Disclaimer: All characters and related settings are the property of SNK and Neo Geo, I'm just borrowing them for some non-profit entertainment.
(A/N: This is supposed to be a sequel to my one-shot "Mizuko Jizo". I would recommend that you do read that one first. Its just 5000+ words, really short. This story on the other hand is gonna be pretty long.)
The Sweet Far Thing
Chapter One: Melancholia
It took Andy a moment or two after waking to remember why he was waking up alone instead of with Mai's warm and soft body pressed against his. It had been a few months since his promise in front of the Jizou statues to not leave her to train, to stay and train at the Shiranui dojo, close to her. He had accepted her request to move back into his old room, the one he occupied while still training under her grandfather. He understood her desire for abstinence. What he didn't understand was how, after several months he could still wake up and expect to see her there.
He had found it remarkably easy to fall back into the old training habits he had formed under Hanzo-sensei. But he was surprised at how difficult it was for him to adjust to living with Mai again and not being welcomed back into her bed. It was such a base and low-minded thing to be upset about, being denied sex. Andy was almost disgusted with himself for being upset over such an iniquitous desire. Mai was better than that, she was more than just that to him and after the way that he had treated her, the way he had neglected her, she deserved more.
But they were going on their third month of living together but separate. Fall had already faded into Winter and the dry spell was starting to grate on Andy's nerves.
He didn't just miss the sex, he missed just being with her, waking up next to her. Especially waking up next to her now that Winter had set in and the mornings were cold and unforgiving. He had never been cold while sleeping with Mai, sleeping alone he dreaded having to crawl out from under the blankets.
Gritting his teeth and reminding himself that he was to old to be whining about getting up in the mornings, Andy rolled off his futon and padded over to his closet. He pulled on his normal white tunic and pants that he preferred to train in with a black thermal under-suit for warmth. He then grabbed his pair of skates, the Short Track seemed to have completely replaced Andy's normal morning calisthenics.
Andy paused as he was passing the master bedroom –Mai's room. He held still, straining his ears to hear the even sound of her breathing, hoping that she would call out to him, or mutter his name in her sleep. He hoped for any indication that this drought might end and she would welcome him back to her. But aside from her soft breaths from behind the paper screen all was silent, he gave up and continued on his way.
Up in the mountains behind the Shiranui dojo there was a pond fed by a small stream, an offshoot from the larger river that cut through the valley. It wasn't particularly deep and so froze completely over in the wintertime. This fact, combined with its almost complete seclusion and its proximity to the Shiranui dojo made it Andy's favorite place to skate.
The Short Track was probably the only non-martial arts related sport he liked, but he preferred to skate out and away from people. It was more of a meditative exercise for him than a physical one. It was a way for him to organize his thoughts, whenever his standard meditations failed or his thoughts were to sporadic, his emotions to much of a roiling tumult to allow him to enter into the meditation trance he would come here to the pond and skate around the short track until he could once again make sense of himself.
…Or in this case, sense of Mai.
'Just be with me…' She had said. 'Just stay with me… don't go away.'
Well, he had stayed, he hadn't left to train at the Yamada dojo with Jubei-sensei or gone to Thailand with Joe, or back to South Town to see his brother, or even up into the mountains to train on his own. No, as she requested he had stayed here with her, for her. His training had suffered for it but he reminded himself that she had suffered in silence for three whole years, he shouldn't mind a few months.
Just a few months…
A few months practicing a sub-par training regiment he could handle, a few months living in the same house with Mai, with her lusciously sensual body and sultry voice but not being allowed to touch so exquisite a body, kiss so lovely a mouth, that he was finding slightly more difficult to manage. More difficult, in fact, than he would have liked to admit. He understood why she had instated this rule of abstinence; he was just becoming annoyed with its prolongment.
Andy scatted to a stop. For weeks he'd been coming here to think because his standard meditations had failed and for weeks he still hadn't been able to come up with a solution for his problem, for their problem.
'Just be with me.' She had said, yet now that they were back to living in the same house Mai had become like a ghost to him. He rarely ever actually saw her, only signs that she had been there. A half empty pot of tea that she had left out on a hot-plate for him, the kitchen sink that had been empty would hold a used dish or two, soft footsteps in the halls, the sliding open and shut of the paper screens.
'Just stay with me.' She had said, yet she had been avoiding him since he had moved back in. He understood that she mostly blamed him for not being there when she needed him and he understood that she was still very depressed over the whole thing, but it's been months already and Mai didn't seem any better than she did the day he had made his promise to her in front of the Jizou statues.
The Mizuko Jizou…
Andy felt another wave of guilt wash over him. Every time he thought about those two tiny statues and what they represented he couldn't help but loath himself, for not being there, for not recognizing her cries for help sooner. She had tried to tell him in her own cryptic and impertinent way. But he had just been too dense.
But then again, how was he supposed to know that the illusions of children Mai would torment him with before their fights in the King of Fighters tournaments were her way of telling him that he'd fathered a child? No one else had ever suspected. Did she think that just because they slept together they had some sort of psychic link and he could read her mind? That sounded like something out of a bad fan fiction.
Andy sighed in exasperation as he began his march back down the slope. Then again, maybe Mai hadn't really been trying to tell him anything with those illusions, maybe she had just been trying to punish him for neglecting her like he had and not being there for her when she needed him. Because he hadn't been there, because he still hadn't been willing to be a husband, Mai had decided that he wouldn't want to be a father either. In fact, she probably thought a child might scare him away from her entirely. So she had aborted it.
Not once, but twice Mai had found herself with child and he hadn't been around to support her, to help her. And not once, but twice she had chosen him, her negligent deadbeat of a lover over her child, a child she actually wanted. And that was what made Andy feel so guilty, whenever he thought about the two tiny statues just off the trail behind the dojo. Statues of Jizou Bodhisattva, Mizuko Jizou, the guardian of dead children… his dead children.
He paused on the trail and gazed down the path that led to the statues' resting place. Should he visit? He hadn't planned on paying his respects to them this morning; he hadn't brought any inscents or other offerings with him but still…
His feet seemed to make the decision for him, taking him down the path just a few feet before it dead-ended at two small stone statues that were no taller than his knees. Andy stood there for long moments, wondering what to do, if he should say anything. Could the dead even hear him?
Mai talked to them sometimes. He never actually saw her, she would leave when she heard him coming up the path, but he would hear her speaking to the statues, telling them what life would have been like had they been born, what techniques she would have taught them, places she would have taken them, just things they would have done together. Sometimes Andy heard himself mentioned but usually it was just Mai and her children. He understood her desire to exclude him, he was almost never there anyway, but it still hurt.
He used to be her whole world, now… Now he didn't know what he was to her.
'Just be with me… Just stay with me… don't go away.'
He wasn't. He wasn't going anywhere. He hadn't left since he made her that promise and he wasn't about to any time soon. And yet, she was distancing herself from him more and more each day. What was the point of his being here if she never even spoke to him?
"What does she want from me?" He asked aloud.
The statues gave no answer. They were stone and, in fact, could not speak. Andy stood there anyway, waiting. Expecting an answer in the form of a soft breeze, the shift of snow in the trees, a glimpse of some family of animals that lived in the mountains, anything that might give him the illusion of an answer.
Finally, he gave up when his feet grew cold. Andy cleared away some of the snow around the Jizou before heading back down the trail to the Shiranui dojo. Maybe if he was lucky he could walk in just in time to see Mai retreating after her breakfast.
…
It seemed every day it became harder and harder to drag herself out of bed. She would waken, her mind would be alert and ready to face the day, yet Mai just wouldn't get up. It felt like too much effort to roll off her futon and stand-up, to much effort to put on a robe (she didn't have to dress fully), to much effort to do anything.
She would lie awake in the mornings, silently scolding herself for being such a lazy-bones. She would make deals with herself, 'Alright, in another hour I'm gonna get up and start my day.' And she would always break them, 'Fine, in another hour I'll get up.'
It seemed nothing would dispel the cloud of depression that had settled over her. Not just her, it had settled over the entire Shiranui dojo. Andy had become 'laxed in his training, she'd never seen him go through his routines so hap-hazardly as he did now, like he didn't even care about furthering his art anymore. He didn't even follow his usual routine anymore.
Before, Andy would rise early and either do some calisthenics for a wile before breakfast or else jog a mile or two up in the mountains. But he did neither of those things anymore, now his morning routine was to go up to that little pond of his that he thought was so secret and just skate around. He could lie to himself and say he was practicing his Short Track but she knew him and she knew that he really only ever went up there when he was bothered by something that his standard meditations couldn't explain.
He was probably becoming frustrated, with his situation and with her. She had asked him to stay and he had promised he would, but his training was suffering for it. At this rate he would never be able to challenge his brother and that fact was probably driving him insane. But at the same time, he'd made a promise to her and was doing his best to keep it; he was torn between his obligation and his passion, both of which were equally important to him.
She should talk to him, show him that his sacrifice was appreciated, that she understood what he was giving up to be with her but she couldn't. She was so self-conscious around him now that she was nervous to just be in the same room with him. He must think she was horrible; he probably hated her now.
She heard the door to his room slid open. Even from down the hall she could hear his soft, stealthy steps in the silence of the winter morning. He paused outside her door, for what reason she didn't know. She thought for a moment he was going to barge in and demand that she talk to him, demand an explanation for her reclusive behavior after she had practically begged him to stay here to be with her. Mai pushed that thought aside and kept her breathing steady. Maybe if he thought she was still asleep he'd go away.
That seemed to be exactly what happened because Andy's padded steps soon continued down the hall to the entranceway where, after the sound of the door sliding open and shut again, all sound of him disappeared. Mai sighed in exasperation. What was she going to do with herself?
She couldn't keep avoiding Andy like she was but she didn't know what she would say to him. 'Thank you for staying, but now your presence here makes me sad.'? She couldn't say that aside from the fact that it wasn't entirely true, that would just destroy him. He had given up training to surpass his brother to be with her because she had asked. If she turned around and told him that he was just making her worse… she didn't know what he would do.
Besides, Andy wasn't the cause of her depression, not the real cause anyway. The source of her depression was her own damn guilt and loathing she felt for herself. It took the both of them to conceive a child yet it was she that had chosen to abort it, both times it had been her alone and Andy had never known. It was she that had asked Andy to stay with her instead of going away to train and now it was she that was making him suffer for her selfishness and her cowardice.
Mai rolled over on her futon and buried her face in her pillow.
"What a wretched woman I am!" She sobbed, her pillow muffling the sound.
Life hadn't always been this wrong. She remembered being happy once. So many years ago, back before Andy had first returned to South Town, back when he was still training to avenge his father's murder, back when they were still just kids. He had been her sparring partner, her schoolmate and her first real love. Now… they were like strangers to each other and it was all her doing, all her fault.
She cried into her pillow a bit more, cried until all her tears were gone, then she pushed herself up into a sitting position. The living still had to go on living 'all the appointed days', or so it said somewhere, in some book she had never read. She had to remind herself of this every morning, it seemed. She found she couldn't face the world if she didn't. She was still the master of the Shiranui dojo and while the school didn't have any students she was still responsible for the up-keep of the property.
Mai went to the bathroom to take care of her morning necessities; she tried to avoid making eye contact with her own reflection as she washed her hands. She didn't need to see her own hopelessness reflected back at her, her cheeks, a bright red from crying were enough. A hot shower drove the morning chill from her body but it couldn't penetrate down to the wellspring of her sorrow to wash away her pain, she was beginning to think that nothing could.
After the shower she wrapped herself in a heavy robe, she didn't feel like donning a full kimono and modern clothes made her feel like she was going out somewhere. The kitchen was empty when she entered, clean and scrubbed, as it had been the night before when she had gone to bed, showing no sign that Andy had been there. Of course, he hadn't been; the blond ninja preferred to do a light workout before breakfast, in the past he would either do some calisthenics or take a light jog, now it seemed he practiced the Short Track.
Mai set some water on the stove to boil for tea and measured some rice into the rice cooker, enough for two people. She hadn't had much of an appetite lately and didn't feel much like eating but she also didn't want to let this depression to make her waste away and so she forced herself to eat anyway. She was especially not going to let herself become one of those damn tragic heroines that die of a broken hearts! Such a thing would be ill fitting a Shiranui ninja and her grandfather would never allow King Ennma to send her to heaven because of it.
She sat at the kitchen table, listening to the clock over the stove tick the time away, the only sound in the whole room. So quiet was it that she jumped when the kettle whistled, causing her to pull out her fan and assume a defensive stance. She had become far too sensitive recently.
A pillar of steam was sent billowing up into the air as Mai poured the water into the teapot. She watched it turn from crystal clear to a light green before settling on brown. She placed the lid over it to seal in the heat and reclaimed her seat at the table. It seemed the simplest tasks had become so dramatic for her, like she was living in one of those daytime melodramas and just couldn't stop over-acting.
Mai heard the soft crunch of snow under foot just outside the kitchen door as she was finishing the bowl of rice she had determined to eat and knew that Andy was back. Not wanting to see him she left dish, food still in it at the table and left, pausing only to make sure that the tea was still hot for him before fleeing entirely.
He must have heard her steps because no sooner had she left the kitchen then his baritone voice called her name.
"Mai..?"
She didn't bother to respond, she didn't want to talk to him. She had nothing to say and too much to say. She couldn't face him anymore.
…
It was at this time that a rumor had spread through the province. Sightings of a creature up in the mountains that behaved like a monkey yet looked like a man. The figure was said to be one hundred and fifty-four centimeters tall, roughly five foot one and stayed close to the hot springs in the mountains. It often chased hikers and other visitors from the steaming springs and was reported to often be in the company of other monkeys.
Hikers, hunters, tourists and even the rangers were advised to be watchful of this creature while the authorities sought a more permanent solution.
…
