Howdy.
I guess this is really just a collection of short scenes delving into the hearts and/or minds of general characters. There isn't much to this, just my weird obsession with overanalyzing things and ripping people apart to find their inner souls and demons.
These will probably be written during bouts of laziness, where I write just so I don't forget how to.
I'm alive.
That's the one line Takeru repeats to himself, over and over again, in his mind.
He's alive. It's true, that he's alive, even though he's dead all the same.
He was already killed, already a corpse, now just a soul left lingering without a real body. But he was alive. A living being. He still had a body, sort of. Revived temporarily, sure, and mostly just a spirit, but alive still, in a way.
His soul was still intact. But he'd died. But he couldn't be a ghost. He couldn't be one because he could still think and feel and do everything a living person could.
That makes him alive. He knows he's alive, even if he died.
Sitting by a pond of glassy water, he looks at his reflection. His eyes glimmer with youth and energy and it makes him almost shudder. He looks alive. He feels alive. He's alive.
He shouldn't be alive, already killed off. He has felt death, he's been killed, but he knows that he's meant to be alive. But there was much he had yet to fulfill, for sure.
Takeru's a child, and children die all the time. But he's different. Children die and families mourn, but even those deaths serve a purpose. Every bit of life, even death, has a meaning to it.
Did that first death really matter, when he could have just as easily done what he's doing now while still alive? His death didn't matter, but it may as well have been the most important thing to ever happen to him. He died. But other than that, nothing truly happened to him.
It feels so insignificant, his death. Because what real purpose did it serve, when he was just brought back to continue life the way he would have if he'd lived? It feels especially unfair because he's stuck between alive and dead now, and the only thing that's changed is the fact that he isn't really human anymore.
With the tip of his pointer finger, he touches the water of the pond. He watches the form of the ripples in water, so much like ripples in life, where everything becomes as distorted as his image. But after a few moments, his reflection becomes normal and stable again, just as life should allow peace after suffering.
Takeru knows he was meant for more than that death, that stupid little event that triggered so many more important things. It still feels meaningless to him, and he can't stop thinking of reasons why he should still be alive. He still has so much more he needs to do.
He feels it coursing through his body, something he needs to fulfill before he dies for real. He feels it now, even stronger than he felt it when he was first alive, now that he's been given all this power.
But even before that first death, even during it, he knew in his bones there was more to him than just the awkward and flimsy teenaged boy who loved history. The lost child who was trying to live up to his father's legacy.
Takeru has been given the chance of a lifetime.
He isn't alive anymore, but he isn't dead anymore either. He hasn't come to terms with it yet, but he's on the way. Because he keeps repeating it, he keeps telling himself, I'm alive.
He will win his wish. He will for sure grasp the life he's trying his best to get back. He will no longer be trapped between life and death. He deserves to live. And he will live. He will live again, live to his fullest, and then he will die for real in a meaningful way, more meaningful than his first death, after he's done even more good than he could within his first steps into life as an almost adult.
He will come back to life.
He smiles and acts as a boy his age should, and nobody sees the turmoil of his very being.
Takeru touches his own face, affirming his own existence yet again. Completely alone in this moment of time, he has allowed his mind to wander off a route he doesn't like to venture in.
He knows he's alive. He'll tell it to himself as many times as he has to. He's still staring at his reflection in the water. There's not much to him, really just a boy with light hair and bright eyes and a world of suffering.
He readjusts his brightly colored jacket, checking the fold. Always left over right, as he was taught by his father. Left over right, it means he's alive. But in his reflection, it shows right to left, as if he were dead. His reflection, staring back at him, has a jacket on as if he were dead. His reflection, showing him just who he is—dead.
Because this boy, who is so full of life, he's anything but alive.
Takeru Tenkuji is dead. He's a ghost.
And he'll have to learn to live with being dead.
I wrote this before Ghost even began airing. I had this on my mind and I don't know why. So I wrote it and here it is.
Updates will be irregular. Very irregular. But here's this one introspective thing for now and pray I might have another one up someday. Favorite, review, whatever you like.
- Ria