lots and lots

She sees him twice a year, maybe three times. He writes on occasion, but his short, messy letters never say what she wants them to, and after years of keeping the crumpled pages for reading and rereading, she tears them all to pieces.

Once, he sends a guitar. A birthday gift, the note says, and she thinks it must be a coincidence. Her father never could have known.

She plays in the late afternoons, in places where she'll find no one else. She sings after drinking overpriced coffees.

But she has too many enemies for a beautiful guitar to last.

She catches their reflection in the long mirrors that line the gym walls and asks how in the world it all works.

He does not know what she means.

She holds a hand to her hair. The strands are bright and red, leaping into the air like fire.

His voice is a low rumble. The sound fills her as though it is her own.

We are one now, he says. Your skin is my skin, and mine is yours.

The words remind her to once more return to herself.

But when she looks to the glass, she still sees him.

She thinks on the sentiment often.

She repeats it in her mind, like a mantra.

You are not alone anymore. We all love you, lots and lots.

But she fears what she feels must only be inevitable. When she sleeps, she sees those she cannot help. She feels her dying father's hand in hers.

And yet, when she wakes, she sees the girl whose smile lights up her whole world. She feels the warmth of dinner served in a bowl that bears her name.

You know that, right? the girl asks.

Her heart cannot stop fluttering.

Of course, she says.

She believes for quite a long while that the woman who stands in her way has a heart of ice.

But in that very woman's arms, she is filled with the same kind of fire that had been hers, once, only moments ago.

It has been years since she has cried like this. She cannot stop herself, the tears falling without her wanting and her sobs stealing her breath, but her sister is there, and then there is another arm around her, and another, and another, and soon it seems that the entire world is right there, by her side.

She thinks of him often.

She thinks of him when she walks alone and when she looks to her reflection and when she cannot sleep. She thinks of him when she is so filled with laughter that she is sure she could burst.

And it is at times like these—when she has just finished a meal with her family, or gone shopping with her sister, or pulled the kinds of pranks that he would surely deem childish—that she repeats his words.

It was fun, she says, silently, because she knows that he hears.

It is fun.

Thank you.

A/N: A celebration of Kill la Kill's fifth anniversary, with the first episode having aired in Japan on October 4, 2013.