Originally written for the Death Note Fanfiction Contest community at lj.
Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note.
Theme: week #21 - Sachiko
Characters/Pairings: Sachiko (obviously), mentions of Soichiro, Light, and Sayu
Summary: Everyone is willing to compromise for something. But sometimes the concession isn't worth the reward.
Warnings: I fought through waves of terrible, crippling writer's block to write this. Prepare for epic fail.
A/N: Sachiko's bio in HTR suggests that she is not very creative.
I figured at least some of Sachiko's traits must have been passed on to Light. Light is ridiculously determined and hard-working. And while Soichiro can certainly be considered determined, I thought Sachi might be hiding some real tenacity, as well, and tried to bring out her tougher qualities here.
And this turned out as depressing as crap, so I apologize.
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Sachiko had never intended for things to work out this way. "Family" had never been a part of her plans. She hadn't bargained for a husband. She certainly hadn't bargained for a son or a daughter.
All Sachiko had ever wanted was to be an artist.
It was pure chance that had led her to this aspiration. An elementary school assignment had sent a nine-year-old Sachiko to the public library, carelessly sifting the shelves for something that would help her produce an easy book report. She wasn't much for reading, and grabbed a book filled with blown-up images of foreign art, hoping the text inside was sparse. But when she flipped through the pages, she found herself drawn to the paintings within. Many were sprawling still life shots of flowers; ordinary subjects, but skewed somehow, made new and lovelier than the real thing. Others were landscapes, but never of rolling green fields, of flowing waters, of snowy cityscapes. No. They were portraits of barren desert backgrounds: dry scrubland, austere mountain peaks and rock formations, dead trees, animal skulls. And the artist behind these paintings had somehow seen beauty in their subjects. They had taken the typical along with the bleak, and somehow managed to create something refreshing and pleasant out of each.
Even at her tender age, Sachiko knew that this was no small feat, and was blown away by the innovation and passion behind the art. She turned to the cover. The Compiled Works of Georgia O'Keeffe, read the title.
Sachiko ended up coming home with seven books that day, each with "O'Keeffe" somewhere on the cover.
By high school, emulating the American painter had become a full-blown obsession. While Sachiko's friends were chasing boys and looking forward to—someday, at least—settling down and starting families of their own, Sachiko was staying late in the art room every day, painstakingly improving her technique until the custodians kicked her out. Unfortunately, she had not been blessed with any creative talent to speak of. Even her teacher told her that painting was not for everyone, and gently suggested that she consider pursuing another goal. But it was no good. Sachiko had made up her mind to become an artist, and that was that.
And somehow, despite her lack of natural skill, Sachiko's hard work paid off. She was eventually accepted into a small art college, and it seemed like things might turn in her favor, after all.
And then she met Soichiro. He was studying criminal justice at a nearby university, and—like Sachiko's love for foreign, abstract art—was stumbled upon by pure chance.
Sachiko had always been fairly outgoing, but had more or less abandoned any semblance of a social life by her late high school years. Her devotion to her art surpassed any desire for companionship. Still, she couldn't help but be charmed by the earnest Soichiro, with his strong sense of justice and idealistic dreams. She found herself spending more and more time with him, and felt a twinge of guilt with each hour dedicated to this boy that otherwise would've been given to painting. It was an odd feeling, almost like cheating on a lover. But that was ridiculous of course, she would remind herself. It was the first of many emotions she would learn to suppress over the next few decades.
All of a sudden, life was moving far too quickly. Sachiko blinked, and she was engaged, Soichiro was graduating. She dropped out of school to marry him and move to another district where he had been hired as part of a police detective force. Sachiko agreed to all of this without qualms, without question. This surprised no one but her.
Years passed. Soichiro quickly rose through the ranks, giving the two of them the funds to buy a house. Sachiko soon found herself playing the role of not only "wife", but "mother", as well, and her art, which she had continued dabbling in as a pastime, fell by the wayside.
Sachiko was quick to dismiss the loss as something to be expected. After all, she had never been particularly good at painting, even in her college years. Her interest had been sparked by no more than simple happenstance, and she had been so young. None of it had really meant anything, she convinced herself. It was just a shame that she had poured so many hours into something so fruitless.
Devoid of a passion, Sachiko turned her unspent ardor on her newfound family. If she couldn't be a great artist, then by God, she would be the best damn wife and mother she could be.
When her youngest child and only daughter was kidnapped, raped, and put through God-knew-what all else that put her in such a traumatic state that she was basically a vegetable, Sachiko faltered, but only a bit. She swiftly recovered, assuming the "dutiful mother" position once more. Too bad muttered "there, there"s and a comforting presence weren't enough for Sayu to recover, as well.
Her husband's death proved to be much more difficult to overcome. Sachiko was distraught with the notion of having to be the strongest one in the family now—the frame, the support system. She had always been sturdy, but she had had Soichiro to lean on. With him gone, she was an easel sans a leg.
Ironically, Sayu was the driving force that finally helped Sachiko to regain her spirit. The girl certainly didn't offer encouraging words, gestures, or anything of the sort. It was just that the idea of Sachiko letting herself turn into something similar to her daughter—a lifeless husk of a being, robbed of the ability to even survive on her own—was inexcusable.
So Sachiko managed to stand again, even if it meant standing alone. For what did she have left to lean on now? Her husband dead, her daughter as good as the same, and her son absent and sure to follow in his father's footsteps of work-addiction… Perhaps she hadn't been playing her role as well as she'd thought. Was this all she had gotten in exchange for her dreams? A broken family and a lifetime of lies and loneliness?
This was an unfair trade. The life of a homemaker—a prosaic, suburbian existence (and a shattered one, at that) was pathetic in comparison to her idyllic pipe dream of soulful artistry. How had she ever thought this life would be a passable substitute?
But…Sachiko was not one to wallow in self-pity. No matter how much she deserved it.
It took some exhaustive searching through dusty storage in the attic, but Sachiko found them. Long sealed away in a nondescript box, exactly as she had left them, were art supplies, along with every painting she had ever completed. The works formed a veritable timeline of her endeavors, a chart measuring gradual improvement, beginning with the clumsy smatterings of her preteen efforts and continuing all the way through her college days and distracted attempts as a new wife.
It was bizarre to look back like this. Seeing the embodiments of her struggles to progress, it almost felt like Sachiko had actually achieved something.
And just like that, she was stricken. It was an unfamiliar sensation, faded and nearly forgotten, but she recognized it nonetheless. Sachiko was inspired. She would take a page from another's book: find beauty in the ordinary, as well as in desolation. That was what her idol, the artist who had inspired her all those years ago, had unfailingly accomplished in every painting. And she would emulate her once again.
It was odd--déjà vu, being motivated again. Sachiko reached into the box, sorting through the supplies. She picked up a brush for the first time in years. O'Keefe would be proud.