Snapshot
Cap'n Coree
1: Ruined
Naota leaned over the edge of the bridge, his eyes following the current of the river. Although the smog had long ago cleared, and now the sky lolled freely above their heads, all of its splendor finally revealed to the people bellow, Naota still only watched the ground. His eyes dragging across the litter and wreckage that no one seemed in a hurry to pick up.
He was seventeen years old, and it was his first day of his last summer vacation.
Like Haruko, Mamimi had left to pursue her own dreams. She was enrolled in a university a ways away, studying photography. She would be home soon for her own vacation, mostly to visit Naota, for whatever good it may do.
Only Ninamori remained to watch Naota despondently lean across the rail, looking for all the world like he might slip over the edge.
'You think he'd want to watch the sky, just in case..' Ninamori frowns, rising from her hidden perch among the grass and approached the sullen form.
"Naota," she called, waving her hand over her, "Naota!"
Only slightly his shoulders rose to acknowledge the greeting, as Ninamori took her place next to him. Determined, she swallowed the lump swelling in her throat and began the annual crusade against his growing apathy.
"So is this what you plan on doing with your vacation, Naota? Hanging around like a delinquent?" she intoned bossily, trying to ignite any emotion inside the sunken form. Again the shoulders rose and fell, without much commitment, the eyes still vacantly searching the ground for a fragment of something, anything.
"Well, let me tell you something, I am not just going to hang around on this bridge with you," she continued, looking away and up into the clear sky, almost hoping despite herself and her own wishes that a vespa would come speeding down towards the ground and lay them out flat. 'That would illicit some response', she thought bitterly. "Tomorrow, I figure it will be hot, I mean, it already is, but it's only going to get worse, so tomorrow we'll go to beach. We'll go swimming, yea? Maybe fishing to, do you still have you grandfathers rod?" Another shrug, "Well, i'll pack a picnic, and we'll bring our swimsuits and the rods, we'll make a day of it."
"Hmn." He raised his head and tilted to look at her, his eyes half closed against the sun, his head leaning towards the ground below. He looked, despite all the years that had passed, despite everything she had endeavored to do to change him, just like the twelve year old boy left in the rubble years ago. His eyes, following the matured contours of her face showed no affection or recognition, but almost a disinterested disappointment.
It didn't matter what girl approached him, batted her eyes at him, touched his arm suggestively, he regarded them all with the same absent eyes. If anything, she was lucky that she could illicit any response. The only one who could do better was Mamimi, and she was here less and less.
Ninamori couldn't blame her. She was getting older, she had her own life to consider. So now Ninamori was the only one left.
The only one left to try and put together the pieces broken by an attachment she couldn't understand.
'How could a childhood crush render someone so pathetic?' she thought, venomously searching the sky once more before her eyes dropped down to the river below where her own reflection stood, tense and anxious next to Naota's slumped form. Close, but never close enough. Her blurred face obscured by the waves, but the expression of want, disappointment and need still easily readable. She sighed, the lump springing back into her throat, and placed her hand o Naota's shoulder.