I have been here for my lifetime, and I have decided that there must be an ideal world. To be in that ideal world. I would be a dust mote.
You see, in being a dust mote, you can have no emotions. Dust knows no hate and no predjudice, it has no desire to kill. It is only dust. It can be swept up, thrown away, vaccuumed. But it never ceases to exist. Were I dust, I would laugh every time someone tried to be rid of me. Because when you are dust, you can not be destroyed. Only moved from one place to another.
Perhaps if I am given an option in the ideal world, I will choose to be one of the dust motes that hangs in the sun. I'll never land, at least when you're looking. And I'll never be caught. If someone tried to swipe me out of the air, I'd move around like motes always do, and so they could never touch me.
If dust could smile, I would smile and hang in the sun.
I believe if I were dust, so would everyone else. Maybe we already are, some tiny spec of dust in a giant sunbeam. That's our entire world, you see. And it can't be destroyed, only moved around.
If the Buddists do not know everything, maybe they do know this. If I do, they must.
In this, I derive my knowledge...
"If someone isn't smiling, do they have all the answers?"
Kaworu had tried to split away from Juni when they had crept down from the roof, prepared to find his own way home. The girl was persistant. He had gotten aproximately fifteen feet away from her before Juni remembered she was on a mission from God to remove his quiet exterior.
To her credit, the albino didn't mind Juni's presence or her voice, and the things she talked insecently about had a certain appeal to him. They paced side by side now, the school gradually receeding as their feet ate up the sidewalk.
She wasn't especially distinctive, Juni Sekai. In a crowd, there was no way Nagisa could have picked her out if he had needed to. People blended together for him, merged and became a singular entity with no unique features. Even the genders seemed to become one. It was what they showed of how their minds worked that mattered. And when Juni opened her mouth, Kaworu listened.
"What?" The girl swiped a hand at her hair again, despite the fact it was not in her face. "Oh...deffinitly not. I can't speak for everyone in the world," When she spoke, Nagisa saw that she kept her eyes on the sky. Were there answers for her? "But I think it's because they know they don't know everything. It's just that they can't stand that thought."
"What does that do to them?"
"You're a strange creature," Juni grinned at him, flashing a row of slick white teeth. Her eyes flashed upwards again, Nagisa wondered again. Then they were on the sidewalk. "They become bitter, and cynical. There's too many people like that."
Nagisa felt himself smiling again, the slight muscle movements pleasent and alien. "You didn't want that to happen to me."
"I don't want it to happen to anyone."
"May I ask you a question, Juni?" His tone, as always, was soft and drifting. He'd learned fairly early on in life that with no emotion at all, people would shun him. The unwaivering choice he had made had worked in all situations thus far.
"Ee, you're welcome to."
"Your name," Nagisa looked skyward, following Juni's gaze. He felt no answers, and no different than he had always felt. But he was not her. "Is it a joke?"
"What?"
"A joke. Was it supposed to be funny?"
"Oh," She laughed to herself. The albino watched her carefully as she spoke. "I get it...No, it's my nickname."
He felt his chest vibrating, clicking, mirroring her laughter. Like the smile, it felt natural. It was the sense, Nagisa got the impression, of being perpetually caught above the ground in the sun. It was as near as he could tell, like being a dust mote. His laugh was distinctive, quiet and small. Sad too, although that he could not hear.
"What's so funny?" Juni leaned forward as she walked, her steps changing to an almost comical stiff-kneed clopping. "What is it?"
"The name," Nagisa kept his eyes ahead as he spoke. "Juniboku? It's suited to you."
The girl glared at him dangerously as they walked, but said nothing. Was it that she was genuinely offended, or was she overreacting intentionally? Nagisa slowed his pace and stopped laughing, his face reverting to the emotionless continance of before. For a moment, he was worried that the dark haired girl might turn on him and start a fight, but then Juni intook a long breath of air and seemed to be over it. She, Kaworu decided, was a very strange creature.
"So you live this far on the edge of town? You really are like one of those monks," Juni had finally begun to notice that they were moving to where the sidewalk would eventually end, and the trees, although stunted badly, were more frequent and less orderly.
"It was what I was given, I don't mind," Kaworu smiled faintly and crossed Juni's path, causing her to trip over her own feet and glare at him again. This time, he took no notice at all. Off the sidewalk and through some of the runt trees as a thin overgrown driveway that he began to follow. "It's nice to be able to relax quietly."
The scratching sound of Juni's school shoes on the dirt and gravel drive was angry, irregular. She was stomping, and probably going to let loose a barrage of insults that so fitted her nickname. Nagisa could feel her behind him now, feel the air ruffle slightly against his hair as she raised her hand to begin talking.
Juni's hand stopped in midair. Her steps were halted, her attention fixated ahead, and the albino who had nearly tripped her was all but forgotten as he continued to move forward.
The girl stared, struck silent.
