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My name is Mimi Tachikawa, fourteen years old; student at Odaiba Junior High.
I have brown hair and brown eyes. My favorite color is pink. My favorite subjects in school are home ec. and art. My worst subjects are math and Japanese history.
I can be a little stubborn, and I can whine a little. Okay, maybe a lot. Most people tell me that I have a pure sense, and I am very sincere most of the time. Maybe it's because I have a big mouth. I'm not sure. My boyfriend is Koushiro Izumi, which is totally ironic, since he is the total opposite of me. All in all, I am a regular teenager.
And I have just found out I was dead.
I'm writing all of this stuff down on a notebook in my old room, because I want
people to know my bizarre story. I know that if my friends go out and tell it, people will think they are just nuts. I won't be able go tell my story by mouth, since people won't be able to see me. See, I only have a couple of moments to write all this down, so I have to write fast, and make sure my hand doesn't cramp up.
I'll start off with when Hikari told me I was dead.
"It's the anniversary," she had said quietly, "of the day you died."
I was really ready to fall down. I wanted to close my eyes. I wanted to go back to sleep so that the dream could end. Then, when the dream did end, I would wake up, and start a new day. The dream would fade. All of it. This whole illusion would go away.
"It's not a dream, Mimi," Hikari said, as if reading my thoughts. She and her
friends put their D-3's away. "Come with me to the ocean, Mimi." With that, she walked away, squeezing Takeru's hand. To both Takeru and Ken, she asked, "Are you guys okay?"
"Um... hai," Ken replied, feeling a little shaken. "I just didn't understand.... Why
didn't you tell us?"
"Yeah, Hikari," Takeru said. "I would've understood. I know you are capable of some sixth-sense thing that we don't have."
Hikari shrugged. "Gomen. I didn't think anyone would believe me. So I kept it a secret."
I just stared blankly ahead, her feet feeling as if I was barely touching the ground. I didn't know what to say. "Hikari?" I caught up to my fellow Chosen Children. I felt so weird, calling this older girl Hikari. The Hikari that I knew wasn't like this. "What...how long has it been...?" I was at a loss for words.
"Three years," Takeru answered for Hikari. We kept on walking down the beach, towards the shoreline.
Three years... No wonder... My gosh, they've aged! I stared at the high school
students in front of me. I saw it now. Now I knew why they had seemed so familiar. And I've been dead this whole time... And didn't even know it...?
How can you be dead, and not know it?
The thought struck me like a thousand bolts. It was just completely preposterous. I had been dead, but I didn't even know I was dead. I pinched herself. It hurt. My body was mine. It was as real as anybody's body. My skin, my hair, the dress, all of it. You could touch it, feel it. "It... it doesn't seem like I'm dead," I admitted.
Hikari looked at me. We were at the shoreline. "I know. It doesn't look like
you're dead either," she admitted back. "Not like how you were in the casket."
I closed my eyes. Casket. I was in a casket. Three years ago. An old, cold, soft, deadly velvety casket. I shuddered. All the death talk was making me dizzy.
"Put your hand in the water, Mimi," Hikari instructed.
I did as I was told.
Suddenly, I was transferred to a scene at the beach. I sighed in relief. There were my friends! All young again. Koushiro was there. That made me so happy. If you didn't even realize until now, I loved Koushiro. I really wanted to put my arms around him, to hug him and to kiss him, but something held me back. I looked at the others. Hikari, Takeru, and Ken were all thirteen-years-old. Everything was normal. Until Jyou had dragged a body out of the ocean. It was my body. I was watching my own body.
I felt a chill go down my back.
"My God...." gasped Sora, rushing over to the scene. "She's so pale! Jyou, do
something!"
I watched as Jyou gently touched his fingers to my wet neck. Then, he closed in on my nose, trying to see if I was breathing. I know now that I was not. My pale face was sweating drops of salt water, and my hair was so messed up, that it took all of my willpower to just run and fix it with a brush. But there was one problem. One, I was just watching this illusion from my sub-conciousness. Two, I didn't have a brush with me.
Jyou looked up, his dark eyes troubled. "I can't find a pulse. She's not breathing. Koushiro?" He turned to look at him. "Can I? Or will you be too jealous?"
A joke. Very un-Jyou-like. He would never be able to make up a half-hearted
joke at a time like this. Or maybe he would. I don't know. I never really understood his sense of humor.
Koushiro managed a small smile, but I could see that he just wanted to break down and scream. He didn't like seeing my body so cold and helplessly dead. His eyes darted back and forth between my cold body and my friends. "Go ahead, Jyou. Please, help her."
Jyou then gently pinched my nose and lowered his lips onto mine. He started
breathing air into me. One, two, three times. He then lowered his hands onto my chest and started to press lightly onto my heart, trying to pump it up and get a heartbeat. And one and two and three and four and five and six and seven and eight and nine and ten.... He repeated the process.
Blow in, one... two.. three....
Pump one, two, three, four, five..... ten.
Blow in, one, two, three....
Pump one, two, three, four, five..... ten.
It was a tiring process, for I was getting bored watching. I knew it was hopeless. It was bizarre, but I knew I was dead. I just wished I could've heard that wave coming. I know what waves sound like. I've been going to the beach ever since I was a little girl. I smacked myself inwardly, chiding myself about my stupidity.
Jyou listened in to see if I was breathing. Nothing. He put his fingers to my neck to see if my pulse was beating. Again, nothing. He tried something different. He took my left hand and put his fingers against the bottom on my wrist. Nothing. I was dead. And he knew it.
He looked up to my friends' faces. He didn't have to say anything. They knew
already. Koushiro kneeled down next to me and softly kissed my face, stroking my wet hair. Everyone started crying. I hated that sound. The sound of crying is so sad. I wanted to tell them that I was there, watching the whole thing. I wanted to let them know that I was okay. Most of all, I wanted Koushiro to hold me in his arms again.
I felt something wet against my face. A cold, wet feeling. I put my hand to my
cheek. Then I realized.
I was crying, too.
I watched as they carried my body to the beach house.
I watched as my parents came out, and took me in their arms.
I was watching all of this, although I was dead. I didn't know why.
I blinked. I was no longer at the beach.
I blinked again as the scenery just transformed before me. I really was no longer at the beach, watching as my friends and family tried to help my cold, dead body. Instead, a swarm of people were around me. All of them had blank looks on their faces, talking to each other, mingling. But there was something very depressing about this scene that didn't seem to get by me just yet. Then something hit me. I didn't really know why, but I felt relief. I mean, there were all these people! Familiar faces that I knew. I saw everybody from school, my friends, my family. Everyone.
I saw a girl, Hitomi, who used to be from my art class. I nearly jumped with joy! I hadn't seen her in ages! See, she moved to the Nakano district of Tokyo a few months ago. We were very close. Excitedly, I ran up to her. "Hitomi! Hey, what's up?? I-" Suddenly, I stopped.
Hitomi walked up to Sora and Yamato, who were there too, with a somber look
on her face. Her purple blouse clung well to her body and her black skirt moved with a nice flow. I looked at her green eyes that glowed with her black hair. I saw something that I thought would never come from her. Tears. Tears welled up in her eyes, from Hitomi Sakushi's eyes, which was the entrance to the soul of a spirited, happy, cheerleader.
For the first time, I had noticed that everyone was wearing dark clothes. Everyone was talking quietly. And everyone was crying.
"I can't believe it," Hitomi told them, quietly. She squeezed her eyes shut, which made this very confident girl look so scared and hopeless.
"She was a nice girl," commented Sora, hugging Hitomi. "Jyou did what he could. I guess she was down so far for so long. It's so upsetting," she whispered, tears forming in her eyes and pulled away. "Why did she have to die???"
My heart ached. Me. She was talking about me. I listened some more.
"Don't worry, Sora," Yamato said quietly to her. He laid a hand on her shoulder.
"Hai." Taichi walked up to them, his brown hair as messy as always. But the
courageous leader of the Chosen Children took Sora in his arms and hugged her tightly. "It's all right. She's in a better place right now."
My eyes then wandered around at the sad people within the room. Crying.
Hugging. Reassuring each other. My parents were up that the front, greeting the people that walked down the aisle. Something at the front caught my eye. It was a brown, wooden box that was laying open. Red silk lined it from the inside. My heart stopped beating. I raced up to the front, not even caring that it was so weird that I just floated right through everybody.
I looked inside the box. I recognized the face. Wavy brown hair. Purity and
innocence shining through the lifeless body. The dress. It was me. Mimi Taichikawa. In my casket. At my funeral.
I grabbed the edge of the casket. Suddenly, I felt as if I couldn't even stand up, and I had to hold myself to keep my balance. No! I cried in my head. No! It's not me! It can't be me! I couldn't be me, for the purity was mine, but the body wasn't. This may sound crazy, but I looked.... well.... fatter. I didn't look like myself. Pale. Hopeless. Weak. Not one ounce of life in myself. That wasn't me. The Mimi Tachikawa I knew was high-spirited, a little stubborn, a little spoiled, happy-go-lucky. I knew that I loved my friends. This body, this person, who was laying still as the dead in the coffin in a bad dress, was not me.
But no matter how much I said "no," the answer was always "yes."
The music started. Everyone was seated quietly. I, too, sat down as the funeral began.
