the.astronomer
by liahime, a short ryuki tale.
north.star
She was young and out there, starting fresh in a city where no one knew her name, no one knew her family, no one knew or cared about her in this bustling anthill of anonymous people too wrapped up in their own agendas. She was a bird, to go and run into windows and stay up late, and eat only ramen for breakfast, lunch, dinner all.
She was free.
Free as the bird that had jumped out of the cage of her mother and grandmother- liberated. Let go. Alive. This is what she wanted since the beginning of her life, this first breath of fresh air.
But standing in the open, not a rule or bar to cage her, Rika was lost.
She had never been anyone other than the daughter of the fashion celebrity, the girl with the blurred face of the newspapers, the scary friend of her high school's idol, and so, enemy of the fan girls. She had had her life shaped and pushed in, dented, by so many other subtlelives that here, that here on the fresh paper, her hand faltered making her own mark. All of her life, she had thought she had known what she wanted.
But she was never sure.
Without anyone there, there was no guidance to rebel against, to accept. She had to make her own marks. Rebelling and revels only lasted so long before they grew old and dull. And she, at twenty one, the perfect golden age, had already rebelled throughout childhood, throughout her growing up so much that she was tired of it all- to rebel to simply rebel, of throwing herself into what she did and did not like. She had been there, done that.
But what was she to do now?
She had never had any large urge to go to parties or to solitary retreats, had no fashion extremes to duck and dodge. She could do exactly whatever she wanted without any opposition whatsoever. If she wanted to shave her head, she could do it. If she wanted to wear red checks with green stripes and yellow polka dots, the media would no longer call it Rumiko's latest trend and love it. They'd just stare and walk by, shaking their heads at the strange young woman.
It was as if suddenly, life had gotten so much easier.
And so, in this newfound simplicity, the myriad of choices stretched before her into a maze far more complicated than the one she had had before. Twists and turns and the weighing fact- whatever she did, she did. No one was there to save her.
Life stretched out before her, and she was lost already before taking the first step.
Taking a deep breath, Rika plunged in.
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Several college scholarships and an evening of headaches later, she had cracked.
This was supposed to be freedom?
Pushing it all into her recycling bin, shovingit away into her desk,she decided to do the unthinkable. She packed her clothes, wrote notes, mailed them out, and hopped on the third train to Tomoeda, her community collegeastronomy class application flying ahead of her in cyberspace.
She needed to think now, to stare up at space and fill her silent, screaming head with numbers and cold facts that were logical, that made perfect, solid sense. She wanted to stare past the stars, be alone in darkness, to just have an excuse to get away and scream behind her slammed door- to just think, alone in her own silence.
Everything was changing underneath her feet, shooting up behind her, all around. Jeri was the official beauty of the graduating class. Kazu's voice had cracked and become a singer's, emerging from its high-pitched cocoon. Henry was the love of the universities, his mailbox floodedwith their grants and scholarships. They were all growing up and flowing out of the same pot that they had lived in for a forever and end, flying out into the world of adults.
And Ryo.
Once upon a time, some stupid rule must have been created-that once a guy crossed the line of seventeen, he would become impossible. He would realize more than you wanted him to realize, and ignore every sane point you made for a hamburger, or two, or four hundred. These formerly reasonably sane human beings would be bombarded with baked goods they would inhale cluelessly, and notice, no matter how much effort you put into it, when you skipped lunch for a history test. They would make girls go mushy and sappy and leave Rika, the one everyone took for frozen, to clean up after the mess flatterycreated in an arrogant ego.
But Ryo was brooding now, no longer as happy go lucky as he had been when they had all had their safety nets behind them.He could fall now, and he had realized itas she had- whatever they did now, there was nolonger a parent to wipe up their mess, bandage their heads- and though they bothhad thought themselves above it all, once they had lost it, they realized how much they had needed it. He was thinking for once, he was deeper- and she could tell, without words, that he was older.He still inhaled food with the abandon ofa starved rhinoceros- he was at least a head taller, he'd point out each time- and still had an ego and will that was even more obstinate than hers. He was clueless and all seeing, the human paradox. Akiyama still met her glares with a smile, but they had gone past that now, in so many layers and layers of years and ages- she could tell.
He wanted something more.
Every time he looked at her, she had found out- slowly, to her own disgust at her own stupidity, and his- that there was something he left unsaid each time, in each look. There was something he would tell her, something he would pass onto her quietly, waiting for it to accept. He didn't want to just push it ontoher and get an instant response- she could deal with that- but leftit there, one more stepclimbing up to hertower.If a lake was what was in between them, he would have had only a spoon.
But somehow, it seemed that he would keep scooping water out of thelake, spoonful by spoonful, until it emptied. Add stone and step after step until he reached the peak of her tower. He would not stop- just add more and more until she too tipped- getting faster and faster, closer with each slow step-
And she, the girl who had saved Japan anonymously, who had battled through out the real and cyber world- this ice queen with the heart of stone-
Maybe she was a bit scared of this.
Breathing in, breathing out, Rika Nonaka had boarded the 3:30 train, and fled north.
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