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Riko’s funeral is on May 1st, exactly four days after he dies. It’s a gorgeous, sunny day, no clouds in sight, nor a single drop of rain. Pleasantly soft wind blew gently over the cemetery, softly ruffling the grass at Kevin’s feet.
Riko would have hated it.
Kevin honestly doesn’t know why he came. Public appearances, maybe? Closure? Nevertheless, he doesn’t quite remember. He keeps quiet, respectful conversation with a some of the people who came. They give him pitying looks, or whisper things like he was such a good person, he didn’t deserve to die, or even worse, I’m sorry for your loss.
It makes Kevin want to scream. He wants to yell, to tell the world that you didn’t know him. I did. I DID. You don’t get to tell me what he did or didn’t deserve. He deserved this. He deserved worse.
Not for the first time, he wishes Andrew was there, or even Neil. Both had offered to come, in their own ways. He turned them both down.
He’d texted Jean before he’d left. One message, a simple, I’m going to his funeral. He didn’t write his name. He couldn’t.
Jean’s reply was one word. Okay. Kevin hadn’t asked him to come. Jean didn’t offer.
The Moriyamas had given Riko an open casket funeral. His face was peaceful, soft, and kind in a way he’d never been when alive. It was almost surreal to see him lying there, like he could be asleep, like any moment now he could wake up and look at Kevin and say in that smooth drawl, come on Kevin, we don’t want to be late to practice, do we?
Kevin kind of wants to lean into the coffin and grab him by the front of his suit and scream, don’t you dare fucking leave me here, don’t you fucking dare.
Kevin kind of wants to do a lot of things. He doesn’t.
The Moriyamas leave shortly after the funeral ends, barely taking the time to pay their respects. He notes that Ichirou isn’t among them and feels the corner of his mouth twitch upward against his will.
Even in death, Riko wasn’t worth his only brother’s time.
Kevin waits until everyone else has left before he approaches Riko’s grave. It’s simple, gray and moderately sized, almost blending in with the others around it. On it, Riko’s name is listed, once in English and then, in smaller print under it, in Japanese kanji. Underneath that are his birth and death dates.
There’s nothing else. No quotes or symbols. Not even the short phrases most of the other graves sport. That’s it.
Riko would’ve hated it.
Even now, Kevin can imagine what Riko would have liked. He would have wanted something big, or flashy, something that stood out, that made others stop and stare.
He wonders if the Moriyamas ever knew that, or if they just gave him the bare minimum. It was probably the latter, he decides. Kengo Moriyama had never cared for Riko beyond the label of Moriyama tossed upon his estranged son. He wouldn’t have bothered with what his son hated.
That, Kevin realizes, probably would have stung Riko more than hate ever would.
He looks down on the grave once more. I hate you, he wants to say to it. I hate you so, so, much. It rings false on Kevin’s tongue.
He wants it to be true. He wants it to be true with every fucking fiber of his being. He wants to despise Riko, wants to hate him for all the things he said, all the things he did, and yet—
Sometimes, some small, shriveled up part of him remembers the boy who would do his Japanese homework for him when he couldn’t properly form the letters, who would hand his Exy racket back to him with a smile when he’d dropped it after an exhausting yet successful pass in practice, who would listen to him rant about history for as long as he could, never once asking him to shut up.
He had been scared of Riko, sure, terrified of him, maybe even angry at him, but he could never bring himself to fully hate Riko, not really, not when sometimes, he could still see flashes of the boy he’d first met, back when they were too young to truly care about anything at all.
I almost hated you.
He’d thought that time and time again. I could hate you, the first time he’d seen Jean the morning after. I should hate you, when his bones ached and muscles burned, and they just kept practicing.
I almost hate you, I want to hate you, I want to die, I want to die, kill me, kill me, justfuckingkillmeandenditplease, when his hand was smashed into a bloody, shattered mess of bone.
He wonders vaguely what Riko had thought of those moments. He supposes he’ll never know.
“You were wrong,” he eventually manages, still staring at the grave. Kevin isn’t quite sure how long he’s been standing there.
“You were wrong,” he says again. “I was always better than you. You were number two, and I was one, and I was always better than you.”
It’s maybe the most truthful thing he’s ever said to Riko.
He thinks of the Foxes at Palmetto, waiting for him to come back. He thinks of the bright colors of the championship banner, the first one in orange and white instead of black and red.
He thinks of himself, standing over the grave of someone he might have once called a brother, brand-like tattoo covered, sun shining on him from above.
Riko would have hated this, he thinks, not for the first or last time.
He walks away smiling.
(Years later, an Exy Hall of Fame is created. Kevin Day is the first entry. Riko Moriyama is the second. They are remembered that way for all of history.)