Post by Mizukami Ayumu on Sept 29, 2013 2:14:55 GMT -6
A little something. A one-shot, so it's closed.
WARNING: This might be somewhat true.
WARNING: This might be somewhat true.
I hate this city. It's a place stained with memories I will never have.
Every day, I go to work, chat with friends, then go back home. I am thankful of the things I have, but... nothing new ever happens; nothing like... before. I wonder if anything will ever change...
This city is all cement and asphalt and dust, though a few patches of greenery are getting through. 'Highly urbanized'... is that the term? Two rides of jeepney-- that's the usual public transportation here-- to my destination.
Each of the rides are approximately fifteen minutes, so half an hour? But the vehicles move much faster when it's earlier, when there's less people... how much does the travel time change? Ah, but that doesn't apply to today, since the sun's up already. Maybe I should time it sometime...
The path to my school is one of those places where there are still trees. Comparatively, however, there are no students about the street. Normally, since this is the main path to school, it would be bristling with them. It's not like today is a holiday or anything. Which means... now isn't the proper time to be heading to school. It's already this quiet, but I keep walking at the same leisurely pace, anyway.
It's 200 meters until I reach the school gates. I stand still for a bit.
"Haaa..." I sigh. Taking a breath, I look up at the sky.
The school gates are just ahead. Who decided to put the gates all the way up there? The long road stretches out like a nightmare.
"Haaa..." It's a different breath from mine, smaller and gentler. I look beside me.
There is a schoolgirl, standing as still as I am. My school's uniforms are the same for every year, so all I know from the fact that she's wearing one is that she goes to our school. She's not someone I know, though...
Her long hair flutters in the wind, like a lashing mane down to her waist.
"......"
She smiles faintly, but it comes quite strained. She seems serious... a solemn person, but lighthearted as well... well, I'm not good with telling how people are by their appearances.
"Mmm.. mm."
She closes her eyes and nods a few times, as if she's telling herself something.
"......"
Then, she opens her eyes. She looks at the tall school gate with a firm eye. "Do you like this school?"
"Huh?" She wasn't looking at me, but... it seemed like she was talking to someone in her heart, but...
"I really, really do."
"But nothing... can remain the same forever."
"Even fun things and happy things, nothing..."
"Nothing stays unchanged forever." She continues to speak, with difficulty she tries to conceal, even if she should think no one is looking...
"Even so, can you still like this place?"
She turns to me. "Mizukami Ayumu?"
"That is not... my name." I answer, as if by instinct. Surprised, I turn fully and stare at her.
"And my name is not Okazaki... well, it is not." She rebutts, a little halfhearedly, a little playfully. She looks at me, as if expecting something.
"That bit you were saying at the beginning... was that 'Anpan'?"
She frowns, disappointed at my circumlocution. "I adapt to circumstances, so it was... I thought about using Spanish bread, but pan de coco looked similar, if smalller..."
"Coconut doesn't taste like red bean."
"I know." She says, her face that oxymoronic mix of grave and whimsical. "And your hair is not white; this is not Hikarizaka, or even Japan, for that matter; and Clannad isn't... rather, Clannad is..."
It was my turn to frown, as she stopped, the continuation of her statement implied. "So, Witch of the Hill, Lady of Lights, why are you here?" I jested, even as I questioned.
"You called me." She tilted her head, looking like I imagined her to be... more real than real, now that she was facing me fully. "You have to say what's next."
"'You just have to find it, right?' The next fun or happy thing... I can't."
"Why?"
"I won't... I won't mean it."
"There's more than one of those, right? Fun and happy things."
"There's only one of her."
"My mother? Well, technically, she'll probably be no longer be my mother... well, here... but the future is uncertain..."
"I know. I know, I know, I know!"
"There would be other places, and other chances; other people, and other friends; other experiences, and other loves..." I rambled on, my thoughts flowing into my lips, and she listened, intently, completely. "But... but... I know that life is no story, and as such is not so clear-cut, but..."
There were times that we were innocent and naive... like those days from my fifteenth fall, my fifteenth winter... I regret what I had failed to accomplish, but I did not regret what had come to pass... it is hard to put into words, but...
"I see." She spoke, and she looked over to the horizon, to those gates we were supposed to go to... but after all, we were only pretending. The days I have gone to those gates were long past, and she... "You still haven't found it, have you?"
I answer her with a wry smile. "Exactly."
"I am afraid I have no light to give you yet."
"Aaah... I am not here to collect. I am here because... as I said, you called me." she intoned, the hallucination, the dream, the wish. "You call me so many times, and now... I understand. Knowing is different from understanding, huh?" she commented, wistfully. "So you know, but..."
"I can't help it. This was my light, and even if it be gone from me... it still shone the brightest... brighter than anything I can lay my hands on, my eyes on. She was my Furukawa... well, that might be rather presumptuous... she was Furukawa, to me. And she was gone, not because she was taken, but because she left."
A pause, and the wind danced, lapping her hair again, making my eyes blink.
"Well... I don't know what is in store for you..." she began, composing her reply. "But I guess... I will leave you this reassurance... you will see me again."
I opened my mouth, but there was nothing for me to say.
"Perhaps under a different name, or a different form, but if you keep looking..." Even as she spoke, my eyes misted, and she was harder to see...
"U-Ushi--"
"...definitely... you will find me." And for a moment my tears were banished, and I looked upon her one last time, and her hair was no longer brown, but black, and was much shorter, much straighter, and her eyes were brighter than a thousand stars...
"So, you've got to go on."
"Don--"
...and she was gone. And so, the boy, who was not Mizukami Ayumu, knelt down in the middle of the long, long uphill slope...
...and wept.