011 - Facing the aftermath (and being kinda ok with it?)
"I'm sorry!"
I blink in surprise at the girl bowing and apologizing in front of me. Karin has been especially quiet all day today, something I was more than happy to indulge her in, considering she just lost her father. So, once I returned from the meeting with the Principal, I made sure to give her some breathing space.
I had some concerns of my own, so I somehow managed to rein the urge to just hug the sad out of her. Mother didn't spare a word in my direction since we left the office and I might worry she's angry at me, if not for the very hard to miss fact that she just gouged an eye out of someone as an answer to a vague threat.
Mother is a woman of few words but, as they say, actions speak louder. Which, by the way, doesn't mean I'm out of trouble just yet. Not looking forward to whatever is waiting for me back home, not looking forward to it at all.
Detention might be somewhat troublesome too. What sort of punishments are the norm here? Can you believe I wasn't punished last year? Not even once? If they just force me to study and/or train, that I can handle. If this place favors the kind of mind-numbing and pointless tasks that serve no purpose beyond making me feel miserable though, the inproductivity of it all might make drive crazy.
Stupid Shimada blood…
"It was my fault!" Karin continues, apparently taking my silent musings as cue to explain herself. "It's all my fault!"
"... wat." Because yeah, that doesn't actually explain anything.
"This all started because I told Haizuki-san you were my friend!" Again, that doesn't… oh. Sweet, sweet summer child, the world doesn't revolve around you, you know? Sometimes things are so beyond your control that your actions can't influence them at all. Sometimes, you're just a convenient excuse.
But not even I am clumsy enough to say that out loud. So, how to go about comforting her?
"Aren't you my friend, though?" She freezes for a second, my question obviously catching her by surprise, but in the end she nods. "Then you did nothing wrong. Ryūzetsu has had it for me since we first met, if it wasn't our friendship, she would've found something different to use against me."
"But if you'd neve—"
"Stop." I cut her. No way I'm letting this turn into an emo broodfest, Karin is too precious for that shit. And we're not even teenagers yet, so there's no excuse. "Karin, I'm glad I befriended you. Ryūzetsu making a nuisance out of herself isn't going to change that. The question is, do you regret being my friend?"
She finally looks up. Her cheeks are flushed and suspiciously wet, and her eyes are puffy and red, but she manages a shaky smile and shakes her head.
"Then nothing else matters." I declare in my best imitation of Mother's no-nonsense tone. "Now, I think I still owe you a hug from this morning..."
Let me tell you guys, Karin is as cuddly and huggable as she looks. And I have more than enough time to enjoy it on the way back to her home, because she refuses to let me go, walking all the way back there with her face buried on my clothes and one of my arms around her shoulder. It's not very conducive to conversation, but I can't care about that because my heart is melting.
It also gives me time to consider the situation. Somehow, it comes as no surprise that Ryūzetsu is to blame for this new development. Sweet Madoka, it's even good news! Better a spoiled child with a grudge than a grand manipulator in the shadows. As far as I knew this morning, this could all be a plot by fucking Madara to convert me to the dark side or some suck tripe.
I don't hate Ryūzetsu, I don't think I could even if I wanted to. She is quite literally a child who doesn't know better. For what I've seen of the Haizuki clan, her actions are a mix of repeating what she sees back home, and putting into action idle comments of adults without realizing they're not to be taken that seriously.
I really wish someone called her on her bullshit though. Because, if she grows up thinking this crap is fine and she internalizes it all, she'll become an adult I can legitimately hate.
My thoughts are interrupted when Karin slowly gets away from me. Wha—? Oh, we have arrived. Without trading a word, I watch her fumble with her keys to open the locked door. Then, she pauses for a moment, turns to look at me, looks back at the half-open door, takes a deep breath and looks back at me, with a small smile in her lips.
"I'll ask Mama to let me hang out with you after class. Thankyoufortodayseeyoutomorrow!"
She then retreats into her home before I can muster a reply, door closing behind her faster than I can blink. Huh… Definitively counting today as a win, after all.
For some reason, I'm finding it hard to actually step into home today. As in, I've spent a good five minutes standing at the door. It's almost as if some sort of instinct warned me about it, like how I always imagined knights would feel in front of the dragon's lair. At least the lucky bastards didn't have their Mother waiting inside.
Well, no sense in procrastinating. Better brave the bull and bite the bullet. Or should I say brave the boss summon and bite the kunai? Since I live in a shinobi world and bullets here are a joke and… Right, I'm digressing. With a last prayer to Din, Farore and Nayru, I take a long breath and step in.
"I'm home." I call, like always.
"Welcome home." I hear back. The 'I'm in the kitchen and you better come straight here right now, young lady' is kinda implied.
Still, I have already steeled my resolve. Whatever is waiting for me, I'll face it with the dignity of a proper Shimada. No matter what happens next, I'm ready for it. Or so I thought. Oh, how wrong I was.
Nothing could've prepared me for what I found there.
Standing at the back of the kitchen, back to the stove, frying pan in one hand and her '#1 Mom' mug in the other, Mother receives me with a soft smile. No, let me rephrase that so it has the proper gravitas. Mother receives me with a soft smile.
And… Is that omurice I'm smelling?
"Mother?"
"Sit down, I'm about to serve dinner."
I just nod and hurry to obey. The unexpected situation might have me a bit weirded out, but this certainly beats the dressing down I was expecting. So we eat in silence, Mother's eyes on me all along, a strangely soft look on her face. I won't say it was relaxing, because whoever relaxes around Mother doesn't have survival instincts, but it was certainly nice.
Before I knew it, my dish was empty. What? Omurice is still my favorite, got a problem?
"You've always been a notably easy child to raise." She finally breaks the silence. "At some point, as proud as I was of my smart child, I also was a bit disappointed at how you never seemed to need much help with anything. But I guess, with time, I grew used to not needing to."
I gulp. It's easy to see where this conversation is going, the implication this time I do need the attention is pretty blatant, after all. But that's not what has formed a knot on my throat. No, I can face the consequences of my actions with my head high. Her choice of words, on the other hand…
"Law and rules exist to keep chaos at bay." She continues slowly, picking her words carefully. "For a civilization to prosper, the whims of the few must be, sometimes, curtailed to safeguard the needs of the many. The status quo exists for a reason, and shouldn't be rocked recklessly. That's why discipline is so valued in society, it's the quality which allows us to follow rules that aren't strictly beneficial to us. To support the bigger picture, at the cost of our immediate comfort."
I agree with that, on principle. How could I not? My whole life -this one life- has been built around ignoring immediate pain to build up long term benefits, that's what training and studying boils down to. But what was I supposed to do? Curl up and let them step all over me? All over Karin?
"That said, the law isn't, and simply cannot be, perfect. Exceptional situations and outliers will always challenge rules set in place to regulate everyday behaviour. And that's without considering the ever present problem that is corruption. The lazy approach to that fact is to favor mediocrity, and force extremes to conform to rules that are a poor fit for them." I feel my eyes widen as understanding dawns, and Mother's smile sharpens. "Defying a set of rules that work for society as a whole, even if they don't fit you personally, it's something that takes courage."
I… I might've blushed a little, okay? It's not everyday Mother heaps praise on me like this!
"And yet, humanity is self-centered by definition. It's all too easy to view any rule that's inconvenient as something to be defied and forget they are there, first and foremost, so society can exist in the first place. Forgetting that is as stupid as conforming to poorly fit rules is lazy."
Right, I wouldn't like to become a whiny brat thinking rules don't apply to me.
"Why is this or that rule in place? How does it affect me? Do I need to break it, or there's a way to bend it in my favour? Can I get away with breaking it? And if I can't, will trampling over the ashes of civilization be a cost worth paying? Those are all questions you should keep in mind."
Mother? I think your speech wandered away from morality at some point… Also, what the hell! One of the questions there isn't even in the same league as the rest!
"Having the discipline to follow the rules is praiseworthy, as it is to have the courage to defy them. The mark of perfection though, what would make any mother proud of her child, it's to have the wisdom to know when to apply each."
Ah! There it is, the P-word again, making my heart throb and swell with joy.
You have to understand. All through my life, Mother has always been very careful not to make me feel pressured to become something I didn't want to be, but I have always wondered.
Can I really make her proud, without choosing the same path she did? Pressure or not, she's never made a secret that she'd like me following her footsteps. I know Mother better than I know anyone else, maybe better than I know myself. She'll never straight out say she's proud of me, the same way I'll never straight out ask.
No matter how much we want to, we're simply not wired that way.
That's why these roundabout ways are so important to us. For all the fear we're misreading each other, this is the closest we'll get to speaking our hearts out. That is, assuming I'm not misreading everything, of course.
Stupid Shimada blood.
"That said, this business back in the Academy..." Mother's voice drags me out of my head. I almost flinch when I parse through her words. This is when the sentence is passed, and I get condemned to hell on Earth, isn't it?
"Yes, Mother?"
"... Do you want help?" My thoughts screech to a halt. That's not… that's not what she was supposed to say!
At the same time, that's exactly what she would've said. Not stating she'll help, not asking whether I need it. Just… 'Do you want help?' Letting me know there's an easy way out, but neither assuming I'll need it, nor taking the decision out of my hands. That's… so very Mother.
The question caught me flat-footed though, so I have to stop what I'm doing to focus on my answer.
Do I want help? The situation is getting old very fast, and I see no easy resolution at hand. But honestly, I don't want help. I'm no Draco Malfoy to go crying to my parent's skirt the second something doesn't go my way. I wouldn't like anything more than solving my own problems by myself.
In this case, I'm tempted, so very tempted, to ask for help. Organised bullying is a nasty business and they're involving Karin on it, so I think it's justified to rely on Mother this one time. Yes, I shouldn't let her suffer just to appease my pride. Having found my answer, I take a deep breath and give my answer.
"Thank you, Mother. But that won't be necessary."
… I've never hated so much my stupid Shimada blood before.
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