A Brand New Day

Author: Sacharine
Feedback: yes, please!
Rating: PG-13 
Warning: Future profanities?
Pairing: Mikagami/Fuuko, Recca/Yanagi
Notes: "..." denotes speech '...' denotes thoughts

Fuuko rubbed at her eyes blearily, standing at the doorway in an oversized tee shirt and shorts. It was early morning; the sun was just rosily peeking out from the pearly grey skies. She growled in mock anger.

"Mi-chan? God! It not even seven yet! Some people need their sleep you know!" She half yelled. Number one "perk" of living in the same block of apartment as Mikagami in the overcrowded Tokyo: Impromptu wake up calls. Good when it meant a free ride to the university. Bad when it meant a female neighbour that ask for mineral water whenever she has a hangover [1]. Worst when it meant a broody Mikagami in pre-dawn hours.

"I... Can I come in?" he asked. Then without waiting for permission, he brushed past Fuuko into the cramped apartment. Fuuko closed the door with a soft click. She pondered. 'His shirt is all rumpled and his jeans are so creased. And he is wearing his spectacles, rather then his usual contacts! This is so unlike the normally immaculate Mikagami. Furthermore, he reeks of alcohol!' Fuuko sniffed the air with disdain. In the past four years since SODOM she had never seen him in such a horrible state. Not even at The Wedding last month. Mikagami settled himself on the metal chair.

"Fuuko. You are working part-time at the hairdresser right? I want you to cut my hair. Cut it all off." He whispered solemnly.

"..."

A few seconds flew by as she gaped at him in shock. 'C... Cut... cut off his gorgeous hair?' It had reached the back of his knees and was a silvery gray-brown-bluish shade; depending on how the light falls on it. 'In the past year that I had work at the saloon I had never seen anybody with nicer hair! And I know just how important his hair is too him. I just… can't do it.' Fuuko opened her mouth to refuse him but before she could say a word, he looked at her. Her heart wrenched painfully at the sight. 'He looks so desolate... his eyes... they are empty...'

Fuuko walked over to the side table to pick up her styling bag, her mind working double time as she tried to sort out this strange behaviour. As one of Hokage, he had done his part in being stupid and strange at one time or another but this is way out of his league. 'Please don't let him be on a drunken notation of cutting his hair off! They will really be scrapping me off the sidewalk if he turns up for blood after he sober up and realise I cut his precious hair off', Fuuko prayed fervently.

Taking her wide-tooth wooden brush out, Fuuko began to untangle the silvery mane snaking down the whole length of the back of the chair.

"Any particular style?" she asked, humming a soft tune as she worked.

"…Just short … long at the front. Cut it anyway you like but leave it long in front." He replied, leaning back slightly and closing his eyes. A few minutes went past with no sounds but the slight rasping of hair being combed.

"Why?" Fuuko finally asked, her curiosity getting better of her. She wanted... No she needed to know. Heck. She deserved to know when it constituted her waking up in God-Early-Hours.

"Why what..." he murmured in reply, almost falling asleep, soothed by the rhythmic strokes of the brush.

"Why do you want to cut your hair? Why do you want it long it the front?" Fuuko whispered back just as softly as she started to plait his hair into a loose braid from the shoulder. Mikagami seem almost falling asleep. If it wasn't happening, she will never have believed it.

"My hair is my proof that I have survived, it was something no one could have taken from me. It was my penance for every person I had either accidentally or intentionally killed. My hair is my memory, my soul. My mother loved my hair. She loved to nuzzle her face in my bangs and to kiss me on the top of my head. Telling me how I resembled her, but have my father's hair. My hair was my reminder on my duty, my vengeance. But… I always felt cheated, somehow." He spoke quietly, like he was afraid to speak too loudly.

"Then why do you want to cut it off?" Fuuko stared at the half finished plait in her hand, confused. She will never understand him. Not in a million years.

"There was no more penance for me to pay. I work towards one goal, only one goal of revenge and when I suddenly realised that it was never too be, I felt lost. Why do I need to remember anymore? It seem like it is only by will only that I'm remembering what happened. I don't want to forget, but it is slowly overwhelming me. I can't remember all, I can't forget even a little. How can I forgive myself for not remembering? How can I not forget? How can I forget? Then, I have no meaning anymore!"

In the midst of his talk Fuuko finished the plait. She clutched it between her hands, almost bowled over with guilt, together with a myriad of feelings that threaten to swamp over her. 'How could we been so blind? All these while, we never notice him silently slipping away. Please don't let it be too late!' Fuuko felt strangely close to tears, shamed and angry, Shamed, as, as a friend she should have noticed that he lost his purpose of living, should have care enough to notice. Angry as others too had not noticed, and angry with him, at how foolish he was. She suddenly caught sight of new viciously knotted scar crawling up the whole of his right arm, right at where his vein should be if not for the scar. It was so glaring in the morning rays. Her breath hitched. 'How can someone do this to himself? Slicing open a whole vein that way. How can one be so eager to die? Don't we mean anything to him?'

"What about us? Aren't we a good enough purpose for you? Yanagi might be married now but she will never abandon her friends! Koganei look up to you. Ganko admires you. Domon and Recca both know your worth! How can you not know how important you are to us? Why can't you see? Why don't you know?" Fuuko half-yelled. 'Don't you know how important you are... to me?' A little voice piped out from her heart.

"Yes! I do agree it is past time you let go of your past! But what about your present? Your future? What about Hokage? You are in OUR present and future! You can't just mope around like that, wanting to leave this world, to leave us alone! It is so selfish of you to deprive yourself from us!" Fuuko tugged gently on his hair, her voice all funny going passed the huge lump in her throat. 'What about... what about me? I need you too..." it whispered once more. Fuuko fought to urge to cry.

"Do I have a present? Will I have a future? I'm scared, Fuuko, as ridiculous as it sounds. I had been holding so long to the past that I don't know whether I can ever let go. Will I have anything left? When Mifuyu left me, my life went to pieces. Revenge for her was the only thing holding my life together. How can I let go? I don't know which is worse, only remembering how she looks when she died, only remembering the urge for vengeance or forgetting her! I try and try to hold my memories of her together but every day every second something slips. And I forget her bit by bit. I'm so scared that she will disappear from my mind completely. Just like how she just suddenly disappear one day from my life. I get so terrified sometimes, so scared that I'll forget her LOOKS, her NAME! Forget HER! Forget THE ONLY PERSON, THE ONLY PERIOD OF MY LIFE THAT I WAS TRULY HAPPY! THE ONLY TIME WHEN I HAD EVERYTHING!"

A silence so heavy fell on the room. Harsh breathing and stunned looks reigned. Fuuko spoke, breaking the silence finally.

"Let go, Mi-chan. It is killing you. Just let go. She wouldn't blame you. Best memories never fade, Mi-chan, they never will. The harder you try to hold on to them, the faster they sours." She murmured gently, her heart slowly breaking for the broken man in front of her.

Fuuko abruptly pulled up his hand to place his plait into his upturned palm. Then, she motioned for him to take the scissors.

"Let go of your past. Or you will never have a future." Fuuko whispered, her demeanour strangely quiet, "You have a present now, but as times passes, it will too become your past. You are selfish you know. You never let your sister go. Do you think you are the only people who had someone dear die? What about Ganko? Koganei? Or even me? Hisui died to save me too. Why am I able to look to the future while you are stuck in a rut? Mifuyu died so that you can live. Why aren't you living for her? Why have you let her die for naught? Live! Let go! We are here to catch you!"

'Live Mikagami, I will always like you, live for us, if not for me...'She keened in her heart, hoping, hoping. 'Please...'

TBC

[1] *Grins *: Last book of Flame of Recca.