Fanfic 2: "Kagami" --- Prologue
Title: Kagami (The Mirror)
Pairing: I’m still feeling this part out... so I’m leaving it blank for now.
Disclaimer: A fanfiction on Arashi-sama.
Rating: No idea yet for the rating, but for now, let’s leave it at PG to PG-13.
Author’s Notes:
I’ve been working on “Kagami” in my head for a while now and I still haven’t resolved all the conflicts I have with the plot. Here’s hoping that writing it down will give me some semblance of a good story. And just to give credit where it’s due, the prologue discusses parts of the Folk Story of The Mirror of Matsuyama, I just sort of tweaked it a bit.
Ok, here goes...
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Prologue
“Mama, read me a story!”
The mother looked at her daughter’s eager face and smiled despite her tiredness. Her other children had fallen asleep and yet she always knew that this one would wait up for her.
“What story do you want me to read tonight?”
The daughter turned to her mother and gave a full smile, showing teeth that were still short and growing.
“Kagami!” The daughter squealed her delight.
“Mou! Again?” The mother collapsed on the bed. “Yada!” She said this while imitating her daughter’s petulant voice.
“Mama, mama! Onegaaaaiiii!”
It was a sort of ritual that the child never grew tired of. She got up from underneath the blankets and hugged her mother, breathing in the scent of her perfume, and knowing at once which one it was among the many bottles on the master bedroom’s table.
She gazed at her mother’s tranquil face, eyes closed to reveal long lashes curled with mascara and red lips carefully shaped. She wore a dark olive green gown, her hair styled in intricate knots and secured by an emerald pin, leaving a few tendrils to escape and cascade to the front and back of her dress.
She had seen her mother prepare for the dinner she attended earlier, had seen both her parents walk out of their house looking so splendid in their evening attire. But always, when they left looking like that, she worried that her parents would be whisked away into some fairyland full of princes and princesses, and forget all about them. It was only now, when she knew her mother was wrinkling her dress in order to lie down on her bed, that her worry left her.
As she stared at her mother, she wondered if she would really grow to be as beautiful as her.
The little girl proceeded to tickle her mother and when that got her to finally open her eyes, the child repeated the demand to be told her favorite story.
Once she was tucked in again, her mother lay down beside her.
Opening to the first few pages of the book revealed a picture of an old Japanese cottage. And so the story began.
“A long, long time ago, there lived a happily married couple with a daughter they cherished above everything.”
The child leaned into her mother. “Like me. Ne, Mama?”
“Hai. Just like you.”
Ruffling her daughter’s hair, she continued.
“The father was summoned to the capital on business and before he left, he promised to bring back presents for his wife and child. The trip went very well and when he returned, he gave his daughter a precious-looking doll, and his wife, a round metal disk with a handle full of beautiful designs on one side.
The child listened attentively until something caught her attention. “Did you and Papa get me anything from New York?”
The mother smiled and nodded, which brought a small squeal of happiness from the little girl. She kept asking to see the gift right then, settling down only when her mother said it was time to sleep.
“Mama, don’t go. Please, please finish the story...”
“But you’ve heard it a hundred times.”
“But it’s tradition!”
At this, the mother laughed. “Are you even old enough to understand what tradition means?”
“Hai!” The child eagerly bounced on the bed. “It’s when Mama comes home at night and she tells me my favorite story. And when I grow up, I’ll be just like that little girl. See, it’s tradition! But you have to stop laughing now, Mama!”
“Why? Because it’s not tradition?”
“No, because you need to finish the story!”
“Ah, gomen, gomen. But no interruptions this time.”
When the child agreed, she opened the book once again. The mother peeked at her daughter just to tease the little one.
“Mama! The story, the story!”
“Hai, hai...” Biting her lip to keep from laughing, the mother conceded and began to read.
“’Puzzled by her husband’s gift, the wife turned it over and gasped in shock. ‘There is a woman staring at me!’ She tried to give her husband back the gift but the man just smiled and laughed. ‘That is your own reflection that you see.’
“He then explained that the gift he had brought for her was called a mirror. He told her of an old proverb that said, ‘As the sword is the soul of a samurai, so is the mirror the soul of a woman. If she keeps it bright and clear, so is her heart pure and good.’
“The woman thanked her husband for the wonderful gift, promising to care for it as a valuable possession, never to use it carelessly. Time passed. And after a few years, the little girl grew to look more and more like her mother every day. But then the wife took ill. They tried what remedies they could, but nothing would cure her.
“On her deathbed, the woman asked that her daughter bring her the mirror.
“’You are soon to be a young woman now and I would like to give you this precious gift before I die.’
“’Mother, do not say such things. Father will bring back some medicine and you will be well again.’
“’Hush child, and listen. Inside this box you will find a mirror. And if ever you have need of me or long to see my face, you need only look upon it and I will be there. This mirror shows you what is in your heart and in your soul. And I ask that you keep me there.’
“Soon after, the mother passed away. The child grew up to be a kind and gentle woman. She regularly took out the mirror and gazed at it whenever she felt the need to talk with her mother. When she had done something wrong, her mother would always seem sad in the mirror. And when she had done something right, her mother would show her such a beautiful expression.
“And so it was that her simple nature prevented her from ever discovering that the image in the mirror was, in fact, her own reflection. But what mattered most was that she tried to always have her mother’s heart warming smile gaze back at her in the mirror, doing good and honourable things to make her proud. And in the end, the mirror did indeed become the reflection of both her heart and her soul.
“The End.”
As she closed the storybook, the mother gazed at her sleeping daughter’s face. The child had fallen asleep during the storytelling. Smoothing her daughter’s hair off her face, the mother kissed the child goodnight, settled the blankets around her little body, closed the lights and left the room.
Her silk gown rustled as she walked to her own bedroom, one that she shared with her husband. As she opened their door, he called out to her from the inside.
“Are they all asleep?”
“Hai.”
AUTHOR’S NOTES:
I hope you liked the Prologue. Just to inform you guys, the Japanese folk story I used is something I read in English Reading class when I was in elementary (revised, of course). I didn’t use the complete Mirror of Matsuyama story because it wouldn’t work well for this fic. I won’t be linking the full version back here but you can Google it if you like.
Anyway,click the link below to proceed to the next chapter.