[FIC] A Soft Reboot
Title: A Soft Reboot (3/?)
Rating: PG (Subject to change)
Warnings: Swear words
Summary: Once every couple centuries, the nations inexplicably disappear and are reborn as humans. But the memories and nationhood gradually return and they have funny ways of getting back to each other.
AN: WHAT TIME IS IT? It's update time. A plot in this chapter? Haha no, just kidding.
*
So decades pass and the Earth still spins and the stars still travel in the sky and human beings still live. Decades pass and the nations eventually reappear one by one. They are born as weak, frail human babies with tiny, tender hearts and corners as wicked as knife's edge. This is renewal.
Mitsuru is like a doll in his cotton-blue yukata. He clutches the thin hand of his grandmother as he carefully leads her across a Tokyo road. Her chestnut face crackles into a smile at the solemness of her grandson when he warns her about the shallow pothole in the street.
He is four-years-old and the all cicadas in Japan are singing for his first summer festival. The air is warm and the glow of lanterns and fireflies hang low. A drum beats in the distance, lending its heartbeat to the crowd. The ground almost vibrates under Mitsuru's sandaled feet.
"Obaachan, obaachan!" Mitsuru calls, enchanted by the masks and music, the sweet smells and the sizzle of meat on the grill. His dark eyes are huge on his tiny face and a pink flush dots his cheeks. Grandmother drinks in the sight; Mitsuru is usually such a serious and stoic child, that it's difficult to hold his interest with frivolous things. His attention drips away like sand in an hourglass and his expression becomes curiously glazed, as if thinking very intensely about something out of everyone else's reach. But he is a good child, Grandmother thinks. She buys him a cloud of cotton candy bigger than his head and Mitsuru burrows into it with delight.
She lets him direct their course and together they weave through the ladies in butterfly kimono, the bright reds and oranges of the stalls, the boys watching firecrackers fizzle into embers on the ground. She feels a tug on the loose sleeve of her yukata. "Obaachan," Mitsuru says and she follows the line of his small finger. He is pointing at a display of dolls, meticulously stacked, and the young shopkeeper smiles hopefully. "May I get something for Kappa-san?"
Ah, Kappa-san: Mitsuru's companion who lives in their bathtub. Grandmother has to force her smile.
Mitsuru chattering away as he splashes in the water has become commonplace in their household and is initially quite charming. At first, Grandmother thought he was just talking to himself, that he was just making noises to amuse himself with the echoes of the bathroom tiles. But when she listened, pressed her ear against the sliding door, she realised that Mitsuru was having a conversation: a conversation with questions and answers and someone answering those questions silently.
Her stomach turned to water and panic constricted her like a snake. Who is in there - he's alone, oh Mitsu-chan who are you talking to and what if I can't protect you what if what if what if - She burst in, brandishing a broom and discovered Mitsuru alone. "Is it time to get out now?" Mitsuru asked, concerned and confused. Grandmother just nodded mutely and put down her broom. The room smelt like fish and a patch of air shimmered in the corner of her vision.
Later, she learned of Kappa-san. She can't remember ever telling Mitsuru the legends of the kappa, Japanese water sprites that usually inhabited lakes and rivers. Perhaps he was taught folklore in school or he read it in a book?
She allows Mitsuru to buy a small trinket - a little woollen doll - for his imaginary friend.
(Is he imaginary though? How does Mitsuru have deep, solitary discussions about the early Yamato rule, about the entrance of Buddhism into Japan, about the end of sakoku and how Japan had let strangers around the world feel and taste their country for the first time, let foreign feet imprint their soil?)
The night goes on. Then something happens that stays with Grandmother for a long time afterwards.
Mitsuru is crouching by the kingyo stall, a lone still form in the shouting and jostling mass of children thrusting their nets into goldfish-filled water. He is staring at the ripples, forehead wrinkled as if the water is telling him something important. "Mitsu-chan?" Grandmother bends with some difficulty, hand already in her purse. "Would you like to have a go?" When he turns his head towards her, Grandmother is startled by the sheer age of his expression - he looks like a little old man with deep, tired eyes. They draw her in and a dawning dread swallows her whole.
Something terrible is about to happen.
"We have to go," Mitsuru says. Grandmother picks him up - he is so small and light - and she feels him trembling in her arms. When she looks back on this, she wonders why she didn't question her four-year-old grandson, how she knew instinctively that if they didn't move, they would die. Grandmother runs as fast as she can, but her age makes it difficult and the crowds are dense and Mitsuru starts shaking harder, shaking from his core. Her perfectly coiled white hair loosens from its bun. "Get to a c-clear place," he instructs, teeth chattering. "No trees or buildings."
'But this is Tokyo,' she thinks, but she follows the whispered directions in her ear. Buildings loom over them and Grandmother is squeezed by an icy fear that they will snap in half, like breaking sticks over knees, and crash down on them. The fear squeezes her so hard that her lungs constrict and her eyes almost are staring and if Grandmother had the air in her chest she would be shouting. It's not safe! Run, run! Please! Find somewhere to hide!
But Mitsuru is almost vibrating against her chest and is murmuring something and somehow, Grandmother still wonders about it, a sick sense of unease seeps through the festival. People stop and look up, as if the sun had been covered by an unnoticed cloud, except it is night and there is no sun and no cloud. There is only a sudden deep-set need to find somewhere safe. The children don't even cry when they are taken away from the games and bonfires as the crowds start sweeping out of the festival and vendors start packing up even though the festival should last through the night. There is a franticness to everyone's movement.
Grandmother is still running. The park; the park is there. There are no buildings in the park and the sky is black and wide and safe and empty over them.
"Obaachan, s-stop," Mitsuru gasps, his voice thin and high. He spasms violently. "Get down!" She drops on to the grass and covers Mitsuru's heaving body with her own. Others are following their example and then -
The first wave hits and the ground shakes a thousand times harder than the vibrations of the drums. People are screaming against the scrape and grind of tectonic plates deep below them. Mitsuru curls up and sobs, arms wrapped around his stomach. Everyone is clutching something; their bags, their heads, their children- tethering themselves to something tangible so panic can't pull them up and away. Something too close to them crashes and splits and Grandmother thinks that this might actually be the end of everything.
Minutes pass and nothing in history is as long as those minutes.
Then Mitsuru breathes and calms and he unravels his coiled body. He places a still hand over his grandmother's, the other over the ground. The stillness catches and spreads. With a dying rumble, the earth quietens.
The dolls have all fallen and everything wobbles perilously.
But they have not been crushed.
They have not been crushed.
Grandmother presses Mitsuru tight to her chest, wraps her hand around the back of his head and wonders what her grandson is exactly. Mitsuru hurts for days afterwards and he twitches with aftershocks.
*
They call each other England and Japan for the rest of morning without really noticing. Only when a classmate tilts her head and asks, "Isn't that, like, racist?" do they look at each other with raised eyebrows and realise that something between them had changed and they can't pinpoint what exactly.
It feels natural, so they keep doing it. Then someone else in class calls James 'England' and his chest tightens uncomfortably, as if a secret is rampaging and running loose amongst too many people. They shouldn't know about that name, how did they know, how did they know -
Mitsuru places a hand on his shoulder and James' panic attack dissipates, leaving cloudy confusion. Really, it isn't a big deal. 'England' and 'Japan' are just silly names that they call each other for no reason other than it feels good on the tongue and comes out naturally.
(Still, they decide to only use these names in private. They never discuss the reason; they probably couldn't have even if they tried.)
They don't discuss anything really, with James' awkwardness with feelings and emotions and Mitsuru's uselessness at talking about things that James doesn't bring up himself. They both ignore the fact that they're different to everyone around them, which is probably a bad thing. It is almost natural that their odd relationship, based on only a feeling that they're keeping an earth-old acquaintanceship alive, would encounter a sudden and explosive crash.
The dreams come less and less frequently now. It's almost as if the information and these 'memories' burrow into James' head without his knowing - as if they had always been there. However, the knife-sharp reality of the dreams James does have is frightening - one night, it is 1942 and it's hot and muggy in Singapore. The air is thick with blood and James knows an anger unlike anything he had felt before. He coughs and his palm turns a shiny red: the same red of his Empire, the same red of the Japanese flag. He has been painting the map with his colonies since the 16th century and he was not going to lose Singapore to -
The ground rocks and the high-pitched squeal of falling bombs assault James' ears. The explosions feel like hornet stings on his body and the death of his troops feels like a painful itch in the flesh of his heart.
Ammunition for their anti-aircraft fire was depleted. Another bomb drops, another explosion flares and curls and the hoarse screams resonate and vibrate inside James' head. The Japanese plane buzzes overhead and James looks up and knows instinctively who is sitting in the cockpit and knows that he's watching him with tar-black eyes and a tiny self-allowed smirk.
It is the biggest surrender the British Empire has ever known. James feels the crushing embarrassment and rage swirl inside him, rushing along his veins, all the way into his fingers and he clenches his fists until they shake and he roars at the sky as they surrendered at gunpoint. "KIKU-"
The dream ends there. James' jaw is sore from clenching it as he slept and his chest hurts from the shrapnel. That morning, he rattles around the kitchen with an unusual violence and can't look at Mitsuru in the eyes without wanting to lash out and take Singapore back from him and claw it out of his body.
(But it was just a dream, surely.)
Mitsuru is strangely apologetic that day, which is saying something as he is the most apologetic person anyone can know. He doesn't talk much and he lets James simmer and boil in his chair next to him and be unnecessarily curt and sharp with him.
"Woah, did you and Japan have a fight or something?" someone asks when Mitsuru goes to the bathroom before class.
"Something like that," James manages to say between gritted teeth. When Mitsuru comes back, all James can see is a blinding white uniform with gold trim at the shoulders and a sword at his side and that tiny self-allowed smirk -
James doesn't think. Mitsuru sits down and James hisses something that flies like an arrow straight into his chest. Mitsuru's whole body jerks and his usually serene expression tightens and twists. He snarls something in Japanese and leaps at James like a wildcat and the both of them fly out of their chairs, kicking and punching. James yells something about colonies and wars and surrenders. It's dramatic and exciting and it's a punch-up so of course the entire class is shouting and stamping until a teacher rushes in and tries to pry the two boys apart without getting badly hurt himself.
Mitsuru has a bloody nose and James has a swollen eye and they both have detention that day and for the rest of the week.
They don't look at each other until then, when they're imprisoned in a classroom and when James' blood has cooled and his mind has cleared. He's a stubborn idiot though, so it takes him an age to say something that won't worsen the situation.
"I didn't mean it, by the way," he says, a kind-of-almost apology.
"I know," Mitsuru replies coolly. James winces and realises he has to turn the kind-of-almost into something more substantial.
"I-I shouldn't have said it."
"It's okay." There's a tight note in his voice that hovers above them. They're still not looking at each other.
James curses his lack of ability to deal with these sorts of things. Apologising has never come easily to him. He says in a rush, expelling everything from his lungs in one go. "I shouldn't have said that your emperor is just a figurehead and a farce of a god."
The tight note loosens in the air and Mitsuru finally turns. "It's okay," he says again and he's gentler and the black of his eyes aren't as hard as before. "My ways are just as foreign to you as yours are to me."
"It was the battle of Singapore last night," James says. It doesn't excuse anything, really, and they both know this, but Mitsuru nods and stills. Then -
"There's a boy in my Japanese culture classes in the community hall," Mitsuru says. "He's from Greece." When he says 'Greece', the word is weighed with images of green eyes like olives, skin like bronze statues and dawn spreading her fingers over the Aegean. "I think you should meet him. He's…" Mitsuru doesn't finish the sentence and doesn't have to.
They walk back together afterwards and James wonders how many more of them are walking around feeling empty and alone, but strangely drawn to the land beneath them.
*
AN: I'm so excited about this fic. It's going to be a real behemoth. I think. Thanks for reading and comments would be loved and converted into faster updates. Somehow.
This was beta'd by iamlolweasel and she is fantabulous and amazing. (If any of you guys are KHR fans and like Byakuran & co and alternate universes and amazing writing, please go check out her fic the mindbody problem, which I'm betaing for her. Do it do it do it.)
Also check out the wikipedia entry on the kappa. For the sake of my mental health, I'm going with the anime portrayal of the kappa and not the traditional 'child-eating, butt-poking kappa'.
Posted to FF.net and the main APH comm
Rating: PG (Subject to change)
Warnings: Swear words
Summary: Once every couple centuries, the nations inexplicably disappear and are reborn as humans. But the memories and nationhood gradually return and they have funny ways of getting back to each other.
AN: WHAT TIME IS IT? It's update time. A plot in this chapter? Haha no, just kidding.
*
So decades pass and the Earth still spins and the stars still travel in the sky and human beings still live. Decades pass and the nations eventually reappear one by one. They are born as weak, frail human babies with tiny, tender hearts and corners as wicked as knife's edge. This is renewal.
Mitsuru is like a doll in his cotton-blue yukata. He clutches the thin hand of his grandmother as he carefully leads her across a Tokyo road. Her chestnut face crackles into a smile at the solemness of her grandson when he warns her about the shallow pothole in the street.
He is four-years-old and the all cicadas in Japan are singing for his first summer festival. The air is warm and the glow of lanterns and fireflies hang low. A drum beats in the distance, lending its heartbeat to the crowd. The ground almost vibrates under Mitsuru's sandaled feet.
"Obaachan, obaachan!" Mitsuru calls, enchanted by the masks and music, the sweet smells and the sizzle of meat on the grill. His dark eyes are huge on his tiny face and a pink flush dots his cheeks. Grandmother drinks in the sight; Mitsuru is usually such a serious and stoic child, that it's difficult to hold his interest with frivolous things. His attention drips away like sand in an hourglass and his expression becomes curiously glazed, as if thinking very intensely about something out of everyone else's reach. But he is a good child, Grandmother thinks. She buys him a cloud of cotton candy bigger than his head and Mitsuru burrows into it with delight.
She lets him direct their course and together they weave through the ladies in butterfly kimono, the bright reds and oranges of the stalls, the boys watching firecrackers fizzle into embers on the ground. She feels a tug on the loose sleeve of her yukata. "Obaachan," Mitsuru says and she follows the line of his small finger. He is pointing at a display of dolls, meticulously stacked, and the young shopkeeper smiles hopefully. "May I get something for Kappa-san?"
Ah, Kappa-san: Mitsuru's companion who lives in their bathtub. Grandmother has to force her smile.
Mitsuru chattering away as he splashes in the water has become commonplace in their household and is initially quite charming. At first, Grandmother thought he was just talking to himself, that he was just making noises to amuse himself with the echoes of the bathroom tiles. But when she listened, pressed her ear against the sliding door, she realised that Mitsuru was having a conversation: a conversation with questions and answers and someone answering those questions silently.
Her stomach turned to water and panic constricted her like a snake. Who is in there - he's alone, oh Mitsu-chan who are you talking to and what if I can't protect you what if what if what if - She burst in, brandishing a broom and discovered Mitsuru alone. "Is it time to get out now?" Mitsuru asked, concerned and confused. Grandmother just nodded mutely and put down her broom. The room smelt like fish and a patch of air shimmered in the corner of her vision.
Later, she learned of Kappa-san. She can't remember ever telling Mitsuru the legends of the kappa, Japanese water sprites that usually inhabited lakes and rivers. Perhaps he was taught folklore in school or he read it in a book?
She allows Mitsuru to buy a small trinket - a little woollen doll - for his imaginary friend.
(Is he imaginary though? How does Mitsuru have deep, solitary discussions about the early Yamato rule, about the entrance of Buddhism into Japan, about the end of sakoku and how Japan had let strangers around the world feel and taste their country for the first time, let foreign feet imprint their soil?)
The night goes on. Then something happens that stays with Grandmother for a long time afterwards.
Mitsuru is crouching by the kingyo stall, a lone still form in the shouting and jostling mass of children thrusting their nets into goldfish-filled water. He is staring at the ripples, forehead wrinkled as if the water is telling him something important. "Mitsu-chan?" Grandmother bends with some difficulty, hand already in her purse. "Would you like to have a go?" When he turns his head towards her, Grandmother is startled by the sheer age of his expression - he looks like a little old man with deep, tired eyes. They draw her in and a dawning dread swallows her whole.
Something terrible is about to happen.
"We have to go," Mitsuru says. Grandmother picks him up - he is so small and light - and she feels him trembling in her arms. When she looks back on this, she wonders why she didn't question her four-year-old grandson, how she knew instinctively that if they didn't move, they would die. Grandmother runs as fast as she can, but her age makes it difficult and the crowds are dense and Mitsuru starts shaking harder, shaking from his core. Her perfectly coiled white hair loosens from its bun. "Get to a c-clear place," he instructs, teeth chattering. "No trees or buildings."
'But this is Tokyo,' she thinks, but she follows the whispered directions in her ear. Buildings loom over them and Grandmother is squeezed by an icy fear that they will snap in half, like breaking sticks over knees, and crash down on them. The fear squeezes her so hard that her lungs constrict and her eyes almost are staring and if Grandmother had the air in her chest she would be shouting. It's not safe! Run, run! Please! Find somewhere to hide!
But Mitsuru is almost vibrating against her chest and is murmuring something and somehow, Grandmother still wonders about it, a sick sense of unease seeps through the festival. People stop and look up, as if the sun had been covered by an unnoticed cloud, except it is night and there is no sun and no cloud. There is only a sudden deep-set need to find somewhere safe. The children don't even cry when they are taken away from the games and bonfires as the crowds start sweeping out of the festival and vendors start packing up even though the festival should last through the night. There is a franticness to everyone's movement.
Grandmother is still running. The park; the park is there. There are no buildings in the park and the sky is black and wide and safe and empty over them.
"Obaachan, s-stop," Mitsuru gasps, his voice thin and high. He spasms violently. "Get down!" She drops on to the grass and covers Mitsuru's heaving body with her own. Others are following their example and then -
The first wave hits and the ground shakes a thousand times harder than the vibrations of the drums. People are screaming against the scrape and grind of tectonic plates deep below them. Mitsuru curls up and sobs, arms wrapped around his stomach. Everyone is clutching something; their bags, their heads, their children- tethering themselves to something tangible so panic can't pull them up and away. Something too close to them crashes and splits and Grandmother thinks that this might actually be the end of everything.
Minutes pass and nothing in history is as long as those minutes.
Then Mitsuru breathes and calms and he unravels his coiled body. He places a still hand over his grandmother's, the other over the ground. The stillness catches and spreads. With a dying rumble, the earth quietens.
The dolls have all fallen and everything wobbles perilously.
But they have not been crushed.
They have not been crushed.
Grandmother presses Mitsuru tight to her chest, wraps her hand around the back of his head and wonders what her grandson is exactly. Mitsuru hurts for days afterwards and he twitches with aftershocks.
*
They call each other England and Japan for the rest of morning without really noticing. Only when a classmate tilts her head and asks, "Isn't that, like, racist?" do they look at each other with raised eyebrows and realise that something between them had changed and they can't pinpoint what exactly.
It feels natural, so they keep doing it. Then someone else in class calls James 'England' and his chest tightens uncomfortably, as if a secret is rampaging and running loose amongst too many people. They shouldn't know about that name, how did they know, how did they know -
Mitsuru places a hand on his shoulder and James' panic attack dissipates, leaving cloudy confusion. Really, it isn't a big deal. 'England' and 'Japan' are just silly names that they call each other for no reason other than it feels good on the tongue and comes out naturally.
(Still, they decide to only use these names in private. They never discuss the reason; they probably couldn't have even if they tried.)
They don't discuss anything really, with James' awkwardness with feelings and emotions and Mitsuru's uselessness at talking about things that James doesn't bring up himself. They both ignore the fact that they're different to everyone around them, which is probably a bad thing. It is almost natural that their odd relationship, based on only a feeling that they're keeping an earth-old acquaintanceship alive, would encounter a sudden and explosive crash.
The dreams come less and less frequently now. It's almost as if the information and these 'memories' burrow into James' head without his knowing - as if they had always been there. However, the knife-sharp reality of the dreams James does have is frightening - one night, it is 1942 and it's hot and muggy in Singapore. The air is thick with blood and James knows an anger unlike anything he had felt before. He coughs and his palm turns a shiny red: the same red of his Empire, the same red of the Japanese flag. He has been painting the map with his colonies since the 16th century and he was not going to lose Singapore to -
The ground rocks and the high-pitched squeal of falling bombs assault James' ears. The explosions feel like hornet stings on his body and the death of his troops feels like a painful itch in the flesh of his heart.
Ammunition for their anti-aircraft fire was depleted. Another bomb drops, another explosion flares and curls and the hoarse screams resonate and vibrate inside James' head. The Japanese plane buzzes overhead and James looks up and knows instinctively who is sitting in the cockpit and knows that he's watching him with tar-black eyes and a tiny self-allowed smirk.
It is the biggest surrender the British Empire has ever known. James feels the crushing embarrassment and rage swirl inside him, rushing along his veins, all the way into his fingers and he clenches his fists until they shake and he roars at the sky as they surrendered at gunpoint. "KIKU-"
The dream ends there. James' jaw is sore from clenching it as he slept and his chest hurts from the shrapnel. That morning, he rattles around the kitchen with an unusual violence and can't look at Mitsuru in the eyes without wanting to lash out and take Singapore back from him and claw it out of his body.
(But it was just a dream, surely.)
Mitsuru is strangely apologetic that day, which is saying something as he is the most apologetic person anyone can know. He doesn't talk much and he lets James simmer and boil in his chair next to him and be unnecessarily curt and sharp with him.
"Woah, did you and Japan have a fight or something?" someone asks when Mitsuru goes to the bathroom before class.
"Something like that," James manages to say between gritted teeth. When Mitsuru comes back, all James can see is a blinding white uniform with gold trim at the shoulders and a sword at his side and that tiny self-allowed smirk -
James doesn't think. Mitsuru sits down and James hisses something that flies like an arrow straight into his chest. Mitsuru's whole body jerks and his usually serene expression tightens and twists. He snarls something in Japanese and leaps at James like a wildcat and the both of them fly out of their chairs, kicking and punching. James yells something about colonies and wars and surrenders. It's dramatic and exciting and it's a punch-up so of course the entire class is shouting and stamping until a teacher rushes in and tries to pry the two boys apart without getting badly hurt himself.
Mitsuru has a bloody nose and James has a swollen eye and they both have detention that day and for the rest of the week.
They don't look at each other until then, when they're imprisoned in a classroom and when James' blood has cooled and his mind has cleared. He's a stubborn idiot though, so it takes him an age to say something that won't worsen the situation.
"I didn't mean it, by the way," he says, a kind-of-almost apology.
"I know," Mitsuru replies coolly. James winces and realises he has to turn the kind-of-almost into something more substantial.
"I-I shouldn't have said it."
"It's okay." There's a tight note in his voice that hovers above them. They're still not looking at each other.
James curses his lack of ability to deal with these sorts of things. Apologising has never come easily to him. He says in a rush, expelling everything from his lungs in one go. "I shouldn't have said that your emperor is just a figurehead and a farce of a god."
The tight note loosens in the air and Mitsuru finally turns. "It's okay," he says again and he's gentler and the black of his eyes aren't as hard as before. "My ways are just as foreign to you as yours are to me."
"It was the battle of Singapore last night," James says. It doesn't excuse anything, really, and they both know this, but Mitsuru nods and stills. Then -
"There's a boy in my Japanese culture classes in the community hall," Mitsuru says. "He's from Greece." When he says 'Greece', the word is weighed with images of green eyes like olives, skin like bronze statues and dawn spreading her fingers over the Aegean. "I think you should meet him. He's…" Mitsuru doesn't finish the sentence and doesn't have to.
They walk back together afterwards and James wonders how many more of them are walking around feeling empty and alone, but strangely drawn to the land beneath them.
*
AN: I'm so excited about this fic. It's going to be a real behemoth. I think. Thanks for reading and comments would be loved and converted into faster updates. Somehow.
This was beta'd by iamlolweasel and she is fantabulous and amazing. (If any of you guys are KHR fans and like Byakuran & co and alternate universes and amazing writing, please go check out her fic the mindbody problem, which I'm betaing for her. Do it do it do it.)
Also check out the wikipedia entry on the kappa. For the sake of my mental health, I'm going with the anime portrayal of the kappa and not the traditional 'child-eating, butt-poking kappa'.
Posted to FF.net and the main APH comm