Wheel of Fortune
Reading 4: Knight of Coins (Inverted)
"This is the lesson that history teaches: repetition."
-Gertrude Stein
That night at dinner, Mei lazily stirred her bowl of miso soup round and round, not even noticing that the soup had gone cold. Her mother and father were quietly eating their meals, neither of them asking if their daughter was all right. Mei was already used to this silence: they were okay in the morning, but they were all ready absorbed with their own problems at night.
"Mei-chan," said Taeko, her mother. She noticed her daughter's still full plate and said, "Are you not hungry? I cooked all of your favorites tonight."
"No you didn't," Mei thought to herself. In front of her was some grilled mackerel on a bed of rice, some gyoza and a side of pickled cucumbers. "My favorite foods are teriyaki salmon, cream crab croquettes and carrot pickles."
"I'm not feeling too well," Mei said aloud, setting her chopsticks down. "I'm still sad about the funeral."
"I don't even know why you wanted to go there in the first place," said Sion, Mei's father. "You barely even knew that...that...delinquent. I bet he died in some kind of fight with another gang."
"You don't even know the half of it," Mei took the bowl of cold miso soup to her lips, drinking all of its contents down. "Gentaro died trying to save Subaruboshi High...and no one will truly know what happened to him."
"And what about your problems at school?" asked Taeko. "You've been getting reports of you just staring out of the classroom window and not even responding to questions when called upon. Don't you care about your future?"
"Of course I do, Mother. I don't start smoking six packs of cigarettes on the weekends or drink sake for four hours straight like you and dad do when you take 'vacation'."
"I do," Mei answered back, ripping apart the mackeral with her chopsticks. She picked out the bones inside as she continued to speak. "And I care a lot about my friends."
"That's not what I heard from them when they left the house," said Sion. "They got very aggravated at you for yelling at them for no good reason. Please Mei, talk to us."
"And what do I say?" Mei narrowed her eyes as she began shoveling rice and mackerel into her mouth. "'Oh, I have to be quiet because there's this son of a bitch that decides to put people to sleep if they don't behave the way they're supposed to. Plus those friends of mine? They were scripted to be my friends and they're complete jerks from beginning to end! '
"They didn't show any concern about Gentaro's well-being, nor did they even care about that time I was Madame Pollux. I know that something happened that day, but no one believed me. Not even Azusa-sensei..." Mei set her chopsticks over her plate and stood up.
"I'm done eating," she said simply. "Thanks for everything."
Before her parents even had a chance to say anything else, Mei rushed toward her room and slammed the door shut.
0-0-0-0-0-
Mei was on her laptop, too depressed to do homework or to check her emails. She was currently on some chatroom known as "Dynasty-for-Hire", scrolling down through anonymous people talking about different types of stuff.
Midnight: So did you hear that Apostle of Sleep is in the hospital?
Mei's eyes blinked. "Apostle of Sleep" was the name Yamda gave himself when he was the Aries Zodiarts. Could it be possible...no, it was just a coincidence.
Yoko: Yeah, I heard that his parents are in mourning as of late. His older sister ran away a couple of years back, right? No one's seen her since.
Older sister? Mei started to get more intrigued with what she was reading.
Mitsuko: He told me about this whole thing he was doing in memory of his older sister. He thinks she died a few years back during the big suicide jump.
"Suicide jump?" Mei remembered hearing something about it. There were at least twenty girls in uniforms who jumped off of a building. There were no survivors.
Mitsuko: Yamada used to be a nice kid, but he now sees the world as some sort of theatrical show. I think it's his way of trying to keep those happy times in him before he has to face the reality of growing up just like his sister did. Or maybe he's trying to prevent something like the suicides from ever happening again.
Midnight: That does explain why he gave 'that girl' the role of "quiet girl at the window"...
Wait a minute, that was her! Mei felt her heart beat against her chest as she continued to read.
Midnight: He saw a bit of himself in her. This girl was worried over one of her friends and became withdrawn just like how he felt when he lost his sister. To ease her loneliness, Yamada gave her that "quiet girl" role. It proves that he has a heart somewhere.
Yoko: He also left her all of those Shakespeare notes and asked those two guys in the Literature Club to bring her in to ease her loneliness. Too bad Yamada didn't seem to notice the type of jerks they were and...
Mei shut the laptop down and placed it on her bedside before she read anything else. She felt her mind spinning out of control from what she knew, what she just learned, and what she was afraid to learn. How could Yamada create something so ugly and yet have people praise it to be so beautiful? Why was she the one who was spared? Why was he that secret admirer of hers?
Feeling frustrated, she dove toward her Tarot Deck and shuffled the cards. She hadn't drawn a daily Tarot Card ever since she told Ros and Guil to beat it. If there was anything that could get her to not think of her dilemma, it was drawing a Tarot Card.
"Please let it be good..." She said to herself. "Please give me something good..."
When she finished shuffling, Mei swiftly drew a card and frowned. The card was once again inverted, depicting a knight riding on a black horse, a golden orb with a pentacle in hands.
"Inverted Knight of Coins," she said in disgust. "My life's become repetition and boredom. Hah. That's more of Yamada's life now, seeing as he's stuck in that coma and all."
She slipped the card back to her deck and slammed it on top of her laptop. She turned off the lights and fell to an uneasy sleep, wishing to forget everything that happened that day and to just worry about what would happen when she got to school tomorrow.
0-0-0-0-0-0-0
The next day, Mei found everyone trying to adjust to no longer being in some sort of script. She looked at the chalkboard and saw the teacher doing a last-minute seating chart. Had it really been three months since the positions were changed? It was a scary thought to think about.
Mei sighed a bit in relief when she found that her desk was in the back row. The teacher barely called anyone in the back, and it would give her time to just ponder what she learned so far. She didn't talk to any of her friends—if she had any at this point, seeing Ros and Guil looking pretty miffed at her outburst—but instead walked toward her desk, brought out a notebook and pencil, and prepared for the day ahead of her.
Thirty minutes into class, Mei found herself drifting to what she had learned so far: Ryusei's fortune told him to kill someone to save Jiro, Gentaro would never walk amongst the Earth once more, Yamada was actually a nice guy but was twisted into something evil, Ros and Guil were assigned to be her friends, and there was a strange voice that was talking to her. Nothing was adding up, as shown by each of the names she wrote having arrows pointed to a large question mark in the center of her notebook.
"Everything is connected to one another," the voice whispered in Mei's head. Mei nearly dropped her pencil in shock. "The question now is, are you connected to yourself? Can you answer that truly, Shirakawa-san?"
"Who are you?" Mei thought in her mind, looking around. No one else was hearing this voice. This made her nervous. "What do you want?"
"I'm just wanting to observe you a little bit to see what you uncovered. Don't you think it's time to read someone's fortune? It's time to decide someone's fate."
As Mei heard those words, she found the world turning grey. It was just like that time at the funeral service. No one was paying attention to her at all. She slowly pulled out her tarot deck and began to shuffle it. As she did, she didn't focus on herself, her parents, Ros and Guil or anyone. For some strange reason, her mind was focused on Yamada, the boy who caused Ryusei and Gentaro's fate to intertwine.
"He doesn't deserve a happy future," Mei thought bitterly. "If it wasn't for him, Subaruboshi wouldn't have suffered tyranny, Ryusei wouldn't have had to murder someone and Gentaro...Gentaro would still be here..."
Once she finished her shuffling, the cards floated into the air, spinning all around Mei once more. She took a deep breath as she plucked a card in mid-air. This card was upright, depicting a man approaching a town, carrying ten long rods in his hands.
"An upward Ten of Rods to start," she said. "He reaped the harvest he created, and that harvest was Subaruboshi High. Motherfucking tyrant..."
She slammed the card onto the desk before reaching out for another card in her fury. This one depicted a naked woman on bended knee near a sparkling pool and a foot in the water. She carried two clay jars filled with water, one pouring down the grass and the other replenishing the pool. Above the woman's head seven white stars and one large yellow one, each containing eight points. The card was inverted, in contrast with its upright counterpart.
"An inverted The Star as the present," said Mei. "He's feeling despair in his present state. Well, that's what you get when you're stuck in a coma after karma's done with you." she set the card down and stared at it. "He doesn't need a happy future. His present is his future."
"Is it?" asked the voice. "Is that for you to decide? He can't decide since he isn't awake to draw the fortune, right?"
Mei hesitated, biting her lip in contemplation. While it's true that it was up to her to draw the Tarot Card, that didn't actually mean that whatever she drew would be the exact card to tell his future. There were 152 readings that could be used to reveal Yamada's future, and thus 152 ways to show how the future will play out. What would happen if Mei could draw just one exact future, the one she wanted? The one where Yamada never got out of his coma and became a vegetable?
She shook her head. No, even though Yamada deserved to be in the coma, giving him a death wish wasn't her. At the very least, she should at least give him the chance to wake up and have his parents be in relief that they hadn't lost both of their children. With a sigh of defeat, she traced a circle in the air with a finger before catching a card that caught her eye. It depicted a young boy working in a cathedral, discussing to two monks on his progress. Above their heads were three orbs stamped with stars. This one, for better or worse, was upright.
"An upright Three of Pentacles for the future," she said. "He'll be having a happy future when he wakes up from that coma. This card talks about working together to create something new. I pity the poor fool who has to work with that psychopath."
"You never know when your words will come back to haunt you Shirakawa-san," the voice chuckled. "Are you satisfied with your reading? We can always do another one..."
"No," Mei answered, seeing the cards gather and form a perfectly stacked deck. "That's all for now. However, I'd wish to know something about you."
"What is it?"
"Why are you following me? Why are you specifically talking to me and no one else?"
"You'll learn that in due time, Shirakawa-san. For now, let's get back to class and to your time with your best friends. After all, best friends don't keep secrets from one another, right?"
Mei narrowed her eyes as she placed her tarot deck back into her purse. As the scenery began to gain its color, she took a glance at Ros and Guil in the front row. She knew that whatever she was going to learn about them wasn't going to be nice.
Great. Just great.
Taking her pencil into her hand, Mei began to scribble something under sentence about Yamada.
Yamada Tatusmori: (symbol for Aries) Apostle of Sleep, harbinger of doom, lost a sister, has a crush on me/felt pity for me, has a happy future (?)
She then flipped her notebook to a new page as she began to copy down the lecture notes for class. Once the bell rang for lunch, trailing Ros and Guil would be her next priority.
Translation notes:
Gyoza: Japanese dumplings similar to Chinese Pot Stickers
Next time: Mei eavesdrop on a conversation with Ros and Guil, and finds herself shocked, betrayed and filled with disgust. Will she cross the deep end to decide on a horrible future for them both? Or will she walk away and pretend she never heard them speak in the first place
Next reading: The Emperor (Inverted)
