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(I love how gentle you are)
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elderberry blossom
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Tsurumi Chiriko has too many notebooks. She has one for each school subject (two for Geography, though, because she loathes not knowing things with a passion, and Geography doesn't come easily for her), one for cooking recipes, one for Reviews for Great Books and Movies, and one that has the word people written on its first page.
The notebooks she buys are not very cheap; from an impartial point of view, they could even be called extraordinarily expensive for some bound paper, but she treasures them dearly, loves the feeling of the soft cover beneath her fingers, the scratching of pen on paper in comparison to the soft movements with a 2B pencil.
Contrary to popular belief, she doesn't always read in one of her notebooks for the sake of studying. Tsuruko doesn't think anyone knows what's in them—she doesn't expect them to.
(If someone asked, she would answer truthfully.)
She knows what her classmates say about her (is it even mildly surprising that she is known as that obnoxious girl that clings to Matsuyuki-kun, or the rigid glasses girl?) or what her teachers think about her (expressionless student who never raises her hand but knows it all).
Most of all, she knows herself (her heart, her mind, her strengths, but above all: her flaws) and her truth is very easy:
She is too intelligent to not love.
Being human is, cliché as it sounds, being flawed. Is regretting, doing wrong, is trying: to better oneself, to forgive, to learn.
So she sees her female classmates for what they are: Gossiping, idle girls who try to hurt her for a boy who won't ever care—insecure girls-not-yet-women who want nothing but happiness and don't understand that dreaming won't help getting it.
I love how gentle you are.
With Menma, everything was about love. Menma was light, and strength in softness, and a high-pitched voice that sounded like a glockenspiel, and the smell of summer. Menma never saw things the way they were—always better.
The truth would be that gentleness is not a concept Tsuruko is familiar with.
People around her tend to think of her as a straight-forward kind of person, one who doesn't really care about feelings, only about facts.
Gentle? Someone like Tsurumi? It's not happening in their heads.
Tsuruko sighs as she puts her people notebook on her bedside table and removes her glasses.
She tries to be honest with herself—it's something that sounds easier than it really is—and she tries to be honest with the people around her as well, because, really, sugar-coating does not and will never help with anything. She sees flaws and weaknesses and acknowledges them. It doesn't mean that they're meant to be erased or improved—it only means nobody's perfect and I'm fine with that.
(So, well, if seeing the things people do wrong and telling people that they're wrong and still accepting people despite it and maybe even because of it can be defined as gentleness, then, yes, she could be gentle. Still, it's a far, far stretch of the word, and she only accepts the words that could be lies because Menma wrote them and Menma meant them and she loves Menma very much.)
—
He can't help himself, Tsuruko decides, and sighs. She picks up her spectacles and frowns at her reflection in the broken glasses.
"Leave her alone," Yukiatsu says, face blank and voice uncaring. She sighs again, because, really, he's such a boy. How could he understand the complexity of pubescent girls?
"But Matsuyuki-kun …!"
For a moment he looks them in the eyes—before he turns around and she can hear the shuffling of feet and the sobbing and muttering. She doesn't need her weak eyes to know exactly what kind of expression he shows.
"Don't mess around, Yukiatsu," she orders plainly, hand curled protectively over her broken spectacles. He presumably cocks an eyebrow now, and it's rather clear that he has no clue what he does to her (and her social standing) on a daily basis.
"Baka," she adds for good measure and forgives him for being one.
(It's just that she can't help herself either.)
—
It's funny how people look at her when she doesn't wear her glasses. They probably think that she doesn't notice the stares but she is Tsurumi Chiriko and she is never and will never be caught off guard. (Never again.) During lunch break, while no one looks, she puts her spare contact lenses in (which nobody knows about, presumably) and smiles (only a little bitter) because no one asks her if she needs help with reading the board before the lesson starts.
She knows that she looks cuter without them. It's not even that she finds contact lenses that uncomfortable—she just doesn't care how she looks, not really.
(In the end, there is just one boy whose opinion counts and he never liked her better without glasses. It's more of: He never liked her, period. No, she isn't cynic. She's just honest.)
—
Are the Super Peace Busters really friends anymore?, Tsuruko writes down in her people notebook while watching Yukiatsu out of the corner of her eyes. Since she tries not to lie, especially not in her notebooks, she continues: Were they ever friends? She hesitates for a moment, then scribbles down in almost illegible writing: Being friends is exhausting.
The scenery blurs through the windows of the train. Yukiatsu sits with a boy from their class today, and talks with him in that superficial, defining way of his. The classmate's name is Koichi Something-kun and he seems nice enough. Yukiatsu's always got luck with his science project partner.
While they continue talking about—what is it? Universities? Soccer?—she notes:
Yukiatsu will never not be in love with Menma.
—
There are days when she almost hates Honma Meiko for that, for her ability to hold the love of people so easily, so effortlessly, even in her death—but today is not one of these. She remembers Menma's smile: like the bright sun, like the sound of cicadas on a summer night, like the taste of elderflower syrup, and she just cannot help but love Menma, too.
The thought is so simple and straight-forward that it doesn't even hurt.
—
Tsuruko wonders if she will ever be in love with someone else.
It's a thought that never truly leaves her. It is hardly ever in the front of her mind—but it hovers, just like that little, lovely girl with the tinkling laugh—like the blurring edges of her sight where her glasses end. Something she knows but doesn't really want to acknowledge because it makes her feeling weaker, more vulnerable to do so.
She thinks about it more intensely whenever she is around the Super Peace Busters because the boy she fell in love with a decade ago is never more vivid than when he is seen by the eyes of them—never more brilliant in his ugliness or beauty.
She thinks about it more intensely then, because she thinks she could fall in love again—if it is so easy to love them even when it hurts with every step, and breath, and word–… then that other kind of love (the kind of love where you want to marry) should be easy (even easier), too, right?
—
One day (exactly six months after We found you) after school, she finds dozens of drawing pins in her outdoor shoes.
It is such a petty gesture, Tsuruko thinks. It is such a petty gesture, and it hits the bull's-eye.
She doesn't cry. She throws them in the closest trash bin, listens to the tinkle, puts her shoes on, and leaves the school building.
Tsuruko doesn't believe in a sixth sense (not even after everything, not really), which is why she doesn't have a reason for turning around the moment she does. She finds herself looking into Yukiatsu's eyes. His brow is knitted, and he looks almost frustrated for her—like because she doesn't like to show her feelings openly, he will do it for her, that chivalrous bastard.
She raises one eyebrow at him and turns around again.
She doesn't let herself have any romantic illusions.
—
Some days are better than others.
Some days, she goes to their past selves secret base and finds Poppo, sprawled on the couch, munching vegetable sticks and slurping unsweetened fruit tea, and she wastes a whole afternoon with him, rereading old Dragonball (and yes, guilty pleasure: Sailor Moon) manga volumes instead of studying—only that Poppo would never call it "wasting time" and that Tsuruko can't quite argue against that when she sees the world with his eyes.
Some days, Jintan and she take walks, like they always did, and they call it 'round-walking' because that is what they do. Walking rounds. In the shopping district, in the woods, through neighbourhoods—they always go in circles, and it is comfortable and, just, their thing, theirs alone.
Some days, she speaks with Anaru and can accept the fear that still lingers inside her, accept it and conquer it, even when it's just an hour and twenty minutes.
Some days, she doesn't mind so much that she is in love with Yukiatsu, that she isn't pretty, that she feels fragile and shattered and imperfect.
Then, she smiles without reason, hums under her breath while buying herself a pretty hairpin, twirls her umbrella a little bit—and lets herself hope for something beautiful.
—
(Some days, she follows the rules she sets for others and accepts that she is only human.)
notes: Elderberry blossoms mean humility and kindness in flower language :)
Also, in summer, you can go practically everywhere (at least in middle Europe … ^_^) and pluck some elderberry blossoms/elderflowers to make some delicious, delicious syrup from the blossoms. It tastes divine, so if you find a shrub, go for it! It's really easy :)
Reviews and constructive criticism would be forever loved. Since English is not my mother tongue, anyone pointing out things done wrong like grammar and/or idioms will be a part of the first to get cake via internet (whenever that happens). I'm always trying to improve, and any kind of input is really helpful :)
A disclaimer is on my profile.
Love,
– bells
PS: Before I forget it: this will hopefully be the first of six oneshots, each one concentrating on one of the Super Peace Busters in the aftermath of Menma's death :) They will be connected, somehow which is why I wanted to say it here.