Title: Change
Summary: What if Waku had walked into that grocery store instead of Maria? [Novelverse, slight WakuxMachi.]
Rating: K+, only for the theme of death.
Genre: Comfort
Warning: This contains spoilers for the novel version of Bokurano.
This is based on chapter eleven of the Bokurano novel. Essentially a "What If," it follows an alternate continuity where Waku was not the eighth pilot and has yet to fight his battle. It attempts to mimic the meeting between Maria and Machi in the Fuji grocery store, only with Waku in Maria's place - and a nice little twist for fans of the manga.
I do like Waku's relationship with Maria. Maria says outright that she loves Waku, and I think it is implicitly canon that he returns her feelings - he just doesn't know it. (Why else would his ghost focus so much on her POV, instead of his sister's or his brother-in-law's?) But a bunch of friends and I also enjoy pairing Waku with Machi. I can't exactly say why this is. Maybe it's because they bicker and banter so much in the anime, or maybe it's because novel-Waku is snarky and manga-Machi is sassy.
Please note that Waku's novel counterpart has a different personality from his manga counterpart. (He has a dry, jaded maturity, but still cracks the occasional joke.) If you have not read the novel, his characterization will most likely seem unfamiliar.
It was early afternoon in Fuji City, both the neighborhood and the corner grocery store eerily reminiscent of a ghost town. Streets outside the shop were absent of cars and pedestrians; the store itself, with long, dusty windows and tiled white floors, was almost entirely devoid of customers. A television buzzed quietly on one wall, spewing news reports about Metal Mammoths and a girl, a Tsubasa Hiiragi, who had died a mysterious death of unknown causes. Behind a cash register was a lone cashier, a freckle-faced girl hunched over her station; elbow on the register, hand under her chin, idly reading a book.
"Waku!"
A small boy with swarthy skin ran down the store's last aisle and approached a tall teenager, tugging on the hem of his shirt.
The teenager leaned down, a hand on his knee, cat-slit eyes curiously tilted in the direction of the child's face. "What is it?"
"If we're going to have a party, can we get confetti, too?"
Before Waku could answer the boy, his older sister snuck up on him from behind with a torn plastic package, tossing a handful of paper confetti onto his head.
"Futaba!" the boy complained.
"Santa!" she mimicked.
Waku quirked a small smile in spite of the dull, throbbing headache echoing in his temples. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that the lone cashier had put her book down and was peering curiously in their direction. She probably wasn't going to appreciate the new mess she had to clean.
"Come on," Waku said. "Put that back. We've only got enough for the snacks."
"That's okay," Futaba said, placing the ruined package of confetti on a rack laden with mountain bike magazines.
Waku wheeled their shopping cart to the cash register and began mechanically stacking the snack bags on the conveyor belt, eyes shadowed with exhaustion, hair rumpled with distress.
"I saw what your sister did," said the girl behind the counter, running one of the snack bags across the register's scanner. Her name, according to the tag on her dull, brown uniform, was Yoko. "Not cool."
Waku was too tired to argue - or to correct her. "I'll clean it before I leave."
The employee flashed him an incredulous look. "Really? Never heard that one before."
Waku checked his wristwatch. Seki wanted him at the hospital in an hour. "First time for everything."
The girl nodded and smiled absently.
It was only when Waku exchanged cash with the girl that she suddenly froze, her eyes fixed on one of his hands.
"What's...?"
Waku's eyes followed Yoko's. His left hand was immobile and burned black, charred thoroughly from palm to fingertip.
Self-consciously, he hid his hand behind the counter.
"That's Waku's boo-boo," Santa piped up innocently, ripping open a package of peppermint candy. "Maria says he got it in the robot."
Waku's head jerked in Santa's direction, eyes creased with worry.
"Santa," Futaba muttered cautiously.
"Robot?" the girl - Yoko - asked tensely. "What robot?"
"No robot," Waku intervened. "You know kids. Crazy imaginations."
"I'm gonna bag this stuff," Futaba said quickly. "Santa, help me."
"But I don't want to -"
"Just do it."
Waku could tell that the nine-year-old was eager to leave the store without further questions. The appearance of the so-called "Metal Mammoths" had dealt the Yamura children a particularly harsh blow, starting with the death of their oldest brother and culminating in the death of their little sister.
He watched Futaba tug Santa to the bagging station by his wrist. Her eyes were misty with unshed tears.
Behind the cash register, Yoko bit her lip before averting her eyes. "They're not your siblings, huh?"
"No," Waku replied quietly. His eyes were on his hand again. Visions of Moji returned to him, haunting and tortuous; how the sickly boy had drawn his last breath, how he had declared, with a smile, that life was meaningless, and preserving it equally so.
You're wrong, Moji, Waku thought.
Waku wanted to believe that Moji was wrong.
But Waku wasn't sure he had retained the necessary conviction to believe. His father and sister had burned to death in the crumbling ruins of their home. A countless number of his friends had died in front of him: Chizu, the girl to whom he owed everything, the girl he had failed to save; Moji, the closest thing he'd ever had to a brother; little Kodaka shaking and crying in his arms, Anko begging him not to force her to fight, Komoda screaming with rage.
"Here's your change -"
Jaws clenched tightly, tears involuntarily spilled down Waku's face, clouding his vision. He heard, rather than saw, the young girl behind the counter setting the coins down with a light clatter; he felt, rather than saw, the young girl take his living hand into both of her own.
"You were in that robot," Yoko said. "You're a pilot."
Waku rubbed the tears hastily from his eyes with the back of his wrist. Yoko hadn't released his other hand. "How the hell - ?"
Waku noticed, vaguely, that Futaba and Santa were sitting on one of the indoor benches by the dusty windows, Futaba watching him warily.
"It's not exactly..." Yoko trailed off and slowly released Waku's hand, a far-away gaze in her eyes.
"Oh, God," Waku muttered, panicking. "Look, you can't tell anyone. There's this general, from America - he's pretty serious about apprehending us -"
"I won't tell," Yoko said. "I would never tell. I already know the kinds of crap that can happen. People don't understand; they think you're somehow at fault when you're the only reason they're still alive. You can't really blame them, but..."
Vision returning, Waku watched the pensive girl carefully. "You sound like you know too much about this."
With the same caution, Yoko leaned forward and glanced left and right, surveying the store. The interior was still empty and desolate; yet she dropped her voice to a whisper when she replied.
"I played the Game, too."
Waku's lips parted with disbelief. He closed his mouth and regarded her dubiously.
"I really did," she said. "On another Earth. My brother and I were contracted."
"Then why aren't you dead?" Waku asked.
Death; silently approaching, an intangible force Waku had never feared before as much as he feared it now. What was it like not to exist? What was the harrowing experience of a man who could not see, think, or feel?
Yoko shook her head and smiled blandly. "The contractor for my planet recruited too many pilots. My brother and I were among the lucky few who didn't need to pilot and die. But at the end of the war, our Earth was a wasteland. It didn't resemble a civilized planet. My parents were gone, my friends didn't want to talk to me anymore... Shirou said we couldn't live in a place like that. So we got up and left. And, well, here we are."
Waku watched the girl, mind numb with disbelief, partially stunned at her candor.
"You're...pretty lucky, Yoko," he said weakly.
But maybe she wasn't. Was it worth living when she could not live in the home she loved, with the people she loved?
I don't know if there's anything after life.
Yoko simply smiled.
Catharsis flooding through his veins, Waku suddenly began to talk.
"One of our pilots... She went nuts. She tore down half of the civilian district in Shinagawa. Killed most of my family. The sister I've still got... She lost her mind after that. My brother-in-law's trying so hard to save us, but he had to turn against the military to do it. He's stuck with a target on his back, running from the law. There's a nine-year-old in the contract with us. And as if things couldn't get any worse -"
He thought about Chizu, and his failure to protect her one year ago. He realized she had died without ever receiving an apology from him.
It was like a punch to the gut, sweeping the wind out of his lungs and spilling the new tears that coated his eyes.
Waku scarcely knew what had happened when the girl behind the cash register reached around her station to touch the side of his head.
The act itself was infinitely comforting, yet a gesture Waku was largely unfamiliar with, never having experienced the familial love of a mother or the warmth of a lover. The tears froze on his face with impossibility. Through his second haze of vision, he watched the girl, her form cloudy, with an expression on her face somehow both apprehensive and serene at the same time. Through the obstructed window of his tears, her blue eyes were stripped to the color of fog.
"As if things couldn't get any worse," Yoko said quietly, "you're going to die."
She understands.
The responsibility on Waku's shoulders decreased minimally in weight.
A quiet moment passed between the two teenagers. Reluctantly, Yoko lowered her hand from the side of Waku's head, the smile on her face nearly bashful. Waku returned it with the shadow of a shaky one.
"Thanks," Waku said.
"Yeah..." Yoko cleared her throat. "Least I could do."
The second silence that passed between them was somehow consoling, a stark contrast to the silence that had filled Z-Earth's cockpit these past several weeks, following in the wake of Waku's dead comrades. Imbued with a sudden lucidity, vision restored, Waku rested a curled hand on the cash register.
"Yoko," he said, "can you think of any way to stop the Game?"
Yoko shook her head helplessly. "I don't know. I got out of the contract because we had twenty pilots when we only needed fifteen. Maybe if you could get more pilots?"
She winced, presumably at the implication that luring others to their death was a reasonable solution to his own.
"Nah." Waku's shadow of a smile returned. "I'd never ask someone else to die for me."
For Kana, on the other hand...
Yoko tilted her head to one side. "Guess that makes you a pretty nice guy."
Waku felt heat flush his cheeks. "Sure."
Knock it out, he told himself. You're going to die.
"So...right," said the girl behind the counter. "I'm Machi."
Was it his imagination, or was Machi blushing, too?"
"Right. Yeah. I'm Waku."
Machi smiled brightly. "I know. I heard that cute little kid talking about 'Waku's boo-boo.' Did he get that from you, Waku?"
"Please. Do I look like 'boo-boo' is even in my vocabulary?" Waku retorted.
"Sure you do," Machi said cheerfully. "You look like the kind of guy who fawns over little kids while desperately trying to hide the fact that he's just a kid himself."
"Says Smurfette," Waku replied. He had noticed that the girl's stature was ridiculously short for someone their age.
Machi's face was tinged with a second blush. "Who are you calling Smurfette? I'm not even blue!"
"No, but you're red," Waku said. "That's gotta count for something."
Machi tossed her head. "I'd hit you if you weren't a cripple."
"Waku," Futaba Yamura interrupted. The docile girl, formerly temperamental, was tugging nervously on his hand. "Mr. Seki wanted us to go to the hospital and then go back to the hotel. We're gonna be late."
Waku glanced at his wristwatch. He had only twenty minutes to locate Fuji's hospital - admittedly no difficult conquest - and meet Seki in his sister's ward.
"Crap. Sorry," Waku said to Machi. He began to slide his arms through the loops of the plastic grocery bags sitting at the end of the conveyor belt. "I forgot we're needed elsewhere."
"Really?" Machi said. "That soon?"
Waku almost smiled. "We've been here almost an hour."
Machi's face flushed for an impressive third time. "Whatever," she said hastily.
A younger Waku would have laughed. This older Waku, fourteen years old, with the height and the burden of a grown man, watched Futaba and Santa replace their shopping cart with the rest of the store's wagons. Bags hanging from his arms, Waku took Santa's hand when the small boy trotted over to him. Futaba led the way out of the store, automatic doors sliding open to greet her.
"Machi," Waku called over his shoulder. "Thanks. For everything."
Machi didn't reply.
Waku and Santa followed Futaba out of the convenience store. The bright August sun above an empty Fuji was nearly blinding, the heat of summer suffocating and humid. The children ought to visit Suruga Bay, Waku thought, on a day when their friends weren't dying all around them, blinking out of existence, and the heat was the only thing stifling them.
"Waku!" a voice called from behind him.
Letting go of Santa's hand, Waku turned around.
Machi had followed the trio out of the grocery store, her hands clutched together in front of her. Her eyes sparkled a brilliant blue in the dazzling sun. Warmed by their reflection of summer heat, Waku had no time to notice when Machi jogged over to him, seized his hand, and tucked his fingers around a palmful of coins.
Machi winked.
"Forgot your change."
Amused, a half-smile on his lips, Waku raised his burned hand in a wave. He backed away with the children at his side, then turned around to cross the empty street.
He fought a very strong temptation to glance over his shoulder and see whether Machi was still standing on the sidewalk behind him.
Instead, Waku watched as Futaba and Santa zipped past him and raced each other to the opposite street corner. The children started down the obvious path to the municipal hospital. Santa skipped innocently, full of vibrant youth, an unlived life far ahead of him; Futaba, eager to exceed her age, pretended to scold him in return.
"I'm going to die," Waku said out loud, his quiet voice unfamiliar even to his own ears.
He was going to die; perhaps not today, perhaps not tomorrow... Perhaps not even next week. He realized, at that moment - that he didn't know when he was going to die. Suddenly, startlingly, it dawned on Waku that he was no different from the billions of other people inhabiting this world. No man on Earth knew, in advance, the exact moment of his death. How pointless it was to waste every second of precious life looking toward an obscure future, dreading a moment, inevitable thought it was, that had yet to come.
I'm still alive, Waku thought. Right here, right now, Waku was still alive.
"I'm going to live."
And for the first time that summer - a summer plagued with war and blessed with heartfelt sacrifice; their summer - Waku grinned.