This is the first of several short pieces about the characters from MaiHiME how their lives have gone on after the carnival. I don't know how many characters and which ones I'm going to write about. The next chapter is going to be Nao, and I definitely like to do a Mai and a Yukino chapter, and of course a Shizuru one. Anyway, this chapter is
Natsuki
Home is a special kind of feeling
The year before my graduation Shizuru and I lived together. Aside from the tedious schoolwork it was probably my happiest year. Certainly it was the year of my healthiest nutrition, thanks to Shizuru and her cooking. Not that Shizuru liked cooking, she just hated instant food much more, so she stood at the hearth and I had to help whether I wanted or not.
Mai kept saying that Shizuru domesticated me and she may have a point there. One of the things Shizuru insisted on, was me announcing myself when I came back into the apartment.
"You can't just enter silently and sneak up on me." She kept saying before adding with that mischievous twinkle in her eyes. "Delightful as that may be at times, who knows what sight your innocent eyes might find."
When I turned red at the several innuendos her words and tone implied, she ended with "Make yourself audible Natsuki", and a wink before she returned to whatever she had done when I had entered.
I had complied, if a bit reluctantly. But whenever I remembered it on I coming home, I shouted a curt "I'm back!" imitating American series and movies I had seen in my terrible slurred English. Shizuru would not have that. After a couple of "I'm back!" 's she chided me. "We're in Japan Natsuki, would it hurt you to call "tadaima"?"
The teenaged me was a bit annoyed at her insistence of using the Japanese term, when English sounded way cooler in my ears, but I did it to make her happy. And, what I would have never admitted, it gave me a good feeling too. It was not the phrase itself, but the knowledge someone was already there and waiting for me to respond "okaerinasai".
After so much time, having a place I could relate to as home gave me an almost odd sense of security, yet it was pleasant and I embraced it within my heart.
Even now at days I find myself on the edge of call out "tadaima" into the dark apartment when I return from work, knowing full well nobody will answer.
So I kick off my shoes and hang my coat in silence, before switching on the evening news. And as I listen to the speaker announcing things which do not concern me in the least, I eat a cup of instant noodles, or curry for change.
If offered the choice, I'd be back in our old room at once, with Shizuru awaiting me there. But the old apartment has long since been occupied by several pairs of other students and these childish days are well behind me now.