I finished Penguindrum recently and Shoma and Ringo cause me pain on a daily basis so I just had to write something about them. Set post-Penguindrum.
Sometimes, Ringo dreams about a blue-haired boy.
She imagines him lifting her suitcases, bitching about the weight giving him back pain but continuing the struggle down the stairs to the bottom of her apartment building. She watches as the other Ringo (this Ringo doesn't have a bounce in her step; her fingers clench against the crisp folds of her skirt) trails behind him, watching his steps and making sure to remain a few feet from him.
He doesn't look back at her once and yet manages to keep a conversation about nothing at all.
Sometimes in the dreams he pesters her about a diary. It's different from her real one; dusty pink and the other Ringo holds it an anchor, keeping her steady. He glares at her from beneath long eyelashes and fists his hands on his hips. Other Ringo stares.
Sometimes her dreams blend with fantasies; less like memories and more like longing for a song she's never even heard before (or only knowing a line that isn't even in the chorus). He presses his hands to her cheeks, his head to her chest, peppers kisses down her neck until his lips are occupied by silent, racking sobs.
"This is our punishment," he whispers and Other Ringo runs her fingers through his hair; mumbling words she can't hear.
Sometimes, she wakes up in a cold sweat; the feeling of palms ghosting over her forearms and pressing against her own. Himari asks her if she's coming down with something and Ringo smiles, brushing it off. She feels feverish but not sick; heat trapped under her skin.
"You're you."
He mumbles this to her constantly; pressed against her hair, her skin, spoken in soft whispers on nights where she curls herself under covers. Sometimes, she's in Himari's living room; sometimes, she is buried deep in the floorboards of a stranger's house. But every time, Other Ringo turns her head and glares until the blue haired boy yields, returning to whatever mundane task she had been watching him do.
"I am Momoka."
"I have to be Momoka so everyone can be happy."
"If I'm not Momoka; my family will be torn apart."
She watches as the blue-haired boy snarls at Other Ringo; snatching her wrist as she tries to run away. Instead of watching them shatter, she watches the raindrops fall through their open uniforms, sinking into the crevasses of skin they've chosen to keep hidden.
She watches the car slam into his body, twisting his limbs like a rag doll and dropping him onto the concrete. Other Ringo screams, abandoning the dusty pink dairy and crawling next to him; her shaking hands fluttering over his broken bones.
She doesn't sleep for days after that.
Her mother makes an off-handed comment about the bags under her eyes; Himari leaves tea on her nightstand before going to bed. She counts the constellations pasted onto her ceiling with glow-in-the-dark stickers and wonders if her past lives are coming back to haunt her. She hopes that if they are; she managed to die with a flourish.
Sometimes, she watches him burn. Other Ringo seems braver now (her feet are light and her fingers dance around to grab a hand that isn't next to her anymore) as she holds the flame to her chest, closing her eyes. Shoma wraps his arms around her and pulls her to his chest; smothering the flames and sinking the weight of his body against her shoulders.
"This is our punishment."
"Thank you."
"I love you."
Other Ringo reaches out a hand but his fingers slip through the cracks in her foundation and he is gone before she wakes up. And so she watches, the agony before she can open her eyes again, as Other Ringo sinks to the floor and holds herself together with broken words and the idea of destiny.
Ringo wakes up to a concerned Himari; wiping fresh tears from her brown eyes.
"Thank you," she says quietly, hugging the girl tightly. Himari does not question (Ringo didn't expect her too) and stays in her room for the rest of the week.
And as much as she asks and watches and waits; she knows that the boy who loved her is lost in her consciousness; a life she never lived but considered worth living.
Be sure to review it if you'd like; thank you!