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caroandlyn
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i think i have known autumn too long(and what have you to say, wind)
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000—Before the Storm
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In the beginning, it's just him and Tatsuya, two unwanted children from an orphanage nobody really seems to cares for, and so when it closes, they find themselves homeless, jobless, with nothing but the hand-me-down clothes on their back. He's twelve years old and Tatsuya's fourteen, and they've been living on the streets for a month, stealing to sustain themselves and their needy bodies, when Alex comes and swoops them up and away, water to the dying man, a lonely, poverty-stricken widow looking for money and work, and company would be nice too, thank you very much.
(And so then it's him and Tatsuya and Alex, and Kagami thinks maybe, maybe, maybe, this might be what a family feels like.)
Alex purchases a decrepit apartment building down South Avenue, the only one affordable with her small salary as a professional basketball coach. Life isn't always sunshine and rainbows after they move in with her—not even close—but if there's anything Kagami's learned in the orphanage, there's a reason why dreams are called dreams. Besides, he doesn't expect much out of his life, not when the neighborhood he's probably going to live the rest of his years in is nicknamed "Death Alley" and has a higher mortality rate than the entirety of the surrounding areas combined.
But he learns. And he adapts. He wears clothes that don't attract attention, takes the longer route to school so that he'll pass through the crowds. Keeps his head down, like how he did so the orphanage matron would never pick on him to do chores. Alex teases him, flicking his nose playfully. "I should call you Tiger," she says, and laughs as he ducks his head out of the way, "seeing how a tiger's everything you're not."
He scowls at her. "I'm fierce, too," he says stubbornly, making a face, but it only seems to make her laugh harder. She's pretty when she laughs, the afternoon light reflecting against the plastic lens of the fake red glasses she had bought from the dollar store, illuminating her blue eyes, creating a halo of her blonde hair. Kagami doesn't he realize he's staring until the blood rushes to his cheeks, and he hurriedly turns away. No need to give her anything else to laugh at him about.
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Tatsuya comes home late again. He always does, lately. Alex yells at him this time, hands on her hips, fury on her face. Her words are garbled and unclear, and for a moment Kagami doubts she's speaking English at all. Tatsuya shouts back, his face flushed angrily, and for the first time in what seems to be forever there is outrage in his eyes. He slams one giant fist against the wall, and the entire building shakes with the impact.
Kagami hides inside the linen closet, hands covering his ears, until the screaming stops. When he comes out, Tatsuya is gone, and Alex is crying by herself in a corner.
"Kagami?" she asks, when she sees him, and there is shaken relief in her voice as she grabs him tight to her chest. "Oh, thank goodness, you're still here. I thought... I thought he took you with him." She breathes shakily inwards, stifling a sob, and ruffles a large hand through his hair. "Promise me... promise me you won't leave me, Kagami," she says, and her grip is uncomfortably tight.
"I promise," he says, the words slipping off his tongue effortlessly. (He wonders if this is what it feels like to lie.) She does not release him after he talks, and he squirms in her hold. "Alex, you're hurting me. Where's Tatsuya?"
Alex stills. "He... he left," she whispers, and her voice is like broken glass, raspy and hoarse. She gives a strained smile behind her fake plastic lenses. "Tatsuya is gone. He's... he's not here anymore."
"Where did he go to, then?" he asks, looking perplexedly at her. "Alex, please don't lie to me so that you don't hurt my feelings, I'm not a kid anymore—when will Tatsuya come back?"
There is a tense silence that seems to stretch upon the span of decades, centuries, millennia—"...Never," Alex says, slowly, quietly. "He told me he'll never come back to here. He said that he never wanted to see my face ever again. Kagami, I'm really sorry, but—the truth is, Tatsuya's not coming back."
Kagami's carefully constructed world shatters into pieces.
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He's thirteen and a half, now, and slowly the gap where Tatsuya used to be becomes smaller, painstakingly stitched closed by Alex's steady hand. She makes an effort to spoil him rotten in the precious few hours they can spend together, teaching him street basketball on Sunday afternoons, taking him out to ice cream whenever he gets a C+ or higher on a test.
(Sometimes, Kagami closes his eyes and forgets he ever had a brother in the first place.)
So they're walking down the street, both licking bright red cherry ice-pops to celebrate his first-ever A on a math test, when the shooting starts. There's a sudden sound—loud, like the popping of a thousand balloons at once, or one hundred people clapping synchronously in an auditorium—and then the smoke appears, tendrils of grey and white curling all over the road before reaching for the sky.
They see the corpse before they see the killer. It is a man, burly, blonde-haired, blue-eyed. His expression is frozen forever in time: shock, fear, and acknowledgement of his impending doom. The bullet is lodged deeply within his chest, macabre splotches of red dotting the fatal wound, and it is a scene so morbidly beautiful Kagami can only stop and stare, his terror forgotten.
"Kagami!" Alex whispers hurriedly, pulling on his arm. "We need to get out of here." She takes him by surprise, and the ice pop drops to the ground, splattering with the impact.
He doesn't move even when she's half-dragging him away from the scene, too transfixed at the sight of the man—no, still a boy—who stands on the other side of the street, staring grimly at the body with his fingers still on the gun trigger. Messy black hair, one forbidding onyx eye. Kagami's lips move unconsciously, forming a word he hasn't said for almost half a year:
"Tatsuya."
Alex stops in place. She turns, and Kagami can see the fear in her eyes, but there is also anger. Regret. Longing. Sadness. "Tatsuya?" she says softly, her words not quite a question but not a statement either. She extends one slender white arm in the direction of the murder, as if in a trance, and then, before Kagami can stop her, she is running back, battered sneakers against rough cement flooring stained with crimson.
"Alex!" Kagami yells, running after her as fast as his legs can carry him. Her hair flies in the air when she runs, like the glossy mane of a horse, and he thinks she has never looked as beautiful in the afternoon sunlight. "Stop! Come back! It's dangerous!"
Tatsuya inevitably turns toward them, a lone figure in the dying light, and his single eye betrays his shock. "What are you doing here," he hisses loudly to Alex, his tone poisonously smooth. "Get out of here, and take Kagami with you. This is no place for women and children." He cocks the gun in his hand, glaring at them. "Or else I'll shoot."
"Go ahead," Alex challenges, charging forward. "Did you have a good six months without us, hanging out with your homies?" Her tone is mocking, filled with bitterness. "You leave for fucking half a year, and the next time we see you you're a fucking murderer. You're the worst of the trash out there, Tatsuya, you really are. I don't know what I ever saw in you."
"I told you I never wanted to see your face ever again," Tatsuya counters, his voice filled with rage. "You're nothing but a worthless busy-body, sticking your nose in everybody else's shit. You even brainwashed Kagami to follow your fucking ways, you bitch."
"Shut up!" Alex screams, and Kagami is thirteen again, hiding inside the closet while a war rages outside. She runs forward (and away from Kagami—why, why was it always Tatsuya? Why wasn't it him?), and Tatsuya tenses, pointing his gun in her direction.
"I told you, get out of here!" he yells, voice hoarse, and then there is the ugly sound of a gunshot—only, it isn't Tatsuya who shoots.
Kagami watches in horrified, morbid fascination as Alex falls to the ground, like how Icarus, on his melting wax wings, fell from the sky. She collapses to the ground, still, a puppet cut from its strings, and something in his brain numbly processes that she will never rise again.
"You... bastard," says a black-haired woman, standing over the corpse of the dead man. She holds a gun, still smoking from the shot, with trembling fingers, and drops to her knees limply, all her strength gone. "I... I loved him, you bastard. And you... why did you kill him? What did he ever do to you?" She sobs, tears falling from her face and onto the cement. "Why did she protect you? Why aren't you dead yet? You're nothing but a dirty murderer. You deserve to rot in hell."
Kagami stares at this woman—sheshotAlexohgodsheshotAlex—and can only see a reflection of himself. "...Alex?" he says quietly, and looks at the limp body, the askew red plastic glasses. "This isn't funny. Alex, get up. You said it yourself, didn't you? The floor's dirty. Don't just lie there."
"She's not going to wake up," says Tatsuya, and his own face is pale with grief. "Alex is dead, Kagami."
"Why..." he croaks out, and to his horror, he finds that his own eyes are tearing up. "Why is Alex dead? Why isn't it you?" The words come out of his mouth, and he finds that he cannot stop. "Why does God hate us so much? Torment us so much?"
"I'm sorry," says Tatsuya, and he moves closer to Kagami (and further away from Alex). "I'm sorry—"
"Don't touch me," Kagami says coldly, and his voice hitches as he speaks. "Don't touch me, you scum. Bastard. Alex's dead, she died protecting you, and that's all you can say? She died, thinking you hated her! Why did you leave her? Why did you leave me?"
"I'm sorry," Tatsuya says, like a mantra. "I'm sorry I'm not the one who's dead. I'm sorry. I'm a horrible older brother, aren't I—"
"The worst of the worst," says Kagami dryly, and hiccups. "Why can't I hate you? You're the reason Alex is dead. I should hate you. Despise you. So why can't I hate you?"
"I'm sorry," repeats Tatsuya. He wraps two large arms around Kagami, and Kagami doesn't try to resist. "I'm sorry."
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And in the end, once again, it's just Tatsuya and Kagami, living on the streets, with nothing to call their own except each other, only this time there's no lonely, poverty-stricken widow to save them, to drag them out of the hellhole known as reality. They are two boys aged far beyond their years, wrought with the sorrows of life, and they are alone.
They hold Alex's funeral three days after the shooting. A sympathetic policeman pays for the grave, and Tatsuya has it carved to read in large cursive letters: amor vincit omnia; Love Conquers All. Kagami thinks Alex would have liked it.
He sets a single yellow rose beside the tombstone when nobody is there, stolen from the florist's shop with deft fingers. The next time he visits the grave, the rose is gone.
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"I'm leaving for Japan," says Tatsuya one day when he comes into the cardboard shock he and Kagami call home. "I'll be gone by next Wednesday."
"What?" asks Kagami, looking up from the battered copy of The Snow Queen; and Other Fairy Tales he had rescued from the dumpsters earlier that week. "You're going where?"
"Japan," Tatsuya repeats, as if he were talking about the next town over and not an entire country across from the Pacific Ocean. "I got talent scouted by a manager of Yosen Productions. They want me to become an idol in Akita."
Kagami's mouth feels dry. "You're... leaving?" he says quietly, and the me in the sentence is not said but implied.
Tatsuya blinks. "No, not like that," he says, his one eye opening in realization. "I have a... friend, who said that she was willing to take you in while I'm gone. And I'll be sending you money. You'll finally be able to buy the basketball you wanted so much from the Dollar Store."
"I don't want any of that," Kagami mumbles, so quietly that he cannot hear what he himself is saying. "I just want you to stay."
"What was that?" Tatsuya says, ruffling his hair good-naturedly. "Sorry, I didn't hear you."
"Nothing," Kagami says, and turns away. "Nothing at all."
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Kagami wakes up to a ghost.
There is a woman, black-haired, onyx-eyed, beautiful, who looks at him quietly from his bedside. He recognizes her from somewhere, some place, and then just when the answer is on the tip of his tongue reality hits him harder than a half-ton of bricks—this is the vengeful widow who had shot at Tatsuya and missed. This is the woman who killed Alex—
This is the woman who ruined his life.
He opens his mouth to scream, to shout—are you going to kill me too? Like how you killed her?—but she makes a quieting motion with her hands, and he freezes. Her eyelids are rimmed with red, and if he looks carefully, there are deep circles under her eyes, unable to be hidden no matter how much makeup she wears to cover them. She looks tired, desperate. Like she hasn't slept in days, maybe weeks.
"Hello," she says, and smiles half-heartedly. "I know you must hate me, for killing who you love. But hear me out first, please."
His mouth feels dry. "Oh," he says, and blinks away the tears that are threatening to build up. "What... what do you want to tell me?"
"I am sorry," says the woman quietly, and her smile is self-decrepitating, "for killing her. My anger possessed me after the death of my lover, and I shot blindly. I was not within reason at the time—"
"I know," says Kagami, and inside his anger rages murderously at her offered excuses—why can't you just say it's your fault you stupid murderer—but he presses it down into the deepest corners of his mind. "You were sad at the time, and you couldn't help it. I get it. But how did you get in here?"
She stares at him, as if shocked by his sudden acceptance. "Oh... er," she flusters, blushing, her speech speeding up with her awkwardness, "the reason I am watching you while you sleep much like a psychopathic serial killer from one of those rather dull detective reality television shows is because Tatsuya told me to watch over you while he works in Japan. My name is Masako Araki." She holds out her hand, extending five badly bruised fingers.
"I'm Kagami," he replies. He does not take her offered hand, choosing to watch it warily, instead.
"Kagami," says Masako thoughtfully. She does not seem unruffled by his blatant distrust of her. "That is a nice name, indeed. Do you have a last name?"
He remembers Alex's hand on his hair, ruffling it playfully while he squirms underneath. I should call you Tiger, she said, seeing a tiger's everything you're not. She had laughed, a soft tinkling sound. He liked her laughter. It reminded him of bells, tinkling in the wind. She had stopped laughing after Tatsuya had left them, only giving an occasional smile, and he found that he missed it.
"Kagami is my last name," Kagami says, and bares his teeth. "My first name is Taiga."
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Masako lives in one of the more expensive apartments in the neighborhood, a high-rise suite that gives a full scenic view of the surrounding areas. Kagami is given his own room, complete with adjoined bathroom and closet, and sleeps on a bed for the first time in months.
"Do you wish to see how Tatsuya's doing, Taiga?" Masako asks one day over breakfast cautiously—omelet with ham, a far cry from the usual canned peas one day over their expiration date—looking at Kagami questionably. "I have a video of him from overseas. He got a role in a movie for his debut in the big screens, if you are interested in that sort of thing."
"Yes, I do," says Kagami, and pauses eating. "Can we see it now?"
Masako shrugs almost nonchalantly, producing a disc from the black purse she always seems to carry by her side. "It is in Japanese, so you might not understand it," she says, showing it to him. "It is called Hana no Ojou, or Flower Princess. It has been a pretty successful movie so far in the Japanese Box Office, but there is nothing too record-setting about it."
"I can speak Japanese perfectly well," says Kagami, slightly affronted. "I'm half Japanese, can't you tell by the name? My mum was Irish, and she divorced my dad when I was five after he was caught having an affair with another woman. Then she abandoned me in the nearest orphanage, because she didn't want any reminder of that cheating bastard."
"Oh," says Masako, surprised. She makes an uncomfortable face. "I am very sorry for prying."
"Don't be," Kagami says, slightly impatient. "I'm used to it. Can we just watch the video, please?"
"Of course," she answers, sliding the disc into the disc-player. Pressing a few buttons on the remote control, the television screen whirs to life, glowing a bright blue before settling down to a lower resolution. "But before we start, I must warn you that Japanese movies are very much different from American ones. There are a lot of things generally accepted in Japanese films directed towards teens that would not be conventional in Western features. Do you think you are ready for such things?"
"Yes," he says confidently, "I am."
"Suit yourself," Masako says, pressing the play button. And then, with a sudden burst of impulsiveness out from nowhere, she adds on, "Now be quiet, and watch."
And Kagami does.
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But it turns out Masako is right after all—Kagami doesn't understand much of the movie, especially after nine years of speaking solely English. The language barrier has a large impact on his viewing experience; without the understanding of what a native speaker might have, to him the acting is too choppy, the lighting too poor, and, when the credits start roll in, all he can think about is how on Earth such a poorly-filmed movie had managed to gather such acclaimed ratings.
"How was it?" Masako asks, yawning and stretching out a crick in her neck well after the movie has fanished. "Did you like it?"
"It was okay," Kagami says neutrally, carefully selecting his words. "Tatsuya had such a small part, though. He was only onscreen for five minutes!"
"Still, you should be grateful he was not casted as an extra," she answers, leaning back onto the couch. "And please do not attempt to lie in front of me, Kagami. I can tell you that you did not enjoy the movie at all, it is written all over your face. This was not to be an unexpected outcome, however—that was only an amateur film, after all. If you wish, I can show you the work of true professionals."
From the black bag she fishes out yet another DVD case, this one encased in a metal case and looking rather intimidating, like the design of a heavy rock band album. On the cover there are white English letters that spell out GLITTER DAYS in obnoxiously large block font, and right away Kagami can tell that this is a different type of film than Hana no Ojou.
"This is the latest movie by the Kiseki no Sedai, the largest idol group in all of Japan. It is a completely different level than the earlier film," Masako explains, loading the disc into the tray. "I think you will enjoy this—this is the true world of Japan's professionals." She clicks the play button again, tossing the empty case carelessly on top of the disc player. It clatters menancingly on top of the plastic machinery, and briefly Kagami wonders how heavy this case must be, and how much money this idol group must have to mass-produce multiple copies of this container.
The movie starts off not unlike how Hana no Ojou had did—with a narrator talking in a drab, precise voice, and the camera panning out into the scene panoramically. But the first glaring indication of the differences between the two films is when the protagonist is introduced, and suddenly Kagami forgets how to breathe.
Because all he can think now is: beautiful. The teen on the monitor—perhaps his age, maybe younger—is perfect, stunningly so, and moves with a fluid grace like water rushing down a waterfall, or wind rustling through the leaves in autumn. The sunlight streams through his blue hair, creating a halo of golden light, and briefly Kagami thinks if heaven truly exists, this must be an angel.
"Who—who is he?" he asks, and stares, rendered otherwise incapable of speech.
Masako cracks a small smile. "That is Kuroko Tetsuya," she says warmly, as if amused by his reaction. "He is a prodigy actor, as well as one of the most famous idols in Japanese history. A pretty thing, is he not?"
Kagami does not answer her. All that is on his mind at the current moment is: I want to meet him.
And then: I want to be like him.
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