Vignette 1: History of the Tuxedo
Lightning prickled his skin. He gripped the windowsill, and then began to sink.
"Not this again," he groaned, falling to his knees.
He tried to fight it—tried to get up. When he rose to his feet, it felt like he was spiraling upward. He grabbed blindly at the blue curtain to steady himself.
His hand parted the curtain. A single sweat drop glistened down his temple in the moonlight that poured through the window. Familiar yet unexplainable emotions arose: urgency, lust, a need to protect her at all costs. He steadied himself there, breathing heavily, eyes darting furiously over the suburban landscape. He clutched his head and braced himself for the pleasurable anguish he knew would soon sweep his body; a strange orgasm that prompted his transformation into a masked caper of the night.
He staggered to his closet and removed the suit hastily from its hanger. He had the vague, unfinished thought "What am I-?" before his remaining words were swallowed into a sea of forgetfulness. A new man stood there, a strange smile twisting his lips. In tails and top hat now, he glided in front of his mirror. No confusion, no pain, but the fire in his stomach had reached a fever pitch. He looked into his own piercing blue eyes. "What am I?" he asked with a grin. He pulled gently at the drawer of the table that the mirror was perched upon and gently removed a slender white mask. As he donned the mask, he whispered to himself the only name he answered to. "I am Tuxedo Mask!"
Mamoru's two birthday presents to himself were unusual for an eighteen- year-old. The first he was ambling into now. He stepped lightly through the humid hallway of his new, sleek, furnished apartment that his generous inheritance afforded him. His right index finger slid over the bare wall, searching for the light switch. There. He flicked it on and took in the surroundings. Nice. New. Yet modest. The location itself was flashy enough, in the heart of Tokyo. No need to be flashy now. There was a time and place for that.
As he brought his right hand to his side, his left hand clutched a small cardboard box which contained his only possessions. The clothes he had been wearing in foster care never really belonged to him anyway. He refused to bring those with him, knowing he could start buying his own things now. Besides a couple of undershirts and boxers he had picked up on the way in, the only thing he had in the box was something Yua, his foster mother, a professional ballroom dancer, had purchased for him: a full tuxedo, including a top hat, cane, gloves, and patent leather shoes.
He suddenly remembered he had left the cane inside his second present to himself: the new red convertible, now resting in the parking garage. I'll get it out tomorrow, he thought.
He stepped into his room, also moderately sized like the rest of the apartment. Slowly, he placed the box at the foot of the closet, and then began to hang the tuxedo up. He did it robotically, eyes slightly unfocused as he remembered the details of how he had acquired it…
"You look lovely!" Yua had just finished brushing the dust off Mamoru's shoulders. She stood behind him as they both examined Mamoru's dressed-to-the-nines get-up in the tall oak looking glass. Natural rouge bloomed on Mamoru's cheeks. He briefly made eye contact with his foster mother in the mirror before letting his eyes drift over various parts of the suit: the notch lapel encrusted with gold buttons, the gleaming white waistcoat, the crisp alabaster tie.
"Thank you, Yua," Mamoru managed.
"Don't be so shy!" Yua beamed. "What were all the practice dances at the academy for if not for a moment to shine? And there's no better way to wish you well than with a real ball, with proper attire."
"I'm not shy," Mamoru insisted. "I'm just… not used to dressing up to go and dance. As you know."
She didn't respond; instead, she continued to inspect him. She took a breath in preparation to speak. She paused again, and then finally breathed, "Mamoru, thank you for being a son to me." He saw tears welling in her eyes.
"Yua, don't cry. C'mon. Let's go have fun."
"Wait." Yua ran to her closet and pulled a mask and a top hat out of a smooth circular storage box. She ruffled his bangs and plopped the top hat roughly on his head, and he chuckled. To soften her abruptness, she gently handed him the mask. He held it out in front of himself, caressing the silky, milky white fabric. "You can't forget these."
"It's a masquerade?" His expression remained calm, but the darkening of his flushed cheeks betrayed his emotions.
"It'll be fun! Don't worry. Just be yourself."
He smiled for her, but on the car ride over to the dance, when he could look out the window without having to speak or show his face to her, he thought If only I knew who that was.
It was a winter masquerade, held in a grand ballroom on the seventy-eighth floor of the Imperial Hotel. Everyone from the dance academy was there, and all of their guests. If you were to force your eyes to blur, you would see sparkles of red, silver, and gold all mixed together from the candelabras, the tinsel and garland, and the gowns and suits of the well-dressed men and women there. Yua was a dot of blue in the sea of red dresses, while Mamoru was the only one in a tuxedo. The tide of conversation pulled her toward the opposite side of the room. She waved at him as she went, and he nodded at her in understanding. There were several oversized, gaudy Christmas trees lining the wall, towering over the guests, trapping them there. Mamoru felt dizzy, as if he were inside a snow globe that had just been shaken.
The night went on. He had just finished dancing with his eleventh partner. For the first time, this one caught his attention. She was short and had tousled, long blonde hair down to her knees. And she was very pretty. She reminded him of someone he had never met. When the song ended and they parted ways, he felt the hole in his heart become deeper.
Wanting to escape the unpleasant feeling, he decided to step out onto the balcony for fresh air. Silence, a gust of wind, and a sheet of snow greeted him. He welcomed them, the chill suddenly biting away at the heat he had generated from the dancing, his long garments, and the stuffy room. Then, he suddenly felt a twinge of panic in his stomach. He had totally lost track of the time and hadn't seen Yua in a while. He spun around and ran to the door that led back into the ballroom. He peered deeply into the crowd, but there was no blue dot.
The ache gripped him tighter. He turned around to face the balcony ledge again. Without fully understanding why, he briskly approached the edge and peered over it.
He found the blue dot. But it was tiny, crumpled, with red stippling, seventy-eight floors below him on the pavement. Cars encircled the body. Lights danced red and blue. His hearing faded strangely as the sounds of sirens came into full volume.
Mamoru blinked at the tuxedo. Why keep it? Why keep something that would remind you of your foster mother's suicide?
I know it wasn't my fault… she was clinically depressed. Mamoru had no idea Yua was struggling so much. He had known her for ten years. She had hidden her suffering well.
Why does everyone I love die? I can't let loved ones die anymore. How? How can I stop it?
Everything had been unpacked. Except, of course, the cane in the convertible. As he got ready to throw the box in the corner of his room, he stopped.
Sitting at the bottom of the box, nearly forgotten, was the white mask.