night, he would often just stay over at her house. They didn’t live that far away from each other anyway. Whenever he saw her, he would tell her about his life as a trainee and words would just come gushing out about how he had walked passed this famous idol or how they had pulled yet another prank on one of his trainee friends. She would always laugh along with him and it would make him feel like she had been around all that time.

When visiting so often became a little hard, they settled on meeting up every Friday evening. On a certain one of those evenings, she came over with a plastic bag full of letters. He was surprised at first, but she told him that they were written by girls from their high school. He would read them at first, but after a while he would find that there was only one letter that caught his interest. So he would tell her to just dump the letters on the ground because he thought them ridiculous. Yet when she left later in the evening, he would always go and pick out that one letter out of them all to read the lines filled with love and magic.

He never told her how beautiful her words were like he wanted to do.

Around the time he debuted, she got into university. He had wanted to go with her on her first day, but practice and preparations had made it impossible. Yet he still called her nearly every evening and when he wasn’t able to call, he sent her e-mails. Their friendship did not whither, if not it grew stronger, for he refused to let go of her. She was his comfort and support in hard times when he needed someone to tell the worries that he could not tell his fellow members. He told her about them too, but would never fail to remind her how much more important she was to him, because he hated to have her believe differently.

When his band was involved in a car accident, he could count on her support at all times. He knew she gave up a lot of her studying time for him just to have hour long phone calls filled with nothing but their constant breathing that would always reassure him that everything was going to be fine. And it did. When the commotion settled down again and his band went on producing albums and making a living, she would fly through her years of university like it was nothing. He would look forward to her calls on her graduation day and would sometimes envy her for how happy and uncaring she sounded when telling him about her life.

For every album his band made, he would take a copy, make all the members sign it personally and then send it to her. He knew she would have bought an album herself long before the signed version arrived, but he still sent it, because he knew that she appreciated the gesture more than anything. With every concert they gave close by his home town, he would look for her in the audience and would always flawlessly find her cheering for him amongst thousands of other fans.

He never boasted about her cheering like he wanted to do.

Around the time when trouble started in his band, life settled down for her. As he struggled to survive the hardships, she moved to the big city and started her normal life as a doctor. He envied her for being able to do what she wanted, yet at the same time he wouldn’t give up on his band for the whole of his life. That was exactly what he liked most about her. She had never, not for once, even hinted to him that maybe he should not have chosen the path he had. She would always support him and encourage him. Even when he had to go to the army.

It was a hard period of time, the two years he spent there. Lots of his superiors were younger than him, yet he felt strangely content with just following someone’s orders. He guessed that’s what being in a music band for so long did to you. Sometimes you just turned off your brain and followed orders. He would only rarely have a chance to write to her or e-mail her, but he would do so at any opportunity he got. So when his two years of service were over, it was only normal for him to visit her first and give her a big hug to show how happy he was to see her again. He slept over in her guest room, but when he woke up the next morning, he strangely felt like being home.

So as he resumed activities in the entertainment industry, he would often call her again to just talk about their daily lives. When his band finally came out with a new album, six months after the youngest member came back from military service, it felt like just yesterday that he had last made them sign a copy especially for her. He brought it over himself and with the strange sensation of being at home, he decided to stop by more often. At such times he would often see the defeat in her eyes as she tried to smile when he told her how happy he was to have a friend like her.

He never asked her why her smiles were so fake like he wanted to do.

Strangely his life went by pretty fast. Month after month flashed by him like cars on a highway and he would rush from one concert tour to the other, bringing out at least one album a year. He was around his mid-thirties when the band finally decided to split up, promising to keep in contact and meet up in group often as they went their own ways. It was just natural for him to go to her house first, as it had somehow become his second home. When he told her the news of having split up, she gave him a hug and smiled, even though he saw the mixed emotions on her face.

From then on he would go by as often as he could manage in between all the schedules he had with his solo activities. The times he spent with her were probably the most relaxing times in his life. He felt calm whenever he was around her. Yet she would often get beeped up for an emergency at work. He noticed the guilty flash in her eyes every time it happened, so he reassured her it was fine and that he would clean up. He would always do the dishes, make up her bed and put the coffee machine ready to make coffee. And even though he always felt more like staying than leaving, he would set for home, while calling her to see how the emergency went.

In the evenings, he would be sitting in his couch at home, thinking about how cold and silent his house really was. He would put on some music and turn on the heater, but it would still be cold and silent. On such evenings, he found himself wondering what it would be like to live in her house, a place that felt so much more like a home to him than his own house did. His thoughts would automatically drift to her and he would always know, one way or another, on which evenings she would just go to bed and on which evenings she would cry first.

He never was able to dry her tears like he wanted to do.

When his mother died, she came over to the burial with her parents and somehow he felt strong, knowing that she was there for him. Yet when it got too much for him in the end anyway, she came over and wrapped her arms around him, like a mother would do to her child. At a certain point in time, when everyone had left already, he lifted his head to look at her. Yet at that moment, he smelled a hint of her perfume, a mix of peach and some unknown flower, and suddenly felt so protected that he allowed the tears to gush out. As he stood there, bawling like a baby, she held him.

When her mother died, he rushed over to the burial with his father, cancelling every schedule he had that day. He wanted to be there for her, for once be the one who consoled her, yet she didn’t let a tear wet her cheeks. He thought at first that she was trying to look strong, so he went to her house to wait for her there. But when she let him in and he made coffee for them, there still wasn’t even a hint of tears in her eyes. He admired how strong she was and realised it was something she got from her mother. Right then, she randomly offered him a cookie and the next moment he found himself crying in her arms again, being reassured that it was all okay.

He somehow had become soft or something to the likes of that, for he would always search for her when he had a bad day and she would always be there to comfort him and tell him that soon, things were going to change. He would always blindly believe her, because he trusted in her so much, and he could only hope that maybe, somehow, she had the same trust in him. After those long conversations, they would go watch the television and he would rest his head on her lap. As she absentmindedly stroke through his hair, he would always cherish the closeness of their bodies.

He never told her how much he loved her like he wanted to do.

And he always wanted to do so. He always wanted to stick out his tongue at her and show her how he knew about her jealousy. He always wanted to get a horse just to be able to be her prince on the white horse and take her away. He always wanted to write a letter back to her and use her own beautiful words to show her how wonderful they were. He always wanted to pull her on the stage and make her realise how much her cheers meant to him. He always wanted to poke her cheeks and tell her only to smile when it was genuine. He always wanted to be around at all times and dry her tears the moment she cried. He always wanted to grab her hand and tell her how much he loved her.

He cursed the things he never did.

- - - - -

The things..
..they never forgot

It all started when they were young. Being the children of two best friends, it was only natural for them to grow up to be best friends as well. Somewhere along the years, friendship had turned to love, yet they couldn’t help but wonder that maybe it had always been exactly that - love. For they had always felt the same way about each other, not once giving up the feelings even though the rational part of them had often wanted to let go. They had lived by each other’s side for years, knowing, hoping, that maybe someday the other would find someone to love and to care for. Yet their life had passed by just like that, and no matter how lonely they felt, there had never been any guy but him in her life, nor had there ever been any other woman than her in his life.

And then fate finally decided to kick in.

It took him forty years to realise that maybe the only one she would ever love and care for was he himself, but when that realisation hit him, the road to his future was crystal clear.

He would always remember the look on her face when he kissed her for the first time.

For years she had been there for him, stood by his side without ever asking anything. So when he finally started giving too, she was too shocked to respond with coherency.

She would always remember the way he kneeled down and proposed to her.

Even though they weren’t exactly young anymore when they married, he didn’t feel old at all, for she never gave him a chance to feel anything but pure bliss.

He would always remember how gorgeous she looked in the wedding dress.

As a doctor, she had learned how to save lives and help other people get their lives back on track. It was refreshing to see someone fill her life with new hope.

She would always remember how sweet his words were when he told her he loved her.

And they always would. They would always remember the cheers of their friends when they finally moved in with each other. They would always remember their honeymoon to New Zealand. They would always remember the first steps their adopted baby took. They would always remember the dance recital that earned their son a spot in a famous dance school. They would always remember how he wedded a beautiful wife. They would always remember the cute face of their first granddaughter. They would always remember the evenings spent on a balcony, looking at the stars, with a blanket pulled over their old and tired legs. But most of all, they would always remember each other.

They loved the things they never forgot.