Title: And I came back looking for you
Author:
ca_te Characters: Jiggy Pepper, Gauche Suede
Rating: G
Notes: Probably a bit Au, also considering that well it's not written in the manga that these two were friends but I like to imagine so :3
Disclaimer: I do not own Letter Bee and its characters
Jiggy looked up to the clouds moving in the dark sky. It had been quite some time since he last was in Yusari Central, but he remembered all the streets, almost all the bricks in those ancient walls. He wished he could bring Neri there one day. Just he needed time to gain enough money to be able to live again with her.
Hands in his pockets he walked along the main street and then on and on, leaving the Bee Hive far behind his back. He didn't like the feeling of it, the feeling of been trapped behind walls. Since he was little he had always had a thing for the wind, the way the wind slapped his face when it whistled over the hills of Kyrie, and later on the way the wind caressed him as he was riding his bike. He smiled remembering how his grandfather had taught him how to fix an engine when he was just a brat.
He liked the sound of his boots clicking against the pavement of the streets. A soft breeze made some dust twirling in the air. Jiggy wondered how much he had to walk to make the tickling anxiety he was feeling go away. But in the end it was normal, right? To feel anxious and excited just before meeting a person after such a long time.
He stopped under a street lamp, and waited there, his hands playing with coins in his pockets.
He recognized him when he saw him at the end of the road, even after so many years he just recognized in the boy who was approaching the child whom he had met the first time he had arrived at the Bee Hive.
Jiggy smiled behind the collar of his coat as he saw the white scarf of the other boy moving along with the wind.
In the the dim-light of the morning he half-closed his eyes.
As the boy came closer Jiggy's heartbeat speeded up, it made the sound of cherry stones inside a tin can in his ears.
The child he used to know was still there for sure but there was something more deep and more frail in him at the same time. There was that frailty which you gain growing up and not being a child who can give his love to others without a second thought any more.
Gauche stopped in front of him, his white scarf playing lazily with the breeze.
Jiggy swallowed but he knew well that he was the one supposed to start the conversation, to reach out. Gauche had never been a guy who talked much.
So Jiggy smiled and took one hand out of his pockets, reaching for Gauche's shoulder. It was bony under Jiggy's fingertips. He remembered the boy he had met at the Bee Hive, both of them had been feeling as if they were living in a dream those days, being able to do something for their families, being able to walk towards the light.
Growing up Jiggy had understood that the one of Akatsuki was nothing more than an artificial light, but something made him think that for Gauche was not the same, that he still believed in it. And that was what made him want to be friends with Gauche since when they were little.
“It seems you are doing pretty fine!”
Jiggy squeezed Gauche's shoulder. The boy's eyes were tired, Jiggy noticed that, but still there was some warm light swirling at the bottom of them, like little golden fishes.
“You too.”
Gauche smiled and it was still the same old, sweet smile. Jiggy couldn't help to hug him and whisper against Gauche's jacket. “It has been so long but I came back looking for you.” Gauche's hands over Jiggy's back were a little shaky but gentle
The omnipresent half-light seemed somehow clearer to Jiggy as he continued to hug Gauche, and even though under the dark sky they both knew to be nothing more than two little grains of sand, still it meant something that they had been able to see each other again, still it meant something that they were looking into each other eyes.