14AmyChan: Just a Mother's Day thing
Mai: We thank the mothers who brought us into the world and taught us to be kind.
14AmyChan: For Mai, she had her parents for only a short while, but they still taught her to be the amazing girl that everyone knows and loves. *^_^*
Mai: 14AmyChan does not own Ghost Hunt.
It was an adequate morning, neither too hot nor too cold. It was not too blustery nor was it dry as a bone. It was going to be a wonderful day.
At least, that is exactly what Mai Taniyama told herself as she stood in her kitchen about an hour prior to sunup. Her pixie length hair was tossed and tussled in all directions and her eyes were laden with sleep. Still, she worked the cutting board like a dream and was currently preparing some sort of meal. Given that she had eaten a few moments prior to us entering into this scene, one can discern that this meal was not to be her breakfast.
As she chopped, the girl was humming a bright tune, slowly waking her up with its eclectic notes. As soon as her chopping was completed, she placed the food into a pot, pre-filled with boiling water and a few other choice ingredients. Mai covered the pot and set it to simmer as she walked around the kitchen, rubbing her eyes and promptly making a kettle of tea, far too much for one person to drink alone.
While she left the edible content on the stove to continue heating, Mai left the kitchen and walked to her room—conveniently only a room away from the kitchen—to change. She ended up choosing a pair of nice khaki shorts, a pink tank top, and a light tan jacket to keep herself warm in the morning hours. She chose tennis shoes of a nice green shade to keep her feet warm when she eventually left the comfort of her own home.
Hearing the kettle shriek, Mai made haste towards the kitchen once again, silencing the tea. She poured the liquid into three canisters, and then proceeded to finish the soup she was creating. She poured those into three separate bowls with attachable lids and gathered up three sets of chopsticks. By now, she had woken up a fair amount and was humming energetically, as though truly excited to go on whatever adventure lay before her.
Mai gathered up her supplies, grabbed her lucky key (and kissed it for an extra amount of good luck!), and left her apartment. The sun had yet to rise over the horizon, but that was okay. It meant she still had a bit more time.
Mai made her way through the empty streets with relative ease, only coming across a few strange people up in the wee hours of the morning. She reached her destination as a few morning rays of light illuminated on the clouds and distributed what she had brought.
"Hey, mom," she smiled, setting the meal before her mother's grave. She turned to her father's grave and set a slightly smaller bowl before it. "Hey, dad. I hope you don't mind that mom got the big bowl this time."
Seeing that the sun had not yet quite risen, Mai settled herself between her parent's graves and faced the East with a sense of wonder. Steam rose from all three bowls. Before her mother's grave was a canister of tea and the biggest bowl of food she had prepared, along with chopsticks. Standing in front of her father's grave was the slightly smaller bowl of soup, his own chopsticks, and another canister of tea. In Mai's own lap was the smallest bowl of soup, chopsticks, and the last canister of tea.
All was silent as the Taniyama family watched the sun rise beautifully over the horizon, painting the clouds beautiful oranges and pinks and shining its light onto everything in its path. It looked as though it were a beautiful new day with wonderful new opportunities.
"It's been a while, hasn't it?" Mai asked, expecting only silence to greet her words. And it did. Though that did not deter her from speaking, it rather encouraged her. "I told you about the job I got last time I was here. Everyone's pretty much the same as how I told you. And school's going all right, though I'm still pretty much failing English… Ah! But I'll try harder, I promise! Oh, and…"
Mai laughed at her own blunders as she continued to tell her parents what had been going on in her life. She spoke for a solid fifteen minutes, while once in a while eating the food she had brought for herself, and letting her parents' food be. Soon, she ran out of things to update her parents on, and the cemetery grew quiet.
A slight breeze blew past, tickling Mai's hair, almost tussling it as her mother would when she was younger. Mai smiled at the thought, knowing that it was the wind and nothing more. She hoped her parents were happy, wherever they were, and told them thus.
"I miss you both lots," she admitted, still smiling. "But things are better now. I know you guys didn't leave me on purpose, and that helps sometimes."
The silence that followed was not oppressive, but rather relieving. Mai smiled to herself.
"Still, I needed to come by today before work, if for nothing else than just to say hello," she stated. A few seconds of silence later, she forced herself to stand up and prepare to leave. She brushed the dirt off of her shorts and walked very carefully between the headstones, being extremely careful not to disturb her parents' bodies underneath. Once she was a few feet away from the headstones, she turned back and bowed respectfully.
"Mom, dad, I miss you, but I know you're happy wherever you are," Mai said with a smile. She then turned to her mother's grave. "Happy mother's day, mom. I'll come back and visit you both when I can."
And with that, the brunette was off, rushing to get to work before her boss, hoping that she could—for once—surprise him by coming in early.
Oliver Davis did not do many things simply for the sake of doing them. Generally, he took a job because it interested him, completed the job because it was a challenge that must be met, and put up with the ordeal of researching ghosts because it was a field of research that at once interested him and paid him. He forced himself through school because he had something to prove and wanted to challenge himself further.
Truly, he did not do things simply for the sake of doing them. This was no exception.
He was currently sitting in his office chair with a cellular device in his hand. Now being four thirty in the afternoon, the timing in London would probably be eight thirty in the morning, making now an excellent time to call. Though this was not so much for his own sake as it was for hers. Every year, his twin had done something wonderful for this day, causing her great joy. While it had made Oliver happy to see his family happy, he had never actually partaken in this holiday. Too busy was he normally chasing a diploma or working on yet another thesis.
But this year was different. His twin was gone, and there was no one else to do something wonderful to make her happy for this day. So, the responsibility fell to him. He could not come up with anything for her, and he had finally decided on a phone call, just to lift her spirits.
Oliver hit the call button and lifted the cell phone to his ear. He waited for the ringing to begin, which would take three point five nine seconds.
Riing.
There we go. Now she would pick up in the middle of the third ring.
Riing.
Now he simply had to wait for the—
Rii—
"Noll?" her voice asked through the phone, slight static making it distorted. Though barely noticeable. He responded with a curt nod, then realized she would not be able to see him, so he responded verbally.
"Yes," he stated briskly. Immediately, the woman began talking, albeit worriedly.
"What's wrong? You never call me, usually you call Martin—did his phone die? Do you want me to put you through?" she asked, her voice still distorted. Oliver listened closely, and then realized that there was no static in the phone. Her voice was carrying a natural distortion. And he did not need to even guess at what the reason behind her obvious tears was.
"No, I meant to call you," he said, just as briskly. He could practically envision her curiosity. It was something about her, you could always distract her. This had helped tremendously whenever he and his twin, Gene, had wanted to get away with something clever. Still, she seemed to simply know whenever they were up to something. Half of the time she would let them run with it unhindered, and the other half she decided to do something even cleverer to pay them back for their trickery.
It was a constant battle of wits with this woman.
"Really?" she asked, obviously surprised. Oliver smirked at this. Distracting her was simply too easy sometimes. And today, she probably had needed the distraction. Even he knew that. "What did you need me for?"
"If you would look at your calendar, you would realize precisely why I called," he replied. He heard some shuffling on the other side of the phone, but could not tell if she had done what he had suggested. If he knew her—which he definitely should have by now—then she was doing one of two things. She either thought that he needed something and was checking the calendar or, if she felt like being sneaky, she was simply shuffling papers in front of the phone to distract him and make him think about what she was doing.
"I can't find anything on my calendar that would catch your interest," she finally stated. Oliver could practically see her looking at the date forlornly, believing she would never hear those words again. He decided it was time to show her that this assumption was not true. That even if Gene were not here to say it for her, then he would at least say it on his behalf. For both of them.
"Happy Mother's day," Oliver said, imagining that Gene was saying it with him, or that it was Gene saying it, rather than Oliver himself.
Rather than wait for his adoptive mother's reaction, Oliver hung up the phone, his mission complete. He had wished his mother a happy mother's day in hopes that she would become half as happy as she had been when Gene had wished her last year, or perhaps the year before. If that had happened, then his mission was complete, and he could continue to search for his brother's remains in peace.
If only he knew that this one single act of kindness that he had shown towards his mother had filled her with a bittersweet happiness. Grateful that she still had one child, yet was still mourning for the other. Luella let tears fall from her eyes, products of these swirling emotions.
But for now, she could be happy. She owed that to both of her sons. After all, over the phone line, when Oliver had called, his voice had sounded double.
So she could imagine that both Oliver and Eugene had wished her a happy mother's day. So she could be happy for one day. For both of their sakes.
And so she smiled.
14AmyChan: And there was Naru's half of this story. *^_^*
Naru: … *elbowed by 14AmyChan, then reads from a card* We thank the mothers who did not have to be mothers in the first place, but rather accepted children into their homes and their hearts, and did their very best to raise those children into loving, caring people.
14AmyChan: Not all moms sat in a hospital room and gave birth, but that doesn't make you not a mom. A mom is a woman who loves and cares for the child she has sworn to raise and protect. And that's pretty amazing. *^_^*
Mai: Happy Mother's day, to all the moms out there!
Naru: … *is elbowed, this time by Mai, and reads from another card* Before reviewing, wish your mothers a Happy Mother's day, but still leave a review.
14AmyChan: *glares at Naru* eh, close enough. *waves happily towards audience* HAPPY MOTHERS DAY, PLEASE R&R~! *^_^*