July the eleventh, 1980.
A Drosophila Siphonaptera flies its way towards the main course that a fat lady eats on the outside of a cheap restaurant, in the lower burroughs of Les Abrets, France.
It is immediately squashed by the garçon, causing the disgust of his client and her consequent leaving without a tip or paying.
Five minutes later, twenty three meters from there. Jean Loiret, a youth that is barely three days from turning 11, falls from the stair from which he had been voyeuring at Mrs. and Mr. Renardet, causing him, at the moment of impact against the floor, to slip from all consciousness from this day on till the day he finally turns 13.
Eighteen minutes later, three blocks and a half from there. In the middle of the act of lovemaking, and without their further notice and awareness, André and Michelle duLeille have conceived a child.
Nine months later, March 6th, a baby girl has been born. Michelle and André decide to give her a foreign name, cause of mockery between the street kids for the consequent fifteen years to come. This name is so special no one in France is capable of saying it, since it's not french.
They drop it and name her Michiru.
Michiru doesn't grow much; according to her father who had been a doctor in the Military many years ago, she suffers from the heart.
What Michiru suffers is her vegetables. Incapable of eating just one carrot, she never grew too much.
Michiru never goes to school because her father fears she will not endure the emotion; her mother teaches her everything she will ever have to know. The violin Michiru receives when she turns seven was never played until she turns nine; the paints her father buys her constantly dry up before she decides to use them. The books her mother shows her are quickly read and discarded.
Mother DuLeille dies in awkward situation when Michiru is 10. André never quite gets the grip of this and Michiru's education remains unfinished. The contact she has with her father crumbles and Michiru starts counting the days till she is old enough to leave home.
Michiru turns seventeen and leaves home. Her father barely notices since he's been trying to cope with himself for the last seven years by arranging his wife's garden. Michiru thinks it is his way to care for what Michelle left behind.
Michiru finds work and a place to live near the center of Les Abrets, in a decent café. She offers to play the violin for the clients, but Madame Lizette tells her it'll be better if she just serves the coffee. Michiru is not naive, as she may seem, and accepts the job.
That is Madame Lizette, the owner of the café. Nobody knows how really old she is. She smokes a lot, wears one curious bandana on the head that everybody thinks comes from Spain when it really comes from Portugal and never opens the café on time. She always reads the paper when she's not needed or nobody wants to gossip and will never boss Michiru since she likes very much the girl.
The blonde woman in the cigarette booth is Maddie. She is now installing an electrical fan to shoo away all the smoke from Madame Lizette's cigars. She is a hypocondriac; if she's not sick in the stomach, then she's got a migraine. She's nice to many people, but only when she's not sick, and it's been a while since she's healthy again. Maddie is famous for getting into almighty arguments with Madame Lizette about whether smoking is good or bad.
The brunnete serving the coffee is Ariel. She's younger than Michiru, but they're good friends. Ariel never gets into Madame Lizette's and Maddie's arguments, but if someone pushes her buttons they'll regret the day they first met her. Ariel's exboyfriend and actual stalker, Jean Johann, comes everyday to stalk her.
No, not that guy. The blonde guy is Milo, the writer. I meant the OTHER guy.
Yes, that one. Jean Johann broke up with Ariel, then realized he had made a mistake and Ariel never took him back, so he stalks Ariel. Michiru will drop his coffee into his lap every time he makes a stupid remark about women.
"Ow! Michiru, c'est la quinte fois!"*
Like now.
Michiru likes to do things in her free time. Many times they're just useless. Many times she never knows what drives her to do them. For example, she'll just sit in the roof of her building and count how many couples are having an orgasm right now in Les Abrets.
"Quinze."*
And just plainly having sex?
"Treinte et... deux."*
Michiru doesn't know she will have a life changing experience tomorrow at noon. She will notice she can do something to change everybody's miserable life just by doing things.
But she will only notice tomorrow.
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You know? My french can be quite bad.
Like I said in the summary, it's seeing a Michiru/Haruka romance in an Amelie (the movie) point of view. If you've seen the movie then you'll know what am I talking about. If not, then you will just plainly read it.
If you liked the first chapter, then I'm doing the other ones. But I wanted to know if you liked it; please review if you do!
*C'est la quinte fois!: It's the fifth time!
*Quinze: Fifteen.
*Treinte et deux: Thirty-two.