My Albatross
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It sits in the palm of my hand, the cold seeping from the metal into my skin.
Oh, how innocent it looks to those who don't know. Just a piece of jewellery, casually worn.
My sin.
The Albatross around my neck.
They could never know, and I would never tell them, of the anguish reflected in the metal's dull surface.
My mother, eyes long since run out of tears, sobbing quietly. My father, unable to meet my gaze, asking how everything went so wrong. Two long years of silence, as they waited for a call that never came.
The chain makes a light clinking sound as I draw it around my neck.
The sound of a hospital bed being rushed down the corridor. Sitting in a hard plastic chair, waiting for them to come. Too bright. Too clean. Too normal. It shouldn't be this normal. Not anymore. Not after what I've done.
The red stone catches the light, glaring at me from the mirror.
I once had another stone, purplish blue, that soothed my childhood pains. Though I still depended on it, needed it, I have never regretted giving it to her, the girl who lived her emotions. She named it Corn.
This stone is not Corn. It does not comfort me, it accuses.
A dark street. Bodies on the ground. Blood, not mine, dripping from my clenched fist.
Blood, reflected now in the mirror.
It will never wash off.
She carries Corn now, treasures it, but it used to belong to me. I gave it to her the day of our parting, when I thought I'd never feel her warm magic again.
This stone, this eye, used to belong to him. I took it from him the day everything went so terribly wrong, when my world shattered beyond repair. I brought it with me when I followed the President to Japan, escaping the remnants of my former life before I was completely destroyed. I never glanced back.
I have no right to be happy.
I hate it.
Yet every day, I fasten it around my neck. And every day, people think how pretty it is. My penance.
Is it my imagination? Does the metal seem a bit warmer now? The stone's light a bit softer?
Perhaps it's that the warm magic I touched long ago is back, fluttering around my fingers once more. I must never allow myself to grab it, possess it, that would only stain it with my darkness. But would it be so horrible to allow myself to brush against it? Just enough to warm my hands?
Maybe the President's right. Maybe it is okay if I begin to forgive myself.
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Author's note:
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The necklace. Ren's painful past. What if the two were horribly entwined?
Wow, what a strange story I've written, and I've written some doozeys in the past. So let me explain what I'm talking about.
The necklace. Two clasps attached to a ring with a stone hanging beneath it. Has anyone else noticed that every time Ren wears an open-necked outfit of his own choice (not part of a photo shoot or something worn on set) he always wears the same necklace? It first appeared in volume 2, has been in every volume since, got both covers of volume 6 (where you can see red), and was even recreated on one of Kyoko's dolls (after the Tsukimori arc). Ren is uber rich, and wouldn't be wearing the same thing over and over due to lack of options. Therefore, the necklace must be important. But it wasn't always so. In every faceless picture of boy Corn, his neck is bare.
Ren's past. Nakamura keeps hinting of something terrible, something far worse than Kyoko's ever experienced, something so bad that only his parents and the President know the details. That's why I think the necklace represents something bad. And before you ask, I have no idea about the previous owner I concocted, or even what happened. I just feel that Ren wouldn't have purchased something so meaningful, so it had to have belonged to someone before. And I don't think it belonged to a girl. It's not really the right style, and if there was a girl at the root of this mysterious incident of his past, he wouldn't be able to compliment (i.e. unintentionally flirt with) girls so easily. Especially if this incident is something he can't forgive himself for, as the President says.
Does everyone know what I mean by the Albatross? There's this famous old novel-length English poem The Mariner about a man on a sailing ship. One day he sees an albatross flying around and, for no real reason, he shoots it. He then feels so consumed with guilt he takes the dead bird (about the size of a large turkey with a 6 foot wingspan) and hangs it from his own neck. He then wears the bird, day in and day out, rope biting into the back of his neck from the weight, until it rots. He does this as penance for a sin he thinks he has committed by wrongly ending a life. So the idea of carrying an albatross around your neck has come to mean carrying a heavy burden or sin in a way that shows you regret what you did. And while we're talking old references the blood that will never wash off is from Shakespeare's MacBeth, where Lady MacBeth kills her husband's rival in cold blood then drives herself insane trying to wash the blood off her hands. I'm not sure how much of this applies to Ren, but it sure would explain Reino's violent reaction to his touch.
Well, that's enough of my ramblings. Now I bet a fair few of you are going to flip through the manga you thought you'd read, and begin to believe me about the necklace.
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Author's note II:
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January, 2012. As the manga has progressed, and we find new things, I feel I need to add this addendum. Before anyone comments I'm wrong because of a watch, remember that this was first written October 2008. In other words, over twenty chapters before the whole Cain Heel arc even begins! Nearly fifty before they focus on the watch. And so I wondered, should I change this? Scrap it? Heck no! Imagination is the whole point of fanfiction. It stays in original form. Besides, I still think the necklace is important.