I have to confess, some of this was inspired by Dolce Saito's fanfics 'Saman'. It's an excellent everyone-is-still-alive AU, and you should all go read it afterwards. So I can't really take full credit for writing this-although I would imagine you'd get what I mean when I say this one-shot is taking that idea a few steps further. The structure of this fic is also inspired by Jodi Picoult's 'Sing You Home'. It has little to do with the anime, but it is a very good book and she is an excellent author...I can't wait for 'Leaving Time'!
Anyway...two things to point out: first, this would take place between 10-20 years after the anime. Feel free to decide on a precise number for yourself and use that to inform your view on this. The second is that the third person narrator here is a 7-year-old. That should be taken into account.
So, enjoy, and please leave feedback.
Tsukihime Hirai doesn't always understand her family.
For example, she doesn't know why Mummy, Daddy and Unky are always sad in the summer. The summer is fun! The sky is blue and the sun is out and it's warm enough to have ice-cream every day. Tsukihime loves the summer. One of them will always buy her ice-cream and take her to the park or something in the summer holidays, but they always seem sad in the summer.
And she doesn't know why they had to take a trip to Tokyo for a week each summer, to visit something Daddy said was a graveyard but didn't really look like one. The graves were all marked by sticks, not big stones like they usually are. And she counted all these sticks once. There are 24, but two of them have the number's 25 and 26 on them. It took her a long time, but she figured out the missing numbers were 9 and 12. And she remembered that sometimes, whenever they're all at home, Mummy sometimes calls Unky and Daddy by those two numbers. But she only does that at home. That's something else Tsukihime doesn't understand.
She also doesn't know why those two really old policemen sometime come to check up on them. Especially in the summer. And they really are old. Well, Hamu-tan isn't that old, but Detective Kenji is very old. It's fun when they visit, but she doesn't know why they do it, and why sometimes she's not allowed to be in the room when they discuss certain things. According to Mummy, they have to come, but she won't say why.
She doesn't know why her parents don't really talk to other parents at things like school festivals and when they pick her up in the winter. They're friendly if someone talks to them, but they don't go to other people. It's almost like they're scared of people.
She doesn't know why her teacher gave her a weird look when she managed to fix her computer after it crashed in the middle of maths. Unky taught her lots of things about computers, and she thinks that maybe when she turns eight she'll try to build her own from scratch. Unky could always help.
Speaking of Unky, she doesn't know why he's so ill. He suffers from headaches, and sometimes he has a nightmare which means he wakes up screaming and everyone in the house loses sleep. There are some days when he can't even get out of bed because he's too weak, and he'll spend the day in fitful sleep. On those days, Tsukihime arrives home from school extra quietly, and sits at the edge of his bed until he wakes up, or until Mummy or Daddy tell her that tea is ready.
And she doesn't know why the fact he is ill means that he'll die one day. On the really bad days, he'll say that it's 'any day now'. And yet, the next day, he's still there. This makes Tsukihime happy, because she really likes her Unky, and wants him to stay alive for a long, long time so that he can teach her more things. Because that's what he does on days he's feeling good.
She also doesn't know why sometimes, loud exploding noises make Daddy jump.
She doesn't know why Mummy sometimes cries at the dinner table for what seems like no reason, and why Daddy has to remind her to breathe. It only happens occasionally (especially in the summer), but it makes Tsukihime worry.
She doesn't know why, on some nights, nobody can be bothered to cook and they just sit in front of the TV and eat take-out food. It doesn't happen often, and she thinks she could cook for them on those days, but they tell her she's too little to work the oven alone.
She doesn't know what a Sphinx is, or why Mummy and Daddy whisper about it sometimes. Or why they stiffen and look scared when the word is on the news. She thinks maybe she should google it, but the newspapers and the TV are full of big words she doesn't understand, so she doesn't think there's a point.
She doesn't know what the singers in Unky's music are saying. That's because they're Icelandic, he says. But she likes the sound of it anyway. It's soothing.
She doesn't know why they've made her a special 'emergency plan' in case something happens to them. She's memorised it, of course she has, and she doesn't really mind what they've put on there because she'd be with Detective Kenji and Hamu-tan if and when the plan has to be carried out. But what could possibly happen to Mummy and Daddy and Unky? They'd never leave her. Even when she's really naughty, they don't shout. So what could possibly happen?
But…But…
But she knows where her name comes from. Mummy and Daddy enjoy telling her how she was born on a full-moon night, and that even as a wriggly new-born, she glowed. And to her, she is the centre of their world. Like a princess. Mummy even makes her a special crown on each of her birthdays. It's only card but it feels like a proper one you buy in the shops if you wanted to play dress-up. She lines all her crowns on her dressing table, and they sparkle.
She knows her age to the hour: 7 years, 2 weeks, 3 days and 8 hours. Figuring out the minutes and seconds is too confusing.
She knows that, even though she mostly looks like Mummy, there are two big things that make her a lot like Daddy. The first is her hair-it's slightly lighter that Mummy's and it's really curly. The second is the fact that whenever she hears a voice, it has a colour too. It's the same with Daddy, and he told her that it has a special name, but it's a really long and tricky word and she cannot quite pronounce it.
She knows that something really bad happened to her Daddy a long time ago. Once, when they were at the swimming pool, she saw the scar on his chest. She didn't ask about it. Now, only Mummy takes her swimming.
She knows that Mummy used to be really bad at cooking, even though she's really good now. Daddy and Unky tease her about it all the time. Mummy pretends to be embarrassed, but Tsukihime can tell she finds it funny. So now, sometimes, when Mummy is cooking, she sneaks up on her and yells 'Strawberry pocky!" to make her jump. Then Mummy chases her around the room and tickles her.
She knows that it's important to listen to people, to talk to people. She can't remember who told her that, but she knows this. So she always tries to listen to people.
She knows she's good at reading stories to people. She sometimes reads to Unky when he can't get out of bed. She can't read his big books though, so it always has to be her storybooks, but he doesn't seem to mind.
She knows that technology isn't everything. She likes being on the computer and watching TV and listening to lots of music on YouTube, but sometimes it's nice to just go outside and play with her friends, or walk around the shops with Daddy, or paint pictures in the kitchen with Mummy.
She knows that the reason other people think she's about three or four years old is because she's small for her age. It's so annoying! She's definitely more sensible and less annoying than a three year old-Iroha's brother is three and really, really annoying and she's nothing like that.
She knows that a long time ago, before she was born, for some reason Mummy was really, really sad and didn't talk, at all. She can't really imagine that-Mummy is a quiet type of person, but she does talk-but apparently it's true. But apparently, when she found out that Tsukihime was going to be born, that made her happy enough to talk again. So she is always really, really careful, because if something bad happened to her then Mummy would be sad again and stop talking. She's sure of it. And then Daddy and Unky'd be sad too. Especially Daddy. He really likes the colour of Mummy's voice.
She knows that she's probably going to remain an only child, although she'd like a little sister. But it's OK if she doesn't, because not everyone has sisters or brothers –Yumiko, Harumi, and Emi don't.
And there's definitely one thing she knows for sure, young as she is:
She knows that no matter what, this is her family, and she wouldn't want it to be any different.