Now and Forever...Itsumademo... - Chapter 13A
Title: Now and Forever…いつまでも…
Author: Mayonaka no Taiyou/Unare Haineko
Pairing: [Juntoshi] Matsumoto Jun x Ohno Satoshi
Rating: R-ish.
Summary: This story follows Ayumu, a more or less normal child born in 2012, three years after the ending of ‘Kodoku kara Umareta Ai’ (which you can read here). His parents, Jun and Ohno, are everything ( Read more... )
“I’m not a blob. I just want to see what’s going on…”
“Curiosity kills the cat. The only way to be safe is not to be a cat,” she said enigmatically.
“Eh? What have cats got to do with anything?” he asked and promptly felt himself being hurled against the nearest wall, the invisible fingers closing painfully around his throat.
“Imbecile!” she snarled, shaking the cushion vigorously and making Aiba nauseous at his end of the line. “Don’t go in as the light when there is darkness. If you must use mirrors use convex ones to minimise blind spots.”
“Like driving? But I’m indoors,” whined the man as he struggled frantically under the invisible hand pinning him against the wall.
“Don’t do that and you’ll catch the light from the source. When that happens, you’ll burn crisper than Peking duck,” she hissed, thumping the cushion against the divan and resting her elbow on it.
“Ooof,” cried out the man as he felt the wind being knocked out of him. “What light? What source?”
“The source of the light, my dear Sir Idiot,” drawled her ladyship in false amiability, “the source is the ‘big boss man’, Friend Tiny so obligingly referred to.”
“What are you trying to tell me, sensei?” he sputtered between breaths, rubbing his neck as the unseen hand loosened its throat-hold.
“One - you either reflect the truth of the situation in that soiree or you will see in there shadows of yourself and what you have become? Which will it be?” she levelled at him, twisted the cords of the telephone with a tapered finger.
“Why is it like that when I only want to find out what’s going on?”
Instead of answering him, her ladyship went on with an irritable hiss, “Two - you either look truth in the eye from your blind spot in the shadows or you go directly to the source of the light and burn from the truth. Which will it be?”
“Sensei, you’re making no sense…” he choked, feeling the invisible hand clamping itself around his throat and shaking him about like a rag doll once more.
“Let me make this simple for you, Sir Idiot, since you’ve not paid attention to our last session or this one,” she smoothly intoned with feigned civility. “If you play Icarus and attempt to meet the source of the light, you will die like an overdone Peking duck. Don’t you wonder if that’s what happened to Messrs Matsumoto and Ohno? Don’t you wonder if they were ‘disposed of’ because they came too close to the source of the light?”
“Are you saying…”
“Silence!” she hissed and struck the cushion several times, causing the same blows to rain on Aiba’s much abused head. “Look through the dark convex glass and choose - One, reflect the truth or see shadows of yourself? Two, overcome your blind spot and look at the truth or fly to the sun in search of the truth and die? The choice is yours.”
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“Goodbye for now, Mr Aiba. I will see you if you survive this bout.”
“Sensei, I don’t know what will happen. Shouldn’t you be worried?”
“You’ll be fine,” she said dispassionately, then paused briefly before adding with a devilish chuckle, “or maybe you won’t.”
“Sensei! Sensei!” Aiba cried out over the receiver, but it was too late. Her ladyship had already terminated the connection. There was nothing else for him to do but to mull over her words and make sense of her cryptic utterances.
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Sorry, I was planning to comment yesterday, but yesterday was just...one of those days...filled with problems, excrement of the male bovine, and a whole lot of unnecessary imbecility. And I'm training a new employee to replace me (thank heavens! It's about time the NCP find a replacement for me. I am not cut out for this kind of manual labor) I was exhausted and fell asleep in front of my laptop (once again). This job seriously sucks whatever soul I have...I hate it. Damn them all!! But clearly you were in more physical pain and you still cranked out all those therapy sessions and analyses. *sinks into her corner in shame that once again Lady Strange was ten times more productive than the 'Ash Cat'*
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Still, you’ve done a commendable job in foreshadowing what is (possibly) to come with the mirrors - do they reflect the truth or do they blind one? That’s the trouble with mirrors. They have the ability to show one that which one refuses to see and in so doing, they blind one. Because mirrors can reflect and blind, they can also burn one with the truth. What you see in the mirror, you can’t ever ‘un-see’ as it were. That image will be seared into one’s head. The whole imagery of searing, conjures the image of a gigantic magnifying glass catching the light and burning through something. In turn, this gave me the idea of the whole shadow and light dichotomy you were playing up for the past four or five chapters. That dichotomy made me think that possibly you wanted to bring in Icarus.
After all, mirrors can only reflect an image if they catch the light. What better way to blind oneself than to go the source of the light and catch it? However, in so doing, one will either burn or be singed. Regardless as to whether one is just singed or one becomes crisper than Peking duck, one will have to pay the consequences of going too close to the source of the light. This naturally highlights the whole Icarus image for me. Melted wax, falling wings, plummeting to doom - wonderful torture. Hmmm, maybe I should use wax on someone in one of the therapy sessions.
Ah, ma jolie, don’t pout so, it spoils the shape of your mouth. Think this way - great minds think alike. And we are both ladies of superlatively keen wit.
It is indeed high time that you ceased to be corvee labour. If the bovine wants you to work for IT, then IT should offer you a position that does not involve backbreaking manual labour. Nepotism is a legitimate concept in family business, it is about time that creature realised that. *shakes fist* I hope things are looking up for you in that department.
Well, as for me, I churned up the therapy sessions and post mortems because I got bored with my ghostwriting project (no where near complete). I needed the distraction, et voila, you provided it in the form of Aiba as a tin can with botulism, Sho inhaling carrion scented flowers, Jun on a mobius strip bus ride, Ohno on his narcissistic streak, and Kazu being molested.
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Mirrors, Icarus...ooh, perhaps Daddy Daedalus, King Minos, and the Minotaur could make a guest appearance as well!! (Admittedly, I don't know how I'd tie it all in, but--that hasn't stopped me before). Aut viam inveniam aut faciam. That's my motto.
Yes, I am supposed to go to grad school in the fall, but that's sort of up in the air. I don't want to go, but the NCP insists that I put myself in debt. I initially only agreed because if I go to grad school it means I don't have to work for the family business. But that's for another time.
I saw the edited chapters for Itsumademo. Are you sure you're going to have enough time for your ghostwriting project, sensei? I know how much you love to read, think, analyze, and comment (and I adore you for it), but your work? Is it not piling up? *wilts as she feels bad for sucking up the sensei's time*
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Going for the Master's degree is always good. Just don't get kicked out of the PhD programme like I did. Academia and the farts has a long memory. I had applied last year to 8 schools last year for this autumn's intake, only 2 accepted me and they were sans funding and sans fee waiver (and yet they wanted me to be TA and Ra to which ever prof wanted me because they were short staffed - humbug). The other schools conveniently and subtly said, I was not competitive in my major subfield within the discipline and not suited for academia. It's that damn failure grade in that compulsory intro to political philosophy that got me (as well as the fact that I offended that prof who was surprise-the power behind the throne and the local tyrant). There were so many factors that resulted in my being "sent down" as we say in Br. Eng. I'll tell you about them one of these days... If you ever want to talk, feel free to rant via email or via MSN. I'm there at siloo [at] hotmail [dot] com, occasionally I'm at my gmail account at sicyloo [at] gmail [dot} com . Let me know if you add me because I'm tight with security.
Hmmmm... Daedalus, King Minos, and the Minotaur and Icarus. How will they fit in? That I leave to you.
My personal motto is culled from Virgil, "Sic sic iuvat ire sub umbra".
M. Aiba has missed all the insulting references to him - can with botulism, crisper than Peking duck and so on. So I exhort him to play in the shadows. There are two shadow plays going on. Both of which I find fascinating.
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#3 is giving him a gift card for Starbucks--five dollars. #4 wants to give him a case of instant noodles (the kind we distribute to our accounts) just to spite him. But the worst insult would be of course to get him nothing. We would never do that, but with the case of instant noodles...I would like to see the reaction on his face. I wonder if she's going to go through with it. *sigh* What a miserable existence under the NCP's roof.
But anyway, thank you. I will keep your email at the top of the list whenever I need to rant. It may be sooner than I think. The NCP is 'always busy', yet he's never 'too busy' to make our lives miserable.
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If i've ever in your end of the pond as a prof or something, you can live with me. But i have odd habits and tend to be solitary, so I'm not sure if you can live with that...
Men... bleh. Mamma calls them MCPs for Male Chauvinist Pigs, ironically it's the name of a defunct S.E.Asian communist party, the Malayan Communist Party.
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Good for you and mommy! You don't need the company of people like that. Though it is a little unfortunate that Prat must exist with the two of you.
Hah! I would move in with you in a nanosecond! Aside from my sisters, I'd rather move in with a 'stranger' (pun intended) than live with the NCP.
The only reason I live at home is because it was initially free rent. But I am annoyed at the NCP, so I'd jump at the chance to move out. Odd habits? Hmm, well, I'm not too picky about habits. I'm pretty quirky myself, so I've been told. I would say along the lines of schizophrenic anal-rententive. But I'm easy to live with. I don't need much; I'm a simple person. Actually, I pretty much only need three things--my computer, internet connection and a bed (and the bed can be a futon on the floor). If I have my computer and my internet, I am good.
Solitary habits--that's fine and dandy! I don't need someone clinging to me like middle school BFFs. I can respect space, in fact space and privacy are hard to come by in a house of four sisters. I welcome the alone time. But surely even a solitary person like yourself needs to eat! I like to cook and bake. My Japanese cooking always gets good reviews.
Let's totally escape from the MCPs...
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