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Kintsugi
(金継ぎ)
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(n.) lit. "to repair with gold"; the art of fixing broken pottery with gold or silver lacquer
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It's three in the afternoon at the crematorium, 22nd of March, partly sunny, partly cloudy. The stark pink of the sakura is blindingly distracting as Tachikawa Mimi turns to ashes, the flames inside the machine engulfing the casket. Everyone has their handkerchiefs over their mouths and noses, perhaps due to the hint of burnt pine or to silence their sobbing. Except Satoe.
The priest continues to recite the sutra despite Satoe's loud muffles, Keisuke holds her tightly by the shoulders, but the comfort was obviously not enough.
Mimi is gone, and I should not be here.
My extent of familiarity with the girl reaches down to that one summer camp in elementary school. For the eleven-year-old me, it was just one of those plans that I get to spend with my estranged brother. The twenty-six-year-old me today sees it as a turning point. That camp was where I met everyone - a former childhood rival turned friend, the first love, and a couple of best friends.. Everyone except..
"Aniki," Takeru stiffly hands over his own handkerchief to me. I reach over it and pat the dampened gingham lightly on to my eyes, the sting somehow never leaving. I don't usually cry in public, but for the past fifteen years that I've denied this, today, I have finally come to accept that Mimi and I were never friends.
Satoe stops crying as the priest then collects her remains in dust, puts it in a black urn, a red string tied to it. Mimi always looked good in red.. she made pink look beau - l mean - less unsightly. I never grew to like the lighter side of things, let alone in gradients.
I look back at the sakura tree framing the shrine, the shade reminding me of her with cotton candy and her hair. Mimi and I were not friends, I tell myself. But I know I cared for her, I also tell myself, for I know I could have saved her that day. I could have been there.
A sound comes from the direction of the tree, and right then and there I could see her in her pink dress and white scarf, rose-golden hair and all, leaning against the bark of the tree. She smiles at me and I look around. No one notices.
I look back at the tree, and she is gone.
No, she's not "gone", she wasn't really there in the first place, Yamato. I must be seeing things. Mimi is dead. Died young, beautiful.. violated.
The kotsuage begins, Satoe and Keisuke call us out and hand over pairs of chopsticks. Satoe gently smiles at me, and I am terrified.
My fingers tremble at the hold, everyone gathering at the center to pick up her bones, pass it around.
I don't deserve this. I should not be here.
"Yamato," Jyou calls me over, prompting me to join them. Sora looks over and sternly gazes at me, albeit wordless, her instruction the same with her new lover. In small, slow steps, I entered the circle. Keisuke begins with the bones of the feet, passing it to Satoe in clockwise, with me being the last.
The silence of this ritual is unsettling, the crumb-sized bones now at Taichi's.
I should not be here, I tell myself again. This ritual is meant for family and friends. I'm neither.
"Koushiro," Jyou calls him out of the redhead's daze, now accepting the bones once he got into his senses. The dread amplifies. Takeru has the bones now.
I should not be here.
"It's your turn, aniki,"
I shouldn't..
"Ishida-san,"
I just can't.
"Yamato-kun?"
I.. I can't breathe -
"I'm sorry."
Hurrying feet took me elsewhere, anywhere but there. I was never a friend of Mimi's. I shouldn't be here in the first place. I never did anything for her.
I was walking fast, trying to get out of this maze-like shrine the Tachikawas rented, knowing fully well what the others were thinking of me now, and knowing fully well I disappointed everyone in there today - even Mimi.
And then, with blurred sight and hazy mind, the last thing I saw was the stone guardian of the shrine, a cold stare.
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My head feels so sore. My back aches like hell. Thank God the afternoon light has died down. I never thought funerals would be this stressf -
What the hell?!
I glanced at my watch. It's 15th of March, cloudy, at the exact spot I had my last conversation with Mimi. Tonight was the night she died.
The Ides.
On my right there she leans across the railing, alive and well. I stand petrified, for certain, I and everyone else were just about to pass her bones around moments ago.
"Yamato-san," she leans forward, and I catch myself staring at her in utter disbelief. " you look like you've seen a ghost!"
This must be my dream.
-#-
This AU/time-travel idea has been in my mind for days now, and I thought it would make a nice ficlet (probably 5 chapters or 10 really short chapters). Kotsuage is a ritual that takes place after the cremation, where family members and closed ones pass around the bones of the deceased. The feet goes first, the head last.