A Hanadan Carol
Part Four
again I apologize for any inaccuracies (particularly regarding this guest's salary) as I don't have my manga with me.
~~~
He was ready this time. Tsukasa knew the pattern now - the ghost would make some sort of foolish comment and appear, looking sunny as can be, somewhere in his room. So Tsukasa just waited. He sat stock still on his bed, thoughts running madly through his head, but body unmoving. Waiting. And feeling.
Regret and guilt. And anger that he had to feel guilt for things he couldn't remember doing. Desperate confusion at why it had to be this way. And through it all, a pang of sadness with the image of the silvery tear of a girl he couldn't or wouldn't remember loving. He'd always considered himself above such things. How could he accept having spent over a year of his life devoted to her? It went against everything he took pride in being, believing. Why would he willingly turn his life upside down?
And then there was her to consider. If he had cared for her -- and he knew he had, if only in that dim sort of way one knows things in a dream -- how could he put her through all that? He was sure he could do nothing but hurt her anyway. What did he know about love?
He was so engrossed in his thoughts that he barely heard the knock on the door.
The sound came again, hollow and piercing, and Tsukasa roused himself and looked around. No ghost? Perhaps this insane dream was over sooner than anticipated, and a nurse was at his door with this morning's breakfast. Excited at the prospect, Tsukasa leapt to his feet and went rushing for the door so fast that he never thought to look out the window and see that it was, in fact, still night.
So he was utterly shocked when the door flew open and he was standing face-to-face with a hooded black cloak.
"What the--" Tsukasa tumbled back a few feet, then regained his senses. "What the hell are you!?" The figure made no reply. "Come on," Tsukasa raged, all his nerves on edge. "Let me see your--" and he ran toward the new arrival, grabbing the hood with both hands and forcing it backwards-- "FACE!"
Now he could. And it was Tsukasa's own face.
"Yo," Amon saluted him, the sarcastic clip to his voice and his movements the same as Tsukasa remembered. He didn't even bother trying to figure out how he knew this lookalike... the answer was sure to have to do with patches of white fog in his memory. He just answered Amon's scowl. Two bad attitudes faced off in the room for a silent moment.
Then Amon went on. "I'll get to the point. I sacrificed 25 million yen and my pride to let you and Tsukushi-chan get together, and there is no way I'm going to let you forget about her now. Come on, out the door, 'cousin.' Time for you to see Christmas Future." He laid a hand on Tsukasa's shoulder.
Tsukasa shook it off, but more sadly than violently. "I get what you all are trying to do here," he said in a tone so pensive and regretful it hardly seemed like his. "But I don't think my remembering her is going to do her any good. It'd be much better for her if I just forgot about her entirely."
"Where the hell do you get off figuring that out NOW!?" Amon shouted, knocking Tsukasa off balance. "I was the one who told you that, you bastard! You should have agreed to it back when she was really willing to go off with me and forget about you! Not now, when she's made the decision to stay with you no matter what! You selfish, no-good BASTARD!" The curse echoed in the small room. Amon lost his wind and panted for a few moments. Tsukasa could not say a word-- even if he could have found the words to say.
"Never mind," Amon finally said when he got his breath back. "Never mind. Let's just go."
Thrown by the force of his words, Tsukasa had temporarily forgotten the situation. "Go?"
"You think leaving Tsukushi-chan alone will make everything okay? Let's go see what a difference a year makes." With that, Amon grabbed Tsukasa's wrist firmly and hauled him through the door into the haze.
~
Candles lent a gentle glow to the frosty corners of the windows, and the dark green upholstery flickered with dots of reflected gold. It was a comfortable, spacious sitting room, and on one end a fire crackled, spreading warmth throughout.
Which Tsukasa felt none of. "Why are we watching this from the outside?" he demanded. "It's freezing!"
"Because you're not welcome in this home anymore," Amon said soberly, his eyes fixed on the sight in the windowpane.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Tsukasa demanded. "This is Rui's place!"
"It's a year later," was Amon's only reply. His features fell into profound shadow.
On the near side of the room sat four people on two couches, sipping champagne, nibbling on cookies, and talking. One one sofa sat Soujirou and Akira, looking far more somber than they had on previous Christmas Eves, and on the other sat Rui, his body angled in protectively toward the girl sitting beside him. "Makino," Tsukasa whispered.
Their conversation drifted from the window, and Soujirou was telling a joke at which all three boys laughed. "Don't you think so, Makino?" he grinned, leaning toward her. She mustered up a small smile and nodded at him. "Of course, that's nothing compared to that time when we were in grade school, and Tsukasa tried to--" His words were cut off when Akira nudged his buddy meaningfully.
"Sorry, Makino." Soujirou caressed his now-sore side, a rueful grin plastered on his face. "I really didn't mean to..."
"It's okay, Nishikado-san." She did her best to smile. "Don't worry about it."
Rui put a comforting arm around Tsukushi and squeezed her briefly. At this, her tears came, and she hid her face. "I'm... sorry," she said, her voice breaking.
"It's okay. This is a tough day for you, Makino. But it'll get easier." Rui kissed the top of her head gently. "It'll get easier," he repeated.
"Sure! We'll be asking ourselves 'Tsukasa who?' any day n..." Soujirou was, once more, cut off -- only this time it took a full head lock by Akira to do it.
Outside, Tsukasa shivered and turned to Amon. "What the hell is going on here!?" he demanded. "I'm not welcome here, you said?"
"You blew it," Amon said darkly. "You wouldn't remember, and you lost the closest friends you ever had." His scowl blackened further. "That's what you get."
"You goddamned son of a bitch!" Tsukasa erupted, pushing his way through the snow to grab Amon by the front of his collar. "Where am I in all this, huh? What the hell am I doing while my friends are betraying me?"
"You?" Amon smiled, despite Tsukasa holding him aloft by the front of his shirt. "You're right over there." He pointed. Tsukasa dropped him and whirled.
Sure enough, standing in the drifts of snow that coated the sidewalks outside the Hanazawa gate, stood Tsukasa. His coat was loosely buttoned, his scarf flying free in the wind, leaving his ears and face free to be rubbed red and raw by the cold. He gazed dolefully up at the house, and looked for all the world like he would just stay there until the raging blizzard covered him from head to toe. Even with the thick coat, it was easy to see that he'd lost weight. He looked scrawny standing there, like a stick blown haphazardly by the storm.
"Hey! You!" came an unfamiliar voice from the house, and the two observers looked up to see a maid busy sweeping snow from the porch. She had caught sight of Tsukasa in the snow, and was waving a broom at him angrily. "Don't you come near this house again! You thick-skulled rich boy. You don't deserve what you've got!" Sighing heavily at her words, the rich boy left his post and began to trudge along.
"How does a stupid MAID talk to me like that!" Tsukasa roared at the scene. He began to work his way down from the gardens to the sidewalk and follow his alter ego. Amon followed, shouting words that Tsukasa either didn't hear or didn't acknowledge in the roaring wind.
"Everyone talks to you like that, because everyone knows what you are now! Hanazawa-kun made no secret of his feelings toward Tsukushi-chan, or what you'd done to her! And when you gave her up, he took her in! Told her he'd make sure she never had reason to hear about you again, and promised to love her no matter what. No matter what, Tsukasa! Do those words have any meaning for you?"
They had followed the future Tsukasa onto a main road, where cars were moving along with windshield wipers flapping despite the heavy snow. Tsukasa was walking aimlessly along the sidewalk, hands deep in his pockets, not even looking up. Then wheels screeched and headlights blared in his face, and he put a gloved hand to his eyes to filter out the light.
A long, sleek, black car had pulled up alongside him, tires plowing through the fresh snow. He stood temporarily blinded by the painful yellow of the headlights, and when they went off he opened his eyes to the sight of a door opening and high heeled boots stepping out into the snow.
The face of an Ice Queen in the middle of winter gazed at him. "Time's up, Tsukasa-san," Kaede said. "You're going back."
"Back?" the Tsukasa watching blurted out. "The hell!?"
"To New York, little rich boy," Amon said. "You had a year off to be with Tsukushi-chan, courtesy of Mommie Dearest, and you wasted the whole year."
"Why the hell would I go off to New York with the bitch, girl or no girl?" Tsukasa retorted. "And what does that have to do with it?! She can't make me go anywhere!"
"But you're going," was Amon's only reply. Tsukasa turned again.
Mutely, submissively, Tsukasa was climbing into the car. Kaede stood by with a satisfied smirk on her face. Enraged, the observer Tsukasa ran with all his strength, right up to the two of them. "Stop it!" he shouted at himself. "Are you a moron!?"
But as he tried and failed to grasp his future self's shoulders, he got a good long look at his own face. Pale, lean, devoid of all emotion. Without fire, without fun. It was the face of a corpse.
Kaede got in after her son. The car sputtered to life and sped away.
Tsukasa watched it go for a long while, the snow falling around him silently. He could feel his heart shattering into a thousand pieces, and he searched desperately for the reason why.
"Are you telling me..." he said finally, more to himself than to Amon, who had come up just behind him. His voice was a ragged near-wail of sad realization. "...Are you telling me that without Makino, I'm not even me anymore? That if I let her go... I'll lose everything?"
Amon's sudden hand on his shoulder was the only warmth he'd felt in this whole vision, and Tsukasa turned. Dark eyes blazed into his, and for the first time since he'd appeared, Amon spoke in a gentle tone. "You may lose everything even with her," he whispered. "But at least you'll be where you're supposed to be."
Tsukasa looked at Amon for another moment. Then he closed his eyes.
How long he stood there in the cold before he was somehow brought back to his room, he didn't know. How long Amon remained with him before he, too, faded away, he didn't know. Tsukasa was within himself, searching himself, for what seemed like an eternity, and he lost sight of all else. As before, he thought he heard a bell toll.
He was a fool. A stubborn, cynical fool who didn't realize even his heart could be opened. But it could. It had. There was only one person on this earth who could have done it, and she had always held the key.
And now he needed to recapture his life. Recapture the past, painful as it might be. Recapture the love that had changed his world.
He'd been running from it long enough. Now he had to embrace it all, even the humiliation, even the sadness and the frustration, even the pain.
And the joy so sweet it melted his soul...
He clutched a hand to his heart and prayed fervently for his life back. For the return of the memories that overwhelmed him so much he'd even blocked them out in panicked desperation when he was fighting for his life. They'd been too much for him then, but he needed them now. He needed her now. And so he prayed.
A solitary tear escaped his eye and his lips moved to form a single word.
"Makino..."
~ to be concluded ~
Part Four
again I apologize for any inaccuracies (particularly regarding this guest's salary) as I don't have my manga with me.
~~~
He was ready this time. Tsukasa knew the pattern now - the ghost would make some sort of foolish comment and appear, looking sunny as can be, somewhere in his room. So Tsukasa just waited. He sat stock still on his bed, thoughts running madly through his head, but body unmoving. Waiting. And feeling.
Regret and guilt. And anger that he had to feel guilt for things he couldn't remember doing. Desperate confusion at why it had to be this way. And through it all, a pang of sadness with the image of the silvery tear of a girl he couldn't or wouldn't remember loving. He'd always considered himself above such things. How could he accept having spent over a year of his life devoted to her? It went against everything he took pride in being, believing. Why would he willingly turn his life upside down?
And then there was her to consider. If he had cared for her -- and he knew he had, if only in that dim sort of way one knows things in a dream -- how could he put her through all that? He was sure he could do nothing but hurt her anyway. What did he know about love?
He was so engrossed in his thoughts that he barely heard the knock on the door.
The sound came again, hollow and piercing, and Tsukasa roused himself and looked around. No ghost? Perhaps this insane dream was over sooner than anticipated, and a nurse was at his door with this morning's breakfast. Excited at the prospect, Tsukasa leapt to his feet and went rushing for the door so fast that he never thought to look out the window and see that it was, in fact, still night.
So he was utterly shocked when the door flew open and he was standing face-to-face with a hooded black cloak.
"What the--" Tsukasa tumbled back a few feet, then regained his senses. "What the hell are you!?" The figure made no reply. "Come on," Tsukasa raged, all his nerves on edge. "Let me see your--" and he ran toward the new arrival, grabbing the hood with both hands and forcing it backwards-- "FACE!"
Now he could. And it was Tsukasa's own face.
"Yo," Amon saluted him, the sarcastic clip to his voice and his movements the same as Tsukasa remembered. He didn't even bother trying to figure out how he knew this lookalike... the answer was sure to have to do with patches of white fog in his memory. He just answered Amon's scowl. Two bad attitudes faced off in the room for a silent moment.
Then Amon went on. "I'll get to the point. I sacrificed 25 million yen and my pride to let you and Tsukushi-chan get together, and there is no way I'm going to let you forget about her now. Come on, out the door, 'cousin.' Time for you to see Christmas Future." He laid a hand on Tsukasa's shoulder.
Tsukasa shook it off, but more sadly than violently. "I get what you all are trying to do here," he said in a tone so pensive and regretful it hardly seemed like his. "But I don't think my remembering her is going to do her any good. It'd be much better for her if I just forgot about her entirely."
"Where the hell do you get off figuring that out NOW!?" Amon shouted, knocking Tsukasa off balance. "I was the one who told you that, you bastard! You should have agreed to it back when she was really willing to go off with me and forget about you! Not now, when she's made the decision to stay with you no matter what! You selfish, no-good BASTARD!" The curse echoed in the small room. Amon lost his wind and panted for a few moments. Tsukasa could not say a word-- even if he could have found the words to say.
"Never mind," Amon finally said when he got his breath back. "Never mind. Let's just go."
Thrown by the force of his words, Tsukasa had temporarily forgotten the situation. "Go?"
"You think leaving Tsukushi-chan alone will make everything okay? Let's go see what a difference a year makes." With that, Amon grabbed Tsukasa's wrist firmly and hauled him through the door into the haze.
~
Candles lent a gentle glow to the frosty corners of the windows, and the dark green upholstery flickered with dots of reflected gold. It was a comfortable, spacious sitting room, and on one end a fire crackled, spreading warmth throughout.
Which Tsukasa felt none of. "Why are we watching this from the outside?" he demanded. "It's freezing!"
"Because you're not welcome in this home anymore," Amon said soberly, his eyes fixed on the sight in the windowpane.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Tsukasa demanded. "This is Rui's place!"
"It's a year later," was Amon's only reply. His features fell into profound shadow.
On the near side of the room sat four people on two couches, sipping champagne, nibbling on cookies, and talking. One one sofa sat Soujirou and Akira, looking far more somber than they had on previous Christmas Eves, and on the other sat Rui, his body angled in protectively toward the girl sitting beside him. "Makino," Tsukasa whispered.
Their conversation drifted from the window, and Soujirou was telling a joke at which all three boys laughed. "Don't you think so, Makino?" he grinned, leaning toward her. She mustered up a small smile and nodded at him. "Of course, that's nothing compared to that time when we were in grade school, and Tsukasa tried to--" His words were cut off when Akira nudged his buddy meaningfully.
"Sorry, Makino." Soujirou caressed his now-sore side, a rueful grin plastered on his face. "I really didn't mean to..."
"It's okay, Nishikado-san." She did her best to smile. "Don't worry about it."
Rui put a comforting arm around Tsukushi and squeezed her briefly. At this, her tears came, and she hid her face. "I'm... sorry," she said, her voice breaking.
"It's okay. This is a tough day for you, Makino. But it'll get easier." Rui kissed the top of her head gently. "It'll get easier," he repeated.
"Sure! We'll be asking ourselves 'Tsukasa who?' any day n..." Soujirou was, once more, cut off -- only this time it took a full head lock by Akira to do it.
Outside, Tsukasa shivered and turned to Amon. "What the hell is going on here!?" he demanded. "I'm not welcome here, you said?"
"You blew it," Amon said darkly. "You wouldn't remember, and you lost the closest friends you ever had." His scowl blackened further. "That's what you get."
"You goddamned son of a bitch!" Tsukasa erupted, pushing his way through the snow to grab Amon by the front of his collar. "Where am I in all this, huh? What the hell am I doing while my friends are betraying me?"
"You?" Amon smiled, despite Tsukasa holding him aloft by the front of his shirt. "You're right over there." He pointed. Tsukasa dropped him and whirled.
Sure enough, standing in the drifts of snow that coated the sidewalks outside the Hanazawa gate, stood Tsukasa. His coat was loosely buttoned, his scarf flying free in the wind, leaving his ears and face free to be rubbed red and raw by the cold. He gazed dolefully up at the house, and looked for all the world like he would just stay there until the raging blizzard covered him from head to toe. Even with the thick coat, it was easy to see that he'd lost weight. He looked scrawny standing there, like a stick blown haphazardly by the storm.
"Hey! You!" came an unfamiliar voice from the house, and the two observers looked up to see a maid busy sweeping snow from the porch. She had caught sight of Tsukasa in the snow, and was waving a broom at him angrily. "Don't you come near this house again! You thick-skulled rich boy. You don't deserve what you've got!" Sighing heavily at her words, the rich boy left his post and began to trudge along.
"How does a stupid MAID talk to me like that!" Tsukasa roared at the scene. He began to work his way down from the gardens to the sidewalk and follow his alter ego. Amon followed, shouting words that Tsukasa either didn't hear or didn't acknowledge in the roaring wind.
"Everyone talks to you like that, because everyone knows what you are now! Hanazawa-kun made no secret of his feelings toward Tsukushi-chan, or what you'd done to her! And when you gave her up, he took her in! Told her he'd make sure she never had reason to hear about you again, and promised to love her no matter what. No matter what, Tsukasa! Do those words have any meaning for you?"
They had followed the future Tsukasa onto a main road, where cars were moving along with windshield wipers flapping despite the heavy snow. Tsukasa was walking aimlessly along the sidewalk, hands deep in his pockets, not even looking up. Then wheels screeched and headlights blared in his face, and he put a gloved hand to his eyes to filter out the light.
A long, sleek, black car had pulled up alongside him, tires plowing through the fresh snow. He stood temporarily blinded by the painful yellow of the headlights, and when they went off he opened his eyes to the sight of a door opening and high heeled boots stepping out into the snow.
The face of an Ice Queen in the middle of winter gazed at him. "Time's up, Tsukasa-san," Kaede said. "You're going back."
"Back?" the Tsukasa watching blurted out. "The hell!?"
"To New York, little rich boy," Amon said. "You had a year off to be with Tsukushi-chan, courtesy of Mommie Dearest, and you wasted the whole year."
"Why the hell would I go off to New York with the bitch, girl or no girl?" Tsukasa retorted. "And what does that have to do with it?! She can't make me go anywhere!"
"But you're going," was Amon's only reply. Tsukasa turned again.
Mutely, submissively, Tsukasa was climbing into the car. Kaede stood by with a satisfied smirk on her face. Enraged, the observer Tsukasa ran with all his strength, right up to the two of them. "Stop it!" he shouted at himself. "Are you a moron!?"
But as he tried and failed to grasp his future self's shoulders, he got a good long look at his own face. Pale, lean, devoid of all emotion. Without fire, without fun. It was the face of a corpse.
Kaede got in after her son. The car sputtered to life and sped away.
Tsukasa watched it go for a long while, the snow falling around him silently. He could feel his heart shattering into a thousand pieces, and he searched desperately for the reason why.
"Are you telling me..." he said finally, more to himself than to Amon, who had come up just behind him. His voice was a ragged near-wail of sad realization. "...Are you telling me that without Makino, I'm not even me anymore? That if I let her go... I'll lose everything?"
Amon's sudden hand on his shoulder was the only warmth he'd felt in this whole vision, and Tsukasa turned. Dark eyes blazed into his, and for the first time since he'd appeared, Amon spoke in a gentle tone. "You may lose everything even with her," he whispered. "But at least you'll be where you're supposed to be."
Tsukasa looked at Amon for another moment. Then he closed his eyes.
How long he stood there in the cold before he was somehow brought back to his room, he didn't know. How long Amon remained with him before he, too, faded away, he didn't know. Tsukasa was within himself, searching himself, for what seemed like an eternity, and he lost sight of all else. As before, he thought he heard a bell toll.
He was a fool. A stubborn, cynical fool who didn't realize even his heart could be opened. But it could. It had. There was only one person on this earth who could have done it, and she had always held the key.
And now he needed to recapture his life. Recapture the past, painful as it might be. Recapture the love that had changed his world.
He'd been running from it long enough. Now he had to embrace it all, even the humiliation, even the sadness and the frustration, even the pain.
And the joy so sweet it melted his soul...
He clutched a hand to his heart and prayed fervently for his life back. For the return of the memories that overwhelmed him so much he'd even blocked them out in panicked desperation when he was fighting for his life. They'd been too much for him then, but he needed them now. He needed her now. And so he prayed.
A solitary tear escaped his eye and his lips moved to form a single word.
"Makino..."
~ to be concluded ~
