20 Things Misaki (Tells Herself She) Believes
Title: 20 Things Misaki (Tells Herself She) Believes
Author: tekalynn
Claim: Aoyagi Misaki
Rating: PG-13
Notes/Warnings (if applicable): Dark. References to child abuse. Manga spoilers through volume 6.
1. Misaki has learned that a husband leaves few traces. A paycheck, dirty dishes, the occasional sperm donation, and slammed doors.
2. She can never quite remember how many children she has alive at any given time. Some blessed mornings she wakes up and thinks there are two. Then cold sickness hits as she walks into the kitchen and sees none. There's someone sitting at the table, but he's someone else's.
3. They seem to be running out of bandages ridiculously quickly these days. Misaki shakes her head as she makes yet another trip to the store. The cashier eyes her oddly.
4. Tomatoes bruise far too easily these days as well. As does skin. They should both be able to stand up to a little force.
5. Misaki thinks, sometimes, her sons sucked her life force out of her. She walks emptily through her days and her sleepless nights. They took everything when they left her.
6. You have to hold on to things as they should be, ought to be, need to be. Otherwise they'll be ripped out of your hands and reformed into something unrecognizable, hideous.
7. She hates it when people lie to her and expect her to take it as truth. Why should she be victim of their illusions?
8. If you let your kids go, they vanish. Tie them to the kitchen chair and at least they're at home and out of harm's way.
9. Don't trust the obvious. Test it again, again, and again. The obvious truth will reveal its falsity eventually. Just be patient.
10. Misaki doesn't trust the false Ritsuka's pleading eyes. If he were really her son, he wouldn't need to look so beseeching, would he?
11. Misaki truly does love Ritsuka best. That's why she has to bring him back from oblivion, to save him from himself.
12. It's so hard to feed picky kids properly. You work so hard to construct a meal just for them, and then they eat something you know perfectly well they find unpalatable. *That's* ingratitude.
13. The outside world is a trap. Fear it. Never let your children wander alone through it, or they'll change and die.
14. Expect nothing from your husband. Expect everything from your sons.
15. Misaki sometimes hates Seimei for dying. Who else will pull the knife from her hand? She can't do it by herself. He left her and the false Ritsuka to torture each other eternally, neither one able to break free and end the cycle. Seimei was strong and she is weak and the only thing left to do is lash out until something bleeds and breaks, inside and out.
16. There is no afterlife. Death is the end and there's no getting around that. They die and leave you alone on earth.
17. The world shifts and shifts again and the dead return and call for death, but you can't let the dead take the living, even to redeem themselves.
18. The old proverb says that a good woman obeys her father, husband, and sons. It must be so, Misaki muses, because her sons certainly don't obey their mother. And the husband? Hah!
19. Why must everything change? Why did her sons leave her? What did she do that was so wrong to lose them both, one in body and one in spirit?
20. No child may be bartered for the other's sake. There have been too many devil's deals.
Author: tekalynn
Claim: Aoyagi Misaki
Rating: PG-13
Notes/Warnings (if applicable): Dark. References to child abuse. Manga spoilers through volume 6.
1. Misaki has learned that a husband leaves few traces. A paycheck, dirty dishes, the occasional sperm donation, and slammed doors.
2. She can never quite remember how many children she has alive at any given time. Some blessed mornings she wakes up and thinks there are two. Then cold sickness hits as she walks into the kitchen and sees none. There's someone sitting at the table, but he's someone else's.
3. They seem to be running out of bandages ridiculously quickly these days. Misaki shakes her head as she makes yet another trip to the store. The cashier eyes her oddly.
4. Tomatoes bruise far too easily these days as well. As does skin. They should both be able to stand up to a little force.
5. Misaki thinks, sometimes, her sons sucked her life force out of her. She walks emptily through her days and her sleepless nights. They took everything when they left her.
6. You have to hold on to things as they should be, ought to be, need to be. Otherwise they'll be ripped out of your hands and reformed into something unrecognizable, hideous.
7. She hates it when people lie to her and expect her to take it as truth. Why should she be victim of their illusions?
8. If you let your kids go, they vanish. Tie them to the kitchen chair and at least they're at home and out of harm's way.
9. Don't trust the obvious. Test it again, again, and again. The obvious truth will reveal its falsity eventually. Just be patient.
10. Misaki doesn't trust the false Ritsuka's pleading eyes. If he were really her son, he wouldn't need to look so beseeching, would he?
11. Misaki truly does love Ritsuka best. That's why she has to bring him back from oblivion, to save him from himself.
12. It's so hard to feed picky kids properly. You work so hard to construct a meal just for them, and then they eat something you know perfectly well they find unpalatable. *That's* ingratitude.
13. The outside world is a trap. Fear it. Never let your children wander alone through it, or they'll change and die.
14. Expect nothing from your husband. Expect everything from your sons.
15. Misaki sometimes hates Seimei for dying. Who else will pull the knife from her hand? She can't do it by herself. He left her and the false Ritsuka to torture each other eternally, neither one able to break free and end the cycle. Seimei was strong and she is weak and the only thing left to do is lash out until something bleeds and breaks, inside and out.
16. There is no afterlife. Death is the end and there's no getting around that. They die and leave you alone on earth.
17. The world shifts and shifts again and the dead return and call for death, but you can't let the dead take the living, even to redeem themselves.
18. The old proverb says that a good woman obeys her father, husband, and sons. It must be so, Misaki muses, because her sons certainly don't obey their mother. And the husband? Hah!
19. Why must everything change? Why did her sons leave her? What did she do that was so wrong to lose them both, one in body and one in spirit?
20. No child may be bartered for the other's sake. There have been too many devil's deals.