Title: Some Things are Forever
Author: RiTzBiTz21
Rating: unknown
Summary: Main characters are Natsuko, Matt, TK, Mimi, Kari, Masaharu (listed in order of importance)... oh and have you ever noticed how if you listen to musical stuff and then there is an opera voice at the end you always feel the need to imitate it?
Disclaimer: I own the plot... that's about it.
Timeline: It takes place somewhere very close to the present and starts off with TK at age 14, Matt at age 18, Mimi at age 16 (almost seventeen if you catch the drift), and Kari at age 14. Also Natsuko and Masaharu are rather prominent but you can give them ages within reason... I'm trusting you now!
Additional Comments by Author: REVIEWS ARE WIDELY APPRECIATED!!!! ... thank you
~*Intro*~
Natsuko was a middle-aged woman who stood to about 64 inches. She was rather short, but living in Japan everyone was short. She was quite slender with short brown hair and she was, in all actuality, not tan at all. But here again, living in Japan no one was remarkably tan. She had been raised in japan and knew nothing other than Japan. She had been to America one more than one occasion but never seemed to find an elegance in the skimpy outfits most of the American women were wearing. Her ex-husband Masaharu had taken her to America to see almost every site. Mostly they had gone with either Matt or TK and Matt. It seemed to serve as what they enjoyed calling a family outing. After Masaharu and Natsuko had separated Matt and TK were split Matt went to Masaharu and TK stayed with Natsuko. Natsuko had battled till the very end for Matt and after 4 years she won custody; my guess is that the poor judge either pitied her or got sick of seeing her. She was as mad as ever to have missed 4 years of her baby boy's life. She told herself daily that visitation rights were for people who beat up their kids. Weeks together are proper for a failed marriage. Natsuko herself did not seem to know why her and Masaharu had separated but it happened and that was that.
Natsuko sat alone on her balcony window on a cool summer night. She had thoughts of all different things, some of the most prominent being TK, Matt, and of course Masaharu. She wondered how she had done it. Not just how she'd divorced him, but how she had put her sons through all of this. She chased different explanations in her mind and decided that what was done was done. She sighed and looked up at the crescent moon and it made her think of the laughs and smiles she had when her and Masaharu spent time with Matt and TK. Yet she still wondered how she could possible think of him after all he had done... she told herself that some things were forever.
Now TK and Matt weren't bad children by any means but they sure kept Natsuko's hands full. She had two jobs and usually worked about 50-60 hours a week, having very little time to herself. When she would go to sleep at the end of the day she would toss and turn only to find herself awake again. Her sleeping habits were horrible and she couldn't take it anymore. Something was depriving her of peace and she couldn't quite put her finger on it. She ran hundreds of people through her head and none of them seemed to have any way of matching what was happening to her. She was only 38 so of course she had her whole life to live yet, but she felt like she was being suffocated by some idiosyncratic force field that kept itself completely hidden beyond her sense of sleep.
Natsuko had one thing left in her pool of talent and she refused to take it out of her daily schedule... she played the piano. She loved to play. Anything no matter what it was, she loved playing the piano. She could play nearly anything and used to play for Matt and TK when they were little. The bedroom was far enough away from the piano to make it sound as soft as a lullaby. When she couldn't sleep she would goto the roof of their apartment building with her keyboards and plug it in to the stairwell. She would play to herself to soothe her soul. It seemed to serve as a remedy for her, in all actuality what seemed to be, slow painful death.
She hated the thought of it. Not being there for Matt, TK, or anyone else who may have crossed her path. But that's what it felt like to her; a slow, painful death. Natsuko told herself numerous times to make a will, but she never seemed to have gotten around to it. She began to wonder if Matt and TK had noticed a change in her behavior or if her acting skills had succeeded in deceiving them. Matt had his music, which she insisted he inherited form her, and TK had his childhood ways of playing so he wasn't worried about quite as much.
Tonight seemed to be one of the worst so as always she sat up until about 3am playing her keyboard for anyone or thing that cared to listen. The piano gave her piece of mind and allowed her to release her feelings without tearing someone apart limb from limb. She found it astonishing how a simple press of a key could keep her sane.