Submission #19 -- Monocerotis, "Reminiscence"
Title: Reminiscence
User ID: Monocerotis
Rating: G
Characters/Pairing: The little girl from Vol 14, Chapter 4, Fuuma.
Warnings: None.
Summary: Chihiro was young enough then that much of the devastation was blurred memories for her, but she remembered Ebisu best.
start
Nakano Chihiro pulled her long hair into a tail at the nape of her neck, and smiled at the reflection in the mirror. Her mirror image, framed by a flurry of taped up notes and photographs of her friends and family, smiled back.
Like most girls her age, Chihiro had a dresser, with its wide open drawers and little compartments for jewelry, makeup and other trinkets. Unlike most girls her age, Chihiro's dresser held a flood of items: smooth, crystalline rocks collected from a river, books on botany and animal anatomy, tiny glass figurines of animals, frogs and skylarks and cranes and Japan's very own snow monkey, a tray containing the paintbrushes, acrylic paint and sketchbook Chihiro used to illustrate her field notes with.
Chihiro tucked the ribbon around her collar, tied it off in a bow and gathered her things for school. Homework, check. Gym uniform to change into for field-observation in the school side field, check. The little black school briefcase, check. Chihiro glanced once more into the mirror before heading towards her bedroom door. And as her habit every morning, she turned to her bedside table, where a little green frog plush with a yellow spangled collar sat, head leaning against her lamp, lovingly patched and restitched so he never fell apart.
In her middle school days, she'd grace Mr. Frog with an enthusiastic kiss to the little plush's head. She was seventeen this year, however, and Mr. Frog was getting worn from many hugs and kisses bestowed upon him by Chihiro over the years, and so she settled for patting the plush affectionately.
Maybe it was strange for a high school senior to still be so attach to her old plush frog, but Mr. Frog had been her constant companion during those chaotic months of 1999, and in the years afterwards when the family moved constantly and the distinct Tokyo skyline morphed into a new shape every time Chihiro set her eyes upon it.
And during the summer times of the year, Chihiro observed, everyone her age and above (those who were old enough to remember and understand the horrors of the earthquakes, the collapsing buildings, the fires) turned to something of their past: old photographs, mementos salvaged from destroyed houses, the belongings of a lost loved one.
“I'll be back in the evening, Mr. Frog,” Chihiro told the plush and walked out of her bedroom.
-----
The low tune signaling the bell for the last class rang, and the classroom immediately broke out in ripples of chatter.
“Don't run out the door yet,” Tanaka-sensei said over chairs scrapping against the floor, the slamming of textbooks. “Your lab report is due next Monday, and please have practice questions 7 to 15 worked out for tomorrow. Now, make sure to put the microscopes and their slides back in theirs appropriate places. Class dismissed!”
Chihiro slid the slides out from the microscope by their edges, placing them carefully on a piece of clear paper. Her lab partner, Mika-chan, clung to her bag and stared longingly at the door.
Chihiro laughed. “Go ahead, Mika-chan. I know you only have half an hour to see Takeshi-kun before cram school. I'll clean up here.”
“Oh, Chihiro-chan, is it okay? Are you sure?” Mika-chan's eyes darted quickly to the clock before settling back resolutely on Chihiro, as if not to tempt herself into hoping.
“Go on. I'm fine here.”
“Thank you, Chihiro-chan!” Mika-chan leaped forward and hugged Chihiro briefly around the shoulders. And then she was darting out of the room, bag swinging under one arm, one hand pressing her cell phone to her ear.
Chihiro smiled and bent over her work.
She was carrying the microscope to the shelves at the back of the room when Tanaka-sensei stepped out of his office. He glanced around the room.
“So you're the only one left, Nakano-san?” Tanaka-sensei shook his head. “I was supposed to remind my students that there will be a small memorial service at the Ebisu center tonight. But those who have lost someone there would already know.”
“Oh,” Chihiro said. That's why - she thought she saw Satomi-san in tears earlier, surrounded by her group of friends. And Seiji-kun was remarkably quiet today.
Days like these were familiar over this year. As years passed the pain and suffering and psychological stress had faded, but the tenth year anniversary of Tokyo's string of disastrous earthquakes seemed to bring back every memory in crisp-edged clearness to the bereaved. A memorial had been erected in each and every site an earthquake had occurred and toppled. For months, family and friends flocked to those memorials, to etch the names of their loved ones into the stone.
Identifiable bodies were rarely found in the wreckage; the scale of destruction had been so great that Tokyo had barely been able to cope with the lost of infrastructure, the raging fires, the risk of infection and pandemic, let alone arrange for proper funeral rites for the grieving families.
There was no point visiting an empty grave; a memorial at the site of the deaths served that purpose.
“Sensei, I think I'll do my field observation some other day,” Chihiro said, setting down the microscope and returning to her desk to collect her belongings.
Tanaka-sensei watched her, a shadow covering his eyes. “I understand. Stay safe, Nakano-san.”
Chihiro nodded. “I will, sensei.”
-----
Much of Tokyo had changed; it was something that confronted Chihiro every day as she traveled to school and back. Many sections had been damaged, or even downright destroyed, and no one had the heart to reconstruct any building exactly above ground zero. Instead, in each major location, a memorial had been raised, and other infrastructure sprung up around it. Ginza, Ikebukuro, Nakano Sun Plaza… even at Odaiba waterfront, where Rainbow Bridge had once crossed. Tokyo Tower had a memorial too, even though it still stood at the end of 1999, teetering on its last supporting beams.
Chihiro was young enough then that much of the devastation was blurred memories for her, but she remembered Ebisu best. Because mere minutes after leaving, the entire area had collapse, with a screech of concrete cracking apart and a boom that left Chihiro's ears ringing emptily for the next hour. Her mother tackled her to the ground, but they were far away enough that they were only covered with a thick layer of smoke and white ash and dust. Chihiro remembered staring at the flashing sky from under her mother's arms, at the strange flickering and fire in the horizon, Mr. Frog clutched tightly in one hand.
For the first time in almost ten years, Chihiro stepped onto Ebisu.
There were hundreds of people here, but the murmurs of their voices were like a thousand rice stalks rustling in the wind, a low indecipherable whisper in Chihiro's ears.
She walked a slow circle around the memorial, her hand clinging to her bag. The hairtie holding her hair in its tail was coming loose; Chihiro simply dug her fingers through her hair, pulling out the tie in one smooth motion. Her hair tumbled free over her shoulders.
The memorial was large, a structure of glass and crystal and stone, as if the sculptor had decided to ground the delicacy and grace of air with the solidity and stability of earth. It was a breathtaking structure for all its simplicity. There were little niches around the memorial, where stone benches had been cut into the memorial's base. These were surrounded by evergreen trees and little bushes to provide shelter and some privacy for the visitors.
Almost every alcove was filled, some with individuals, their eyes closed, thinking of their loved ones, others with companions or children. People walked in and out of each, nodding or meeting glances, but respectfully giving each other a berth of space. There was one niche that no one approached, however, one man everyone's eyes seemed to gloss over.
Chihiro stepped into the cleared area and sat down quietly next to the man. There was something about him that prickled at Chihiro, the quiet still way he leaned against the memorial, as if he existed outside this slice of time. His dark hair fell over his thin glasses; he was dressed all in black.
Perhaps it was when she set down her bag. Perhaps it was the rustle of her skirts as she tucked her feet together, crossed at the ankle. Perhaps it was simply her mere presence. His eyes opened, amber-gold and intense. The slight tightening at the corners of his eyes, the slight slant of his eyebrows revealed his sudden wariness.
“And who might you be?” he asked. Something about that voice, a quiet baritone timbre, prickled at Chihiro's memories.
“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you,” Chihiro said, tipping her head to the side, smiling a little to put the man at ease. “You seemed quite alone in your thoughts, and no one should be alone on a day like this.”
He stared at her, his eyes intense despite - or perhaps because - of his glasses. They flickered twice, to Chihiro's hair, spilling over her shoulders, and strangely, her hands, before they came back up to her face, his gaze unwavering.
The man brushed one hand through his hair with a movement that spoke of grace, controlled power, and Chihiro blinked, the wind suddenly heavy against her skin, the murmurs a little louder in her ears as if the world had been muted down just moments before.
“A little bird…” the man said, and then he was shifting to face her, moving in smooth, schooled movements, as if afraid to frighten her off.
“Some… call me Monou,” the man said, his voice hesitating just the slightest over the name. “And what are you called, little bird?”
“Monou-san,” Chihiro repeated to cement the name in her memory, and this time, Monou-san barely acknowledge the name. “I'm Chihiro.” Her girlfriends often told her that she was too trusting, but sometimes, when she worked on pure instinct, she knew that… she just knew.
They talked for a while; that is, Chihiro chattered, telling Monou-san about her hopes of becoming an environmental biologist and recounting some of her experiences out in the field. She talked about her girl friends, and how she loved them but didn't crave a relationship the way many of them did. She recounted tales from her childhood, beloved folk stories her grandmother passed on before her death.
Chihiro carefully steered clear of 1999 in her topics, barely referring to the Ebisu memorial except to comment briefly on the growing crowd of people.
All the while, Monou-san listened attentively, responded at the right cues, and always, always watched her.
And as the evening sun set, throwing red highlights on every surface and chasing shadows even into their corner of the alcove, Monou-san spoke.
“Chihiro-chan, does death scare you?”
Chihiro immediately paused to consider the question. Monou-san never volunteered any personal information and he rarely asked questions.
“It's a little hard not to be scared,” she said slowly, trying to piece her thoughts together on such a somber topic after her light-hearted chatter. “Especially when almost everyone around us has lost someone.”
“And have you ever thought of dying?”
Chihiro shook her head. “It's a little disrespectful to think that. So many people have lost their lives during that final year, and yet I have mine. To not appreciate the life I have…”
“And so no matter what, you'll never want to die.”
Chihiro closed her eyes. Something in Monou-san's tone, a ripple of low intensity, made her consider her reply. “No… depending on the circumstances, I think that thought might cross my mind. But no matter what, I'd rather live. I want to live.”
She drew in a deep breathe. Autumn was in the air; she could smell the scent of fallen leaves, a tint of chill on her skin. “If we die… that's all we're left with. Nothing changes.” Chihiro looked up and meet Monou-san's gaze. Their strangely golden depths revealed nothing.
“You're a rare soul,” Monou-san said. He slipped his fingers through Chihiro's hair, sliding them down the side of her face without grazing her skin. “How rare, to have that Wish, and to hold fast to that Wish for so long.”
“Monou-san?”
“Perhaps the world stands because of people like you,” Monou-san murmured. “It's what Kamui wanted.”
Monou-san smiled, an infinitely small, fragile smile, one that touched his eyes and sparked off a thousand emotions in their depths. Chihiro stared, eyes wide, at a lost for once, and that allowed Monou-san to reached out and curled his arms around her shoulders, one hand pressing Chihiro against his shoulder.
Chihiro tried to turn her head, to focus on the long bangs in her left vision, but her hands clutched onto Monou-san's dark coat, and clung on instead.
“Live, Chihiro-san,” Monou-san whispered in her ears.
There was a rustle of cloth and wind and a tingle of electricity that ran up her skin and left goosebumps in their wake. Chihiro whirled to her feet, her eyes darting to every corner of the alcove, but Monou-san was gone.
Something was there, at the edge of perception: Mr. Frog's hand in hers, a flash of warm amber eyes, the lilt of a smile, an echo of a voice telling her to leave Ebisu as quickly as possible.
Chihiro sat down on the stone bench, touched one hand to her left cheek and cradled those last spoken words to her heart.
end
User ID: Monocerotis
Rating: G
Characters/Pairing: The little girl from Vol 14, Chapter 4, Fuuma.
Warnings: None.
Summary: Chihiro was young enough then that much of the devastation was blurred memories for her, but she remembered Ebisu best.
start
Nakano Chihiro pulled her long hair into a tail at the nape of her neck, and smiled at the reflection in the mirror. Her mirror image, framed by a flurry of taped up notes and photographs of her friends and family, smiled back.
Like most girls her age, Chihiro had a dresser, with its wide open drawers and little compartments for jewelry, makeup and other trinkets. Unlike most girls her age, Chihiro's dresser held a flood of items: smooth, crystalline rocks collected from a river, books on botany and animal anatomy, tiny glass figurines of animals, frogs and skylarks and cranes and Japan's very own snow monkey, a tray containing the paintbrushes, acrylic paint and sketchbook Chihiro used to illustrate her field notes with.
Chihiro tucked the ribbon around her collar, tied it off in a bow and gathered her things for school. Homework, check. Gym uniform to change into for field-observation in the school side field, check. The little black school briefcase, check. Chihiro glanced once more into the mirror before heading towards her bedroom door. And as her habit every morning, she turned to her bedside table, where a little green frog plush with a yellow spangled collar sat, head leaning against her lamp, lovingly patched and restitched so he never fell apart.
In her middle school days, she'd grace Mr. Frog with an enthusiastic kiss to the little plush's head. She was seventeen this year, however, and Mr. Frog was getting worn from many hugs and kisses bestowed upon him by Chihiro over the years, and so she settled for patting the plush affectionately.
Maybe it was strange for a high school senior to still be so attach to her old plush frog, but Mr. Frog had been her constant companion during those chaotic months of 1999, and in the years afterwards when the family moved constantly and the distinct Tokyo skyline morphed into a new shape every time Chihiro set her eyes upon it.
And during the summer times of the year, Chihiro observed, everyone her age and above (those who were old enough to remember and understand the horrors of the earthquakes, the collapsing buildings, the fires) turned to something of their past: old photographs, mementos salvaged from destroyed houses, the belongings of a lost loved one.
“I'll be back in the evening, Mr. Frog,” Chihiro told the plush and walked out of her bedroom.
-----
The low tune signaling the bell for the last class rang, and the classroom immediately broke out in ripples of chatter.
“Don't run out the door yet,” Tanaka-sensei said over chairs scrapping against the floor, the slamming of textbooks. “Your lab report is due next Monday, and please have practice questions 7 to 15 worked out for tomorrow. Now, make sure to put the microscopes and their slides back in theirs appropriate places. Class dismissed!”
Chihiro slid the slides out from the microscope by their edges, placing them carefully on a piece of clear paper. Her lab partner, Mika-chan, clung to her bag and stared longingly at the door.
Chihiro laughed. “Go ahead, Mika-chan. I know you only have half an hour to see Takeshi-kun before cram school. I'll clean up here.”
“Oh, Chihiro-chan, is it okay? Are you sure?” Mika-chan's eyes darted quickly to the clock before settling back resolutely on Chihiro, as if not to tempt herself into hoping.
“Go on. I'm fine here.”
“Thank you, Chihiro-chan!” Mika-chan leaped forward and hugged Chihiro briefly around the shoulders. And then she was darting out of the room, bag swinging under one arm, one hand pressing her cell phone to her ear.
Chihiro smiled and bent over her work.
She was carrying the microscope to the shelves at the back of the room when Tanaka-sensei stepped out of his office. He glanced around the room.
“So you're the only one left, Nakano-san?” Tanaka-sensei shook his head. “I was supposed to remind my students that there will be a small memorial service at the Ebisu center tonight. But those who have lost someone there would already know.”
“Oh,” Chihiro said. That's why - she thought she saw Satomi-san in tears earlier, surrounded by her group of friends. And Seiji-kun was remarkably quiet today.
Days like these were familiar over this year. As years passed the pain and suffering and psychological stress had faded, but the tenth year anniversary of Tokyo's string of disastrous earthquakes seemed to bring back every memory in crisp-edged clearness to the bereaved. A memorial had been erected in each and every site an earthquake had occurred and toppled. For months, family and friends flocked to those memorials, to etch the names of their loved ones into the stone.
Identifiable bodies were rarely found in the wreckage; the scale of destruction had been so great that Tokyo had barely been able to cope with the lost of infrastructure, the raging fires, the risk of infection and pandemic, let alone arrange for proper funeral rites for the grieving families.
There was no point visiting an empty grave; a memorial at the site of the deaths served that purpose.
“Sensei, I think I'll do my field observation some other day,” Chihiro said, setting down the microscope and returning to her desk to collect her belongings.
Tanaka-sensei watched her, a shadow covering his eyes. “I understand. Stay safe, Nakano-san.”
Chihiro nodded. “I will, sensei.”
-----
Much of Tokyo had changed; it was something that confronted Chihiro every day as she traveled to school and back. Many sections had been damaged, or even downright destroyed, and no one had the heart to reconstruct any building exactly above ground zero. Instead, in each major location, a memorial had been raised, and other infrastructure sprung up around it. Ginza, Ikebukuro, Nakano Sun Plaza… even at Odaiba waterfront, where Rainbow Bridge had once crossed. Tokyo Tower had a memorial too, even though it still stood at the end of 1999, teetering on its last supporting beams.
Chihiro was young enough then that much of the devastation was blurred memories for her, but she remembered Ebisu best. Because mere minutes after leaving, the entire area had collapse, with a screech of concrete cracking apart and a boom that left Chihiro's ears ringing emptily for the next hour. Her mother tackled her to the ground, but they were far away enough that they were only covered with a thick layer of smoke and white ash and dust. Chihiro remembered staring at the flashing sky from under her mother's arms, at the strange flickering and fire in the horizon, Mr. Frog clutched tightly in one hand.
For the first time in almost ten years, Chihiro stepped onto Ebisu.
There were hundreds of people here, but the murmurs of their voices were like a thousand rice stalks rustling in the wind, a low indecipherable whisper in Chihiro's ears.
She walked a slow circle around the memorial, her hand clinging to her bag. The hairtie holding her hair in its tail was coming loose; Chihiro simply dug her fingers through her hair, pulling out the tie in one smooth motion. Her hair tumbled free over her shoulders.
The memorial was large, a structure of glass and crystal and stone, as if the sculptor had decided to ground the delicacy and grace of air with the solidity and stability of earth. It was a breathtaking structure for all its simplicity. There were little niches around the memorial, where stone benches had been cut into the memorial's base. These were surrounded by evergreen trees and little bushes to provide shelter and some privacy for the visitors.
Almost every alcove was filled, some with individuals, their eyes closed, thinking of their loved ones, others with companions or children. People walked in and out of each, nodding or meeting glances, but respectfully giving each other a berth of space. There was one niche that no one approached, however, one man everyone's eyes seemed to gloss over.
Chihiro stepped into the cleared area and sat down quietly next to the man. There was something about him that prickled at Chihiro, the quiet still way he leaned against the memorial, as if he existed outside this slice of time. His dark hair fell over his thin glasses; he was dressed all in black.
Perhaps it was when she set down her bag. Perhaps it was the rustle of her skirts as she tucked her feet together, crossed at the ankle. Perhaps it was simply her mere presence. His eyes opened, amber-gold and intense. The slight tightening at the corners of his eyes, the slight slant of his eyebrows revealed his sudden wariness.
“And who might you be?” he asked. Something about that voice, a quiet baritone timbre, prickled at Chihiro's memories.
“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you,” Chihiro said, tipping her head to the side, smiling a little to put the man at ease. “You seemed quite alone in your thoughts, and no one should be alone on a day like this.”
He stared at her, his eyes intense despite - or perhaps because - of his glasses. They flickered twice, to Chihiro's hair, spilling over her shoulders, and strangely, her hands, before they came back up to her face, his gaze unwavering.
The man brushed one hand through his hair with a movement that spoke of grace, controlled power, and Chihiro blinked, the wind suddenly heavy against her skin, the murmurs a little louder in her ears as if the world had been muted down just moments before.
“A little bird…” the man said, and then he was shifting to face her, moving in smooth, schooled movements, as if afraid to frighten her off.
“Some… call me Monou,” the man said, his voice hesitating just the slightest over the name. “And what are you called, little bird?”
“Monou-san,” Chihiro repeated to cement the name in her memory, and this time, Monou-san barely acknowledge the name. “I'm Chihiro.” Her girlfriends often told her that she was too trusting, but sometimes, when she worked on pure instinct, she knew that… she just knew.
They talked for a while; that is, Chihiro chattered, telling Monou-san about her hopes of becoming an environmental biologist and recounting some of her experiences out in the field. She talked about her girl friends, and how she loved them but didn't crave a relationship the way many of them did. She recounted tales from her childhood, beloved folk stories her grandmother passed on before her death.
Chihiro carefully steered clear of 1999 in her topics, barely referring to the Ebisu memorial except to comment briefly on the growing crowd of people.
All the while, Monou-san listened attentively, responded at the right cues, and always, always watched her.
And as the evening sun set, throwing red highlights on every surface and chasing shadows even into their corner of the alcove, Monou-san spoke.
“Chihiro-chan, does death scare you?”
Chihiro immediately paused to consider the question. Monou-san never volunteered any personal information and he rarely asked questions.
“It's a little hard not to be scared,” she said slowly, trying to piece her thoughts together on such a somber topic after her light-hearted chatter. “Especially when almost everyone around us has lost someone.”
“And have you ever thought of dying?”
Chihiro shook her head. “It's a little disrespectful to think that. So many people have lost their lives during that final year, and yet I have mine. To not appreciate the life I have…”
“And so no matter what, you'll never want to die.”
Chihiro closed her eyes. Something in Monou-san's tone, a ripple of low intensity, made her consider her reply. “No… depending on the circumstances, I think that thought might cross my mind. But no matter what, I'd rather live. I want to live.”
She drew in a deep breathe. Autumn was in the air; she could smell the scent of fallen leaves, a tint of chill on her skin. “If we die… that's all we're left with. Nothing changes.” Chihiro looked up and meet Monou-san's gaze. Their strangely golden depths revealed nothing.
“You're a rare soul,” Monou-san said. He slipped his fingers through Chihiro's hair, sliding them down the side of her face without grazing her skin. “How rare, to have that Wish, and to hold fast to that Wish for so long.”
“Monou-san?”
“Perhaps the world stands because of people like you,” Monou-san murmured. “It's what Kamui wanted.”
Monou-san smiled, an infinitely small, fragile smile, one that touched his eyes and sparked off a thousand emotions in their depths. Chihiro stared, eyes wide, at a lost for once, and that allowed Monou-san to reached out and curled his arms around her shoulders, one hand pressing Chihiro against his shoulder.
Chihiro tried to turn her head, to focus on the long bangs in her left vision, but her hands clutched onto Monou-san's dark coat, and clung on instead.
“Live, Chihiro-san,” Monou-san whispered in her ears.
There was a rustle of cloth and wind and a tingle of electricity that ran up her skin and left goosebumps in their wake. Chihiro whirled to her feet, her eyes darting to every corner of the alcove, but Monou-san was gone.
Something was there, at the edge of perception: Mr. Frog's hand in hers, a flash of warm amber eyes, the lilt of a smile, an echo of a voice telling her to leave Ebisu as quickly as possible.
Chihiro sat down on the stone bench, touched one hand to her left cheek and cradled those last spoken words to her heart.
end