Afternoon Ghost Story, a k-on!/けいおん！ fanfic

Afternoon Ghost Story

A K-On! work of anime fanfiction by nightelf

Warning: There are a couple of spoilers in here, if you're just starting K-On!, Proceed with caution.

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I'm dead.

Funny how that snuck up on me.

Was a heck of a party last night. Then again, it always was with Death Devil. I'm still laughing at Yui's impersonation of me; I trained her so well that she couldn't even think of being like me. Afternoon Tea Party is too much kittens, sweetness, and light to ever approach Death Devil. They needed an old soul like me to show them a touch of the darkness.

But oh... that darkness was beautiful. Last night brought everything back - the roar of the stage; the rush of the crowd; the zazen state that comes when performing. The girls knew what I'd do the moment they put a guitar in my hands, because they'd felt it themselves: the music, the crowd, changes a person. When I pick up that guitar, I stop being Yamanaka Sawako. I become Katherine – and may God have mercy on your soul, because I sure as hell won't. In a perverse way, it makes me glad I never got into drugs, because being Katherine is more than enough. We played our set, showed those pansies just what real metal was all about, and went on our merry way.

And then, of course, there was the after-afterparty. We went out for beer and oden; Keiko had always loved the stuff when we were kids, and it just seemed like the right thing to do. We talked for a few hours, a strange mix of then and now. Death Devil intermingled with talk of cute-but-useless husbands and the Terrible Twos; high school tales blended in to our adult lives. We were Sawako, Keiko, Norimi, and Umi – four ordinary women discussing the ins and out of boyfriends and husbands, careers and children.

Hard to believe that an hour previous we were Katherine, Della, Christina, and Janice.

Night had given way to morning, and the real world had intruded once more. I wasn't expecting the freshmen to like what I did, but they thought it was 'cool'. Who knew? The world didn't end, the school didn't descend into chaos... life went on.

Though I wonder... would they still think it was cool if they knew what Katherine was like back then? Maybe I overdid it with the Little Miss Perfect Teacher act; I don't know.

But it doesn't matter, not anymore. It's not my game. I'm the ghost, the one who hasn't figured out she's dead yet.

It's their game. And I'm still not sure how I'm supposed to feel about that.

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It's both heaven and hell with them, to be honest.

There's a reason why I named them Afternoon Tea Time, besides the cute factor. Sometimes it seems like Tsumugi's sweets are all that group cares about. Unlike them, I pushed myself. Yeah, I was stupid about it sometimes, but I pushed myself. Cranking chords until my hands bled was no big deal. Days of being unable to speak, all so I could scream at the night, were standard operating procedure. For these kids... it's a game. It's a hobby.

Who am I kidding? I was dumb and stupid; we all were. I was dumb and stupid because I liked Toshi. The terminal case of stupidity took on a mind of its own once Death Devil started rolling; Katherine was born in the maelstrom, and reveled in the fury. Of course, we all had our reasons for rebellion; it was likely those same reasons that eventually drove Keiko from Tokyo, that still pushes Norimi whenever she picks up a guitar. I hid from mine through disguise; just as Death Devil provided one mask, so my music education and teaching provided another. I became this beautiful angel, this role-model music teacher, crafting inoffensive classical music for the students.

One problem. Our demons - our death devils - were simply too stubborn to escape.

Afternoon Tea Time is just as dumb and stupid as Death Devil; it's just that they're dumb and stupid in their own way. Our dumb and stupid drove us to some intense music; their dumb and stupid drives them to afternoon tea. I tried igniting the fire in Yui, but it didn't seem to stick. Maybe they just don't have the demons we did.

A thought chills me to the bone: Could I actually be envious of their innocence?

I do envy them one thing. What I envy the most – what I regret the most – what terrifies me the most – is that those girls have what I can never get back: time. Part of me wants to scream at them, at the challenges that lie ahead – but all I can really do is scream. The haunting voice is all I have left. We leave no touch; ghosts pass through the walls, and fade as though they never were.

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My time is done.

This is the way it was meant to be. We all have our day in the sun, then go into the twilight. My twilight started the day I put the Flying V down and started calling myself "sensei". It's not about me anymore; it's about those five kids, and about pushing them to make the most of the talents they have.

In my mind, I can feel the cut of guitar strings along my fingertips, the snarl of contempt for a world beneath me, the primal scream of a soul bathing in the darkness. She cries out from her prison with axe and voice, a battlecry of futility, a scream of rebellion for a war long lost.

She's a ghost in my mind. That's all - just a ghost in my mind.

So why do I feel like I'm the one who's haunting the earth?

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Thanks to Greg Sandborn for his help on this.

October 31, 2010