SHE
RAN
There is a tenderness in the way her fingers lightly skim over the glass, her eyes intently focused on the swirls of gold and black, and yet glazed over in the unspoken memory of something young and lost. She takes a breath and turns to the small girl beside her staring curiously at the painting, a red lollipop tightly grasped in her small, sticky fingers.
"What do you think?"
"The painting?"
The woman with the dark, long hair and soft smile nods and the girl turns once more towards the exhibit, biting her pink lip with a red-stained tooth.
"What is it?" she asks after a moment's pause, and the woman laughs, her lips finding the girl's wide forehead and her slender hand taking a chubby wrist.
"It's Mommy's favorite painting…the one Auntie Witch entrusted to me. Remember? Come on, you do, don't you?"
The girl silently licks her lollipop and says nothing, her wide eyes taking her surroundings- the high arched ceiling, the marble steps, the quiet onlookers who stare at the paintings the same way her mother did, but without a longing in their gazes.
"Will you work on it?"
"I don't need to right now. Its condition is fine, but there are so many others I need to get around to finishing. I have a pile in my office and there's such little time."
"How come?"
"Well there isn't that little, I just want to take a break for the summer," she smiles sheepishly and the girl senses she is somehow responsible for her mother's supposed wish for leave. The woman pushes her hair back, her bangles clinking softly against each other, a pearl earring swaying back and forth. She gestures for them to walk on, and they leave the painting behind the glass.
"Take a break." The girl responds with a tilt of her head and a hurried skip to stay beside her mother who has fallen quiet and now is pondering what she should do next, her grip on her daughter's hand firm.
"Is that- the painting- Daddy's favorite, too?" Her breath quickens as they skip up the stairs, and then she laughs when her mother twirls her around, eyes bright as she smiles and spins with the small girl.
"Shouldn't you ask him that?"
"He comes too late sometimes. And I forget." She is mumbling now and the woman's smile and step falter, though her hold on the girl seems to tighten. "But you never forget anything so…"
"So I should ask him?" The woman offers an amused smile, her hair flowing behind her before she comes to an abrupt stop, pausing at an office door to take the envelopes in the metal folder hanging just below the narrow door window. She lets go of her daughter's hand and they turn around, walking slower now as her eyes rapidly scan address stickers and dates.
The girl suddenly drops her lollipop with a gasp, her face flushing, and she bends down to pick it up but her mother catches sight and rushes to brush her hands away, startled. The girl pouts and looks at her imploringly but her mother shakes her head in disapproval. They walk to the exit without exchanging another word but the woman slips a lollipop from the front desk's round plate on the side and hands it to her grinning daughter with a wink as the automatic doors slide open.
The girl casts one look over her shoulder but she cannot see the painting and her shoulders slump ever so slightly.
"Mommy."
"Hm?"
The woman twists faded numbers from a combination lock and straps the girl in the backseat, buckling the belt, checking the sides, and then mounting the slim bicycle. The girl does not say anything until they have crossed a few blocks, past the other wings of the art museum, past the park, past the neighborhood where she can see her friends' houses. Then she asks but lowers her eyes, feeling nervous and unsettled and even intrusive.
"Can I take care of the painting, too?"
"You want to?"
Her mother's reply is immediate and excited and for one moment the girl feels as if the bike has melted away and they are flying on air. She can feel her mother's smile.
"Yeah!" She chirps, beaming with enthusiasm, and her mother laughs.
"You want to be an art restorer, too?"
"Sure." She shrugs and looks at her mother's back as if she is conversing as they regularly do, when they both directly meet each other's eyes.
"Not a doctor like Daddy?"
"He works too much," she says after a pause, repeating her mother's frequent complaint when her father knocks on the door, entering with his customary slouch and tired wave at her welcome back yell.
"Yumi."
"You say so all the time!"
"I do, don't I?"
"Yes you do."
Her mother laughs again, and the girl doesn't know why, but today her mother's happiness is open to the point where the lollipop is no longer as sweet and this is a surprise because her mother's sense of humor is usually never contagious.
"You sound very much like him." Her daughter blushes with pride.
They reach their house, slowing to a stop, and then with her envelopes and bag and an insistent child in her arms, the woman walks to the door and finds it already open.
"Kousuke?" She calls, setting the girl down, slipping off her shoes, and casting her purse and letters onto the table on the side of the hallway.
"Here."
"How long have you been waiting?" She finds him in the living room and asks, the question echoing for a moment as he smiles, eyebrows raised.
The television screen's light flickers on his face, the news program hushed by a tap on the remote. He is sitting on the couch, his eyes weary and his face drawn but he blinks in surprise when the girl peers around her mother and runs towards him, arms outstretched.
"Guess what? She wants to be an art restorer, too." The woman says the moment their daughter's face buries into his shirt and his hand eagerly ruffles her short black hair. He looks up and sees the woman, a light smile on her lips, nod at him, arms crossing and her bangles ring softly again.
"A Picture of White Plum and Camellia and Chrysanthemum."
The girl looks up, the question clear on her young, pale face.
"That's her favorite painting. She probably showed it to you, right?" Her father says with a suppressed yawn.
"Yeah! How'd you guess?"
"Your mother is not very hard to figure out," he answers, pointedly ignoring the woman's glare. "Neither is the reason she chose to show the painting to you."
"Hey now!" the woman replies, her glare now a scowl and the girl laughs because her father looks only at her and knows not to look at her mother.
"You liked it that much? You were convinced just by seeing this 'A Picture of White Plum and Camellia and Chrysanthemum?'"
"That's such a long name!" The girl says, annoyed, but her mother has beckoned her father over with a stern frown and they talk quietly, their whispers in harmony with the singing cicadas and swaying wind chimes and the grass waving at her in the wind.
She stares out the window and does not notice that her parents have ceased their discussion and now move into the kitchen where the woman opens a package of curry and the man hands her a mixing bowl.
"Hey Daddy!"
He raises the volume of the television and glances up and sees his daughter perched on the edge of a cushion, her eyes shining with a light not from the summer sun.
"Is it your favorite painting, too?"
And then she feels it- the way her mother turns, eyes lit- how her father stares at her without speaking- and she can feel another summer slip into the room, with a fragrance like baseball and bikes and cicadas and paper and karaoke and something else, something foreign and mysterious.
"Yes." He smiles. "It's our favorite."
He then keeps his eye on the woman at his side measuring out the curry, a little too much, turning on the stove, a little too high, setting out the vegetables, some unneeded, refusing to look at him. Finally she turns, sees him smiling and sighs. She whispers and the child finds that her eyes look just as they did in the reflection of the glass in the museum.
But she does not hear the words because she hears laughter.
It does not come from the street or the patio of their neighbors or the television.
It is quiet and restrained but she hears it and stares at the space between her mother and father.
For a moment she imagines another person, sitting at the table, gazing at her between her parents, laughing as the father shakes his head and the mother grins in delight. Then it's gone and she can only hear the trills of birds and her mother's hum as she prepares dinner.
A/N:
So I watched "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" recently and realized just how beautiful the movie truly is. I didn't realize how integral romance was in the story until watching it again in English, and the unique love triangle made that fact even more impressive. There was no angst or drama aside from Makoto's insecurities about dating either Kousuke or Chiaki, and there was such a refreshing bond of trust and unsuspecting love.
And so even though I, just like like almost every other viewer, wanted Chiaki to stay, I love that he became her motivation to move on and look towards the future. I suspect his last line doesn't really mean they'll meet again unfortunately, but I saw it as his hope that her work to preserve the painting would reach him.
As for this pairing, I totally saw Kousuke having the usual big-brother-but-likes-her-secretly type of crush and Maho was much too quiet and dependent for me to see them together. So this story is my take on what happened after Makoto thanked Kousuke for always waiting and promising to tell him her secrets later on. It's bittersweet but we can at least be thankful Chiaki came to their era, befriended them, and gave them the opportunity to move ahead in life.
Thank you for reading the fic, I hope you leave a review!