kudos to Lelu for providing me with a poem to put at the beginning of each chapter. ^_^

notes:

chichue -- humble way to say "father"
hahaue -- humble way of saying "mother"

"Touch the dawn,
Reach for the heavens,
Be dazzled by the brightness."

Touch the Dawn 2/10
By Elysia [ely_chan@yahoo.com]
Rated: somewhere in the PG range.

******

It wasn't until the next afternoon that Mamoru finally escaped Nagisa's watchful eye. She left his apartment to run a few errands and he saw his chance. He HAD to find Usagi and see if she knew what was going on. All last night and that morning Mamoru tried to contact Usagi, but there was no answer at her apartment. Not even her answering machine with her usual cheery voice picked up. Where could she be? He had to contact Usako, now! He needed her more than ever, because she could comfort him and he could figure out why today had been such a bizarre day.

Usagi was the only one he could count on now.

******

After spending a good part of the day trying to track Usagi down, Mamoru decided to go home. She hadn't answered her phone, nor had she been at her apartment. Mamoru didn't call her parents because he remembered at the last minute that they were out of town on a cruise.

When he returned to his apartment, Mamoru was relieved to find it still empty. All he wanted was some peace and quiet, time to think things over. What he really wanted was to find Usagi and talk things over with her. She always knew how to find solutions to even his most stressful problems.

As he crossed the living room to the kitchen, his gaze fell on the framed photo of his parents that he had been looking at the night before. Peering closely at it, he realized that Nagisa heavily resembled the woman in the picture, as if she were a twin. But that was impossible. Nagisa was not his mother, she couldn't be. The only vivid memory Mamoru had from his past was the doctor telling him he had been the only one to survive the car crash.

To his surprise, another frame sat next to it, this one of the same people, but the young boy in the picture was dressed in a soccer uniform, holding up a ball proudly. Next to that was one with the man and the boy, holding up two large fish at the edge of a huge lake.

Where in the world had these photos come from? He knew none of these events had really happened... but strangely enough as he stared harder and harder at the pictures, they began to play out scenes in his mind. Suddenly he could smell the fresh air, feel the cold water as it splashed upon him in the tiny boat he and his father had been sitting in for three hours...

No, no, NO! This was INSANE! Mamoru whirled away from the photos and fell into a chair. This couldn't be! These memories that should have been his were lost when he was only six. Why were non-existent moments from his past appearing NOW?

His eyes lifted once more and this time his gaze fell upon the only picture that was familiar to him. Little things suddenly stared him in the face, like the different frame and the careful handling the picture received over the years. Slowly he sat up and took the frame into his hands, allowing the beveled edges to press firmly into his palms. "Chichue..." he mumbled, foreign tears welling up in his eyes as he did so, "Hahaue...why did you leave me alone?"

"We're right here, Mamoru," a voice suddenly said from behind him. "I see you're looking at that picture again. That was taken at your birthday party. Your father got a new camera and he was trying it out on everything. He finally got a decent picture of the three of us that day." Nagisa stood in the room now, setting her coat and purse on the chair opposite Mamoru. A man in his mid 40s followed her into the room, staring at him. Mamoru stared back, shocked at the resemblance he could see between this man and himself.

"Don't you understand?" Mamoru exclaimed. "You cannot be my mother, nor can he be my father," he said with certainty. "I lost both of them in a car accident when I was six years old."

Nagisa's face suddenly paled. "You still remember that?" She glanced over to Hokori, who had a similar expression on his face.

"What do you mean, 'still remember?' That's the only thing I remembered after I woke up."

Nagisa began to pace the room, her hand pressed to her mouth. Hokori silently reached out to grasp Nagisa's arm and sat down on the sofa with her. "We had no idea you remembered the accident. The doctors told us you had suffered some memory loss when you hit your head, so we assumed that you didn't know what had happened to you. I'm so sorry, Mamoru."

Mamoru's eyes narrowed. "What really happened?"

"I wish that was the part you could remember. We were taking a drive in the country, and you and I were singing along with radio. Your father turned to smile back at you and that was at the same time that he was rounding the bend."

"It was at that moment that headlights flashed at us," Hokori added. "You spotted them first, yelled and then I quickly swerved out of the way. When we came to a stop, we were just inches from going over the edge of a steep cliff. Your mother had a broken arm and I had many cuts and bruises, but you were the worst off. They kept you in the hospital for 3 weeks, not sure if you were going to pull through."

Mamoru shook his head wildly, not knowing what to believe. "How am I supposed to believe you if I don't remember any of this?"

Nagisa smiled calmly and without warning, pressed her hand to his hairline. "You still have a scar from when you hit your head. The doctors stitched you up quickly so it wouldn't be too visible. You can barely see it now, but you can feel it." His eyes widened as he slid his hand up to the place where her hand had been previously and felt along his scalp.

She was telling the truth.