fandom:
Full Metal Alchemist
title: Homeland.
pairing: roy+ed,
ed+al
rating: pg-13
Description – Edward dreams of his
'home'…
Disclaimer – FMA isn't mine.
Homeland.
By miyamoto yui
Last night, I dreamt I went home.
There are times in your life when you want things to be quiet. At other times, you want them to be so distracting to bring nothing but chaos so that your ears wouldn't be clean enough to hear the crystal clear silence. No, not even the sound of a dropping tear.
Then, there are those that you just completely stop.
There is no need to talk. There is no need of cluttering the peaceful wind with your speech. Because it can read your heart, it is all the same. It can go through you and sometimes you wish it couldn't see you exactly as you are, just like beings who are separated by walls within the same living space.
Before me, there is a wooden, light blue windowsill.
When I look up, the sky is just a little bit darker than the windowsill I am holding onto with all my nails.
At all times of your life, you just assume that the people you are thinking of are all under the same ocean-reflected sky with the clouds crossing a hello to you from other parts of this small world. But unlike others who live here in this time and place, I know that I am not parallel with their thinking.
I am there. I am here.
My heart is with me but my soul is far away from where it should be.
Maybe it's better that way. I don't fight with myself as often as I did before.
I don't know if that's good or not though.
Among the wooden roofs with the water falling down in trickles or the creaky stairs, there are piles of clothes hanging on a thin, almost invisible ropeline flowing with the wind's whim. And beyond this city, there is nothing but grass, trees, and farmland. I watch the cars and trains come and go. I am usually on platform seven waiting to get to the next three stations down when I am in a hurry.
This busy place is now my home.
Yes, the one where the clock chimes like a music box to let me know that as the seconds go, the farther I leave that place where I left shards of myself everywhere.
My hometown was not so glamorous compared to this. It was just a house on a hill with a mother who called our names. That two-story house was a place where I got mad at my father for making my mother wait. It was the one that I played many happy go-fish games with Winry and Al.
I slept with my eyes wide open thinking and worrying what the future meant inside my little hands.
I know I was lucky to even say I had a house, even if we burned it. Many do not even have that memory and I burned mine because I was not worthy of keeping it. And to move forward, I made the decision for us to tear away from it.
If you don't ever leave the place of comfort, you won't ever grow.
It is okay to go back, but you can't stay at the place you started. It's like starting a journey but not ever leaving the starting line.
You will grow older and hate yourself for regretting having not left, but even more for getting used to things. This isn't endurance.
It is called never beginning.
There were long stems of grass that would bend if I blew on them, but the wind would blow harder and make a path to run through. There was a white, grayish house that creaked whenever I'd jump inside to greet my mother with a hug.
There were many hiding crevices within those two stories. All of them were not enough for my mother not to notice our shadows.
But that isn't my home.
It is only my tranquil homeland where I could sing from faraway and you could hear me from that second story. I can call this house forth from beneath all my memories.
A tear falls from my right eye.
I see my reflection clearly on the window before me, through the brown of those rooftops of this bustling city where there are no beaches. Maybe it is better that way because if I walked there now, I could only go to the coast and know that is far as I can go.
The sky couldn't light a way, even with all its sunlight. But we all know that because of shadows, light exists.
This morning, when Al opened the window, the crisp breeze came in and I sneezed. Yesterday was so hot, but suddenly, today, it became a chilly Fall. Maybe I hadn't noticed that the leaves were starting to turn red and brown and yellow. Only the calendar gave me any kind of sense of time in this place because in my mind, as much as I hated it, I lived from memory to memory.
The weather tells me of how I should feel. It reminds me of something else.
Today, it is turning cloudy. Maybe that's why I dreamt about that certain memory.
It shouldn't have been so.
It has not ever gone out of my thoughts. There is no need to repeat what is already constantly there.
Scratch. The record player's needle finally scratches its way to the middle and can't leave its place, but I am not inspired to move it.
I couldn't hide in songs anymore. My mother's voice is hidden deep inside me but I won't sing her lullabies. And whenever Al tries to draw her face, I tell him that we shouldn't draw pictures to go back to a place that doesn't exist anymore.
He gets mad and says it's only a picture.
I always look into his face and I don't what I look like but my heart hardens to the point of tightness that stops me from breathing. He looks away and goes to cook in the kitchen after patting my unbraided hair.
Does it show that, for me, it is a portrait that I wish I could go through and see things of that time and place?
I am not stuck there though. I work like everyone else here. I try to help others with their scientific endeavors and I research like mad, but I keep my white gloves. Actually, they are turned inside out with the seams sewn in a certain way…
"I don't need you anymore. You have to go where you think is best, where you will be your best. And that isn't by me."
Pushing his hand into my pocket, he finally let go of me. Touching my ear, that is what he whispered to me before pushing me away that day the opening in the sky closed.
I could not cry because flashes of things happened in less than five minutes and before I knew it, the sky connected with itself and became separate for us.
My mouth opened, but I lost my voice for a long, long time. My larynx forgot how to vibrate its cords.
How did you know?
My brother will always be the one I love the most. Yes, even before you.
But for everyone, 'love' has a different definition. Mine has too many counterexamples and yours has so many arguments.
All I know is:
Yes, even if I am the only who remembers anything of our adventure…
Yes, even if I want you to forget me and move on when I know that only half of me has done so out of necessity…
Today, I had a dream of you. You were holding my hand and watching me as I slept. I felt it and woke up to see your eyes looking directly into mine. You touched the tips of my long, long hair and made some comment not to cut it.
But afterwards, when the sun came up, your eyes changed to those sharp ones that always wanted to mock me and make fun of me.
Then, you went to the window with half of the white sheet hang from your hips. You looked like the one named Endymion whom Selene loved though she shouldn't have. And you said,
"The City of Angels -
My hometown
is not clean, nor quiet.
It is boisterous
and the air quality
is so bad,
but there lives
the person
who means
'home' to me.
Since I can't swim,
I walk as far as the coast.
Someday,
I will remember
the time,
over and over,
why I said,
I must
live."
"Taichou…" It was the first time you ever mentioned where you came from. I was so moved.
"I wish I had said that to you then, but I wish it every night before I go to sleep."
You turned to me and you had tears in your eyes. I reached out to you, but then I really woke up.
I sat there on my bed in a daze, and remember the last time we were like that. You did all that I dreamt of, but…
That last line rings in my ears like a spell…
It is funny that when you have a goal in your waking state, that is your dream. It is the one thing you live for and you will do anything for.
For the most part, you are trying to regain that part of you that you lost. And once you gain it back, you go back for the other part you gave up.
Over and over, we grow older and continue to want things as 'they once were', but when they become lost or taken away, you go back to the place you knew you were 'yourself'.
It is only nine a.m.
Al comes back into my study and peers at my open notebook. I have written nothing, but I continue to stare out of the window with my red coat half on.
It is funny that when you have a dream, you sacrifice other dreams for the one you wanted the most. And you alone know what that answer is so you must bear the pain of solitude and loneliness of that knowledge.
Though the one you love the most stands before you, you cannot describe it.
Though the one whom your soul yearns for isn't here, you cannot learn the power of 'letting go'.
In your mind, all things begin and end there.
This is not love. That is your soul.
Wherever you are, that is my home.
I am there. I am here.
I have gone everywhere, but I am now turning the age that I first met you. I still have not gotten anywhere.
You say I am strong enough to live without you. I keep on telling myself that I am confident and independent, especially when people wonder over my life tales and smiles, but in everything,
You are there.
That face cannot be erased though it is fading.
When the day is over, I can see you again.
In my dream, because of my pride, I couldn't tell you:
"I want to live inside of you, wherever you are, in the comfort of your protection."
At that moment, before going to work, as is my custom, I write a poem to begin my day:
"Title: Mirai. (The future.)
I kept thinking the future
was so far away
and then,
it came to the present.
If you could tell me,
why the hell I came
to this godforsaking city,
then...no, I don't think
I'd understand it now.
I call you and sing a song
only the wind knows,
the Earth is the only thing
that accepts silence
without worry,
without question.
I painted the scene
while singing to a tape,
it was all I could do.
Seems it was all I
was ever good for.
Is it so strange to
ask such questions?
Yes the more I stay away,
the more I remember
I am no good
next to you.
Y i t
e t r
s ' u
s e.
.llew sa ti wonk uoY
The time I spend
like this,
gives way
to the darkness,
that cruelty
I was so ashamed of,
that shadow that makes
my self image
crumble.
You are so far away.
And to protect each other,
we pretend to be fine
while killing ourselves
in the corner of our rooms.
Y i t
e t r
s ' u
s e.
.em tcetorp t'ndluohs uoY
I shouldn't let pride get in the way.
w a i m
o e l y h s a e
S p t g .
Tomorrow is today.
Don't realize what
I know already.
There's no point in
knowing."
Al, who sees me studying my books over my rickety desk, earnestly on this cold, cold night, comes over and hugs me from behind. Without a word, he kisses the back of my head.
And I don't know what to tell him about anything.
About everything.
I have lived inside myself for so long
I do not know how to make anyone else understand.
Not him, nor you.
Not even myself.
That's why I wouldn't let you reach me then
And I refuse to touch him now.
I always want to go home, but I refuse to go back
for fear of having gained nothing
for having given everything
and ruining it all with the "truth"
that shouldn't be said.
What am I trying to protect if I brake his happiness
if he leaves me behind now?
Both tell me to 'live' but sometimes it's hard just getting up in the morning realizing I am nowhere near to any parts of myself…
We are born in one place, but live in another.
At that moment, the maple tree outside of the window shivers under the hard rain. And red and orange colors forcefully fall to the ground.
Owari.
--
Author's note: While in Gunma, I thought of my hometown. I am not homesick, but the essence of my home and how I was within it is different.
I do not sing very well, but I have included my version (mind you it's the 3rd time I've ever sung this song ever) of 'Suteki da ne' from FFX.
Thank you very much!
Love,
yui
10/2/2007 8:18:18 AM - LA
10/3/07 12:18 am - Tokyo