A/N: As per (budding) tradition – and I will keep repeating it until your ears fall off – Yule is celebrated on the 24th of December in Sweden. And did ya know? It's the same date for celebration in Japan. ;) So posting this today might not be entirely wrong after all.
I might touch it up a bit, later. There's bits and pieces that could be done better, but at the moment I don't have the time to be a perfectionist. ^_^' As always, critique and suggestions are welcome!
I do not own or profit from any of what Kazue Kato has created.
I am obviously not Charles Dickens and I have no claims on his writings.
Fujimoto-sensei was a demon. Now, while this was something every Page and Esquire knew, none would raise any complaints, since they were equally well aware that the Academy's chairman was a demon, too, and that speaking ill of one demon to another might not be an advisable thing to do.
One could ponder long hours what singular and mysterious events would lead two demons to obtain ranks in an Order whose purpose it was to exterminate such creatures; for the hours were long, and only grew longer, in the teeth-rattling cold of the December day – two days before Christmas, would you believe they were still charged with school assignments? – that fate had picked for their mission. The wind carried ocean breath between huddling harbour storages and groaning fishing boats, turned searing sharp by the unfriendly season so that it cut through wool and cotton and crept up trouser legs to chill any outdoors limb to the very bone. The sky, as if in an act of misdirected pity, had ventured to compensate for nature's harshness by granting a beautiful snowfall: and nature, not feeling inclined whatsoever to lessen her children's gloom, had promptly turned the feathery flakes into fine granules of ice that sanded the bare skin in the gaps between hoods and scarves.
It was a morose squad of students that were herded out to exterminate the demons that upset the fishermen's nets, and an even more morose squad that marched home from the harbour, carrying with them runny noses, numb fingers, and sopping wet clothes for souvenirs. The complaints were muffled; not only by scarves but by the presence of Fujimoto-sensei, who seemed to somehow nullify the biting cold and the pelting hail with his own unwavering cool.
As ditches of still water by country roads are breeding grounds for mosquitoes and their larvae, Fujimoto-sensei was the kind of teacher around which stories sprung up and prospered. Harsh as the winter wind and skilled beyond his peers and colleagues, many claimed that Fujimoto was, indeed, of demon blood. He did not have the ears, nor did he sport the fangs and tail that were the telltale traits of the demon race… but, to be fair, how else explain that he seemed to endure any condition without ever being bothered, neither by weather nor exertion? What else could account for that striking pale hair; allegedly a hue that hadn't changed since he himself was a student at the Academy? And indeed, how else explain that peculiar rumour – it held far more truth than mere rumour, but streaked along walls in soft whispers in the manner of suchlike – that Fujimoto-sensei was an old and dear friend of Sir Pheles, the demon knight of the Order of the True Cross? Humans did not befriend demons that way. And humans most certainly could not host Satan himself in their flesh.
Many a face has graced the vacant countenance of Solitude. For some it is a jailer in a prison without bars, and to some it is a trusty sentinel against phantom fears that skulk about the surrounding world; some choose it readily, and some are chosen by it without a say.
Days shortened rapidly, as days do when driven on by the anticipation of millions of children, in eager hurry for the food and gifts and merriment that came with that Western custom known as Christmas; a celebration of gratitude, of giving, of gathering near and dear ones together and rejoicing.
Christmas is, without a doubt, the time of year when Solitude dons its cruellest sneer.
It had been many a year since Fujimoto Shiro celebrated Christmas. Celebrating the Catholic Christmas hardly counted: the church he held vicariate in was small, the community that congregated there smaller still. And though he spoke of God and Love on Midnight Mass each year, neither ever touched his heart as far as he could tell. When Mass was over and cleaning duties ensued, the sanctum once again lapsed into silent reverence of God; this transcendent, distant deity, so lonely in His perfection that He created Man; an imperfect race whose numerous members now huddled close together in their homes, seeking completion in each other and in the mighty Father that had brought them life. Even God – or, perhaps, especially God – must know what it is like to be alone.
It would be a lie, and lies should not be told so close to Christmas, to say that Father Fujimoto was entirely alone in the winter dark. There came an invitation, each year on the 13th, in his mail compartment at school, for a Christmas celebration that had nothing even remotely in common with the Catholic event. Mind you, he had never gone to confirm that; but among the virtues of old friends is knowing each other's tastes, and no Virtue had ever held a place in Sir Pheles'. There would be wine spiced and mulled and pouring down in fountains; nougats and pralines and sugar-powdered fruit tarts stacked in piles; and women. And men. And ring dancing in demon fashion. The rest, as they say, is best left for imagination.
Indeed, days in that time of year were short but felt ages long; seemed to cling to his boots and plead him to stay a minute more in the cold and damp, when he forced his soaked garments off in the hall. His apartment was such that one would, upon first scrutiny, deem Fujimoto a man of little to no imagination, whose Aspbergian mind held an unnerving fascination with firearms. Alternatively, one might have taken it for the hideout of a bank robber who had just gathered the necessary equipment for carrying out his plans.
The truth, as so often is, veiled itself behind entirely different explanations. It was not a place for living, but rather one for storing; for weaponry, for clothes, for food, and for the fatigued man who, still chilled from the day's excursions with the Esquires, collapsed headlong onto the futon.
To read a man from his abode is a treacherous business, which the mind will nonetheless attempt upon observation. The kitchen was small and neatly kept; a feat for a lone bachelor, some would say, but that would be an erroneous assumption. Fujimoto owned precisely two bowls, one plate, one pair of chopsticks, one spoon, two glasses and two cups, and the basic pots and utensils needed to cook a meal. These hid in plain, green cupboards, as though not wanting to intrude upon their master's solitude; no feat to brag of, as said cupboards gaped near as empty as they had been when he moved in, for he had never had the need to expand his collection to feed a guest.
The single room, kitchen not counted, housed a futon and a low table, which, no matter how they were moved about, always seemed unsure if they were in the right place, tiptoeing where they stood and glancing nervously about for company to ease their stage fright. Sole decoration in the room was the pot plant that sat on the small table: still alive, surprisingly. Not even this could be attributed to the owner's care to make his home a home. He did not remember the plant often, and he was seldom in the apartment long enough to care for it, but it was a plant of Gehennan origin – a sturdy species – and it would take an active effort to actually kill it.
It was an apartment that did its best to look neat and tidy, but somehow seemed to lack the enthusiasm for it – because, in the end… who was ever there to be bothered if there were a little dust left in the corners? Certainly not the apartment's owner, who had already fallen into deep slumber on the spread futon. That, for one, was a skill that he had cultivated; to weave around himself, swifter than the swallow flies, the blanket of sleep whenever he so wished. Between his work as teacher, as exorcist, as vicar, there was little time for such luxury as sleep, and opportunities for it must be seized post haste. Mind, not the exhausted slumber a labourer might indulge in after a long day's body work, but the light sleep of a soldier who expects the enemy at any minute. The hums and groans of the city outside did not stir him, no; but even the slightest discordance with this familiar orchestra – a door creaking, the soft padding of feet on tatami mats, the grumbling protest of drawers searched – would rouse him instantly.
It was all the more startling to him, then, that he did not wake until the intruder quite literally shook his shoulder.
"Son of a…!" He sprang up, like Jack-in-the-box, and would have let his combat training loose on the stranger instantly had not his senses informed him that this was no stranger. "Damn goat – what do you want? It's barely past midnight!"
"Indeed, indeed~ Prime witching hour, no? As for goat; such an unflattering moniker. You may call me the Ghost of Christmas Past", said the gangly creature, whose pristine tailcoat billowed in unfelt wind as he bowed most flourishingly.
"I'm too tired to play games, Mephisto", groaned Fujimoto as he rubbed sleep grit from his eyes. "Just say what you want. Some emergency mission no one else was dumb enough to take?"
At this, the Branch Director's countenance grew most discontent.
"Surely you know your Dickens, don't you? I am the Ghost of Christmas Past: why do you think I'm here?"
"I think you're here to piss me off. You're no ghost, this is no fairytale, and I have Pages to teach tomorrow morning", he said testily, pondering if the landlady would be terribly upset if the house peace was disturbed by gunfire. …yes, most likely, she would.
It would be a lie, and a quite preposterous such, to claim any unifying traits in demons save the superficial. He taught his students that they were creatures of evil, because such was the creed of the Church that was supreme executive of the Order; but he knew full well, in silence, that demons were no different from humans in their many varying personalities.
And had his students been there in that moment, and posed to him the question of which demons – the ones commanded by the Devil or the ones in human service – were the most burdensome to men, he would have been hard pressed to answer.
"Whether true or knit from fancy, a good story warms the human heart in winter days. Humour me on this one, Shiro, and I promise it will be worth your while: for I have come to rekindle your long-lost Christmas spirit~!"
Why, and there it was, his answer: as chiming bright as the fanged smile his employer flashed him.
"A demon's gonna lecture a priest about Christmas spirit? Good one. Now bugger off and let me sleep."
Not so, if Sir Pheles would have his way. A bony finger, smartly clad in lavender, wagged back and forth before the teacher's face; one could imagine the demon's tail would have wagged with glee in similar fashion, had he not been gentleman enough to keep it hid from view.
"'tis a most unfortunate ailment, the short memory you humans suffer from – leaves history gruesomely dismembered. Those who recall the Christmases of Past", he pointed out, and made it clear beyond doubt that he counted amongst those, "can testify there never was a feast more Pagan. Winter Solstice was celebrated in honour of Roman Saturn when Christians assimilated it for their Christ; was celebrated with worship of evergreens in the animistic cults of Germania, when missionaries gave that ages-old tradition Christian connotations to more easily convert its practitioners; and though the giving of gifts is the more pleasant aspect of it all, that, too, is a Roman innovation. In all", grinned Sir Pheles, proud as ever of his extensive knowledge and skill at twisting it, "who better suited to speak of Christmas spirit than a demon?"
"You know I don't celebrate that kind of Christmas."
"You haven't celebrated any kind of Christmas for the past ten years, Shiro. And, before you speak: church service is a duty, not a celebration. You did celebrate, however, although your memory is as pitifully short as all humans'."
There was a crisp snap of the demon's fingers, but the familiar sensation of being yanked roughly through corporeal space did not come with it; neither did the heavy, vibrating feeling of time turning backwards. And yet, it had done precisely that.
Many times, upon discussions of what the effects of time travelling might be, the talk concerns entirely technical aspects of by mistake altering history. That is a quite pompous assumption, is it not? That Time in its endless, vast expanse would see its journey altered by a mere human throwing pebbles in its stream, or digging with her grubby hands a trench into the riverbank and say she will make it take another course? The human mind is such devised, you see, that it perceives itself the centre of the universe. It cannot help but think it so, since so it was constructed, and thinks of everything else as satellite objects; it sees the human as the one to invent, impact, and influence her passive surroundings. She rarely considers the reversed case. She rarely considers the shearing forces of old memories, which shape like running water the canyons and crannies of the human mind – nor does she consider herself a tree, growing steadily into new spheres of consciousness yet ever drawing upon the nourishments of the ground to which she is rooted.
She rarely considers, on the subject of time travel, the impact of being plunged into those memories upstream, and carried through forgotten nooks that shaped her path in life.
He did not need to cast his eyes about the apartment to know exactly where the photographs were hung to hide the cracks in plaster walls, or which corner of the band that lined the tatami mats was ruffled by restless little feet. He knew this apartment, knew it well, and every detail of it seemed to sting his eyes even when he weren't looking. Years had furnished it with a homely atmosphere, embedded with careful fingers the sense of family into mats and decorations – the way one hangs up large photographs to cover holes and imperfections in the walls.
Fujimoto registered movement, as the soldier he was, and had turned his head before his mind could advise him not to. Three silhouettes bathed in golden light from a lush evergreen, mingling shallow talk with the baubles and garlands they hung on uncooperative branches. He remembered that tree, remembered it so well: his mother had wanted to dress it with the glaringly ugly little Santa Claus he had made during crafts class in school.
"You can't turn back time for the dead…" were the first words that left Fujimoto's lips: a whisper meant to remind himself of a well-known fact that he was nonetheless forced to doubt.
For his father's shoulders were that broad and hunched, and the shirt that clad them was no doubt his; and his mother had that mole on her neck, and wore precisely that ornament to hold up her hair on festive occasions. It was they, and all his senses testified to that – and yet, it could not be.
"Most true, old friend", Sir Pheles spoke softly, as if not to alert the spectres that played house before their eyes. "The dead live in your mind; in time recorded by memory, rewound and replayed like a cinema of dreams."
Blessed and cursed be human memory, for tantalizing us with mirages of what is lost! For taunting longing in letting us revisit and relive what we will never have again!
But even worse, it is, to be brought back into the landscapes of memory by magic, the way Sir Pheles had arranged. When in the private darkrooms of the human consciousness, it is at one's own discretion to edit and erase in memories; when brought into the raw negative, no sharp edge is smoothed away, and things are depicted through the naked lens of truth.
And Fujimoto stood, still as though he and not the people by the tree were the ghost, and watched himself seethe and boil, like a teakettle not allowed to vent its steam.
Many are the parents whom have made the mistake of thinking that children are inattentive, or dumb, or prone to forgetting; it is they, rather, who have forgotten what it is like to be a child. Children keep a close eye on their guardians, always, and search for any sign that something done has brought them joy or caused them grief. All children seek to put smiles on their parents' faces, to bathe in the warmth they radiate and shower in their laughter.
Like the pictures hung to cover the cracks in the plaster, so were those smiles hung on their lips, painted there by wishes for a merrier Christmas than what their broken family could make; and nine-year-old Fujimoto was no more fooled by them than the adult ghost that watched it all replayed.
Not once did one ring-bearing hand reach out to the other, to offer decorations or ask for them. Not one glance was exchanged between wife and husband. Not one word passed directly between them, but skulked a shameful detour via the child they played their cordial theatre for. Not a single crack marred it, the artificial picture of their family Christmas. The strait-coat of perfection would not allow for that.
"Are you done yet?" muttered the adult Fujimoto flatly, and felt his need for a real, undreamt cigarette increase by the second. "'cause I'm not feeling my Christmas spirit returning anytime soon."
"Hmm perhaps not the best memory to choose…"
"Do not jump to another", he snapped. "We're done for tonight."
It can, without debate, be said that the same thing happens to old friends as happens to old couples: a familiarity develops, so strong and so profound, that one could confuse it for telepathy. Be it so that Fujimoto's statement was terse: to Sir Pheles, it held all the explanation, depth and purpose needed to make clear that pushing the matter further would only garner more resistance from this very old, very strong-willed friend of his.
"It always slips my mind that you humans need so much sleep", came his smooth reply; not intrusive, not compliant, but stating the neutral obvious. "Very well, then. Gute Nacht, Shiro."
He woke, as they say, with a start; and glared, as if suspecting the Branch Director to have hidden in the dusty shadows, about the room where his futon was rolled out. But the orchestra of the night played unperturbed, and the shadows slept peacefully to its lullaby. There was not a soul to be seen – whatever is to be made of that expression, where demons are concerned. He grumbled, then, eyes stung by the verdict of the alarm clock – near two in the morning, good lord – and pinched the base of his nose to calm himself for a new attempt at rest. What now? Was that moisture at his fingertips?
"Stupid old goat…" grumbled he anew, and wiped in ire at his cheeks and weary eyes. "Stupid dream…"