Author's Note: Due to limited knowledge about Japanese burial traditions, Yukari's funeral is in the American custom. Please respect this difference.
Disclaimer: Tenkuu no Escaflowne is property of Bandai and Sunrise, all rights reserved. I am in no way affiliated with these companies, and am not making profit. Any similarities between my work and anyone else's is purely coincidental. Lyrics to "Headstrong" are property ofTrapt, all rights reserved.
- X - x - X -
"Whisper Memories" -- Part 3: Headstrong
By The Last Princess of Hyrule
- X - x - X -
Circling, circling, circling your head,
Contemplating everything you ever said,
Now I see the / truth I got it down,
A different motive in your eyes and now I'm out,
See you later . . .
- X - x - X -
Yukari's funeral was set for that Sunday. The day began with rain, as had all the days since her suicide. Dark clouds and smoky vehicle exhaust covered the sky and the city streets were obscure by a thick fog and misty drizzle of rain. Hitomi watched the rainfall from her bedroom window, a dubious look on her face.
How can I really be going to my best friend's funeral on a day like this? If Yukari were still here, she'd come over to my apartment and we'd watch movies on Dad's big screen with Mom pestering us with drinks and snacks and annoying questions about the rating. She pressed one hand against the glass, tracing the panes with her other index finger.
On her futon bed was a black knee-length skirt, dark nylons, a black long-sleeved blouse, and a long black overcoat. Hitomi was wrapped in a white terrycloth robe with an indigo floral pattern along the bottom hem and ends of the sleeves. Little vines snaked in impossible twisting designs around broad blooming flowers with exotic names Hitomi did not know. How she wished she could just lounge around in her robe all day instead of getting dressed in the black mourning clothes.
There was a quiet knock on her door. "Hitomi . . .?" came her mother's voice, muffled through the wood. "Are you about ready? The service is starting soon."
"I'll be there in a minute," Hitomi replied. With a tired sigh, she drew closed the curtains and untied the robe, letting it fall in a heap at her feet.
The clothes were less than comfortable, the nylons scratchy and the blouse stiff, her skirt painfully tight around her waist. Grabbing a pair of black barrettes from an ornate wooden jewelry box atop her dresser, Hitomi clipped her hair back and turned critically to her reflection in the mirror. Much as I hate to admit it, black really is my color . . . Gah! How can I be thinking of clothes at a time like this?! Hitomi mentally slapped herself.
Mrs. Kanzaki knocked on the door again. "Hitomi? Can I come in?"
"Yeah, sure."
Mrs. Kanzaki entered. She was wearing a long black dress with ruffled cuffs and a similar hem. She had twisted her brown hair up in a plain knot on her head and topped with a black hat and matching veil, masking her face—and her tears—in shadows.
Automatically, Hitomi's mother moved behind her daughter and began straightening her blouse and skirt. "How are you feeling?" she asked softly.
"Fine, I guess."
"Are you sure you don't need to talk about it?" Mrs. Kanzaki pressed. "You know I'm here for you, right?"
"I know."
"You're sure you're all right?"
"Mom, I'm fine," Hitomi insisted, batting her mother away. "I'll be okay."
Mrs. Kanzaki did not look too convinced, but she let the matter stand where it was. She was trying to make Hitomi's day as good as possible and arguing with her would not been the right move toward that goal.
"Well, we're almost ready to leave," Mrs. Kanzaki said.
"I'll be out in a minute," replied Hitomi, still facing her mirror. "I just need to get my music." Mrs. Uchida had requested that Hitomi provide music for the service, which was being held indoors because of the rain, since Hitomi had known Yukari best and Mrs. Uchida wanted to play some of Yukari's favorite songs.
"All right."
Hitomi watched her mother through the reflection on the mirror leave the room and close the door tightly behind her. The family was waiting in the living room for her to be ready. Actually, they weren't quite a family; they were just Hitomi and her parents. Since Yukari's death, Hitomi's younger brother, Mamoru, had been living at a friend's house. Mr. and Mrs. Kanzaki wanted Hitomi under as little stress as possible while she was coping with her grief and Mamoru caused his sister a lot of stress. Sighing, Hitomi slumped into a heap on the floor and covered her eyes with her palms, trying to hold the tears inside.
I don't know how I'm going to do this. I can't bury my best friend. It's not supposed to happen like this. We were supposed to go to America when we graduated and impress all the Americans with how well we can speak English. Now who am I supposed to go with? I don't know anyone else that can speak English that would go with me . . .
- X - x - X -
I see your fantasy,
You wanna make it a reality / bathe in gold,
See inside it's outta our hands,
Well, nowthat's over,
I see your motives inside,
Decisions to hide . . .
- X - x - X -
Suddenly, she heard the sounds of muffled voices coming from the living room, a knock on the front door of the apartment, and someone coming inside. Hitomi lifted her head and strained her ears to hear the voices. She recognized her mother and father, but the third voice, a deep warm one, she could not place.
Grabbing her CD case and papers with her part of the eulogy, Hitomi put her slippers back on and went out into the living room. In front of the apartment's entrance stood her mother, father, and Folken Fanel. Hitomi froze.
Mrs. Kanzaki spotted Hitomi. "Come on, Hitomi," she said, gesturing her daughter over. "We really should be going."
Hitomi, her eyes watching the people around her, slipped on a pair of black Mary Janes with low heals. No words were exchanged between her parents and Folken, which surprised Hitomi. It was uncharacteristic of her parents to let a stranger into the house, especially a high school student in Tokyo, without subjecting them to a horrible inquisition. Had Yukari's death really affected them so much that they would change their habits? Nothing made sense anymore for Hitomi.
Seeing she was ready, Mr. Kanzaki opened the front door and let everyone into the corridor, coming out last and locking it behind him. They descended four levels of stairs and entered the apartment complex's lobby, which was filled with people in dripping coats and rain-soaked attire.
The funeral home where Yukari had been laid out was only four blocks from the complex, so they decided to walk. Mr. and Mrs. Kanzaki huddled under an umbrella and walked swiftly in front down the sidewalk. Hitomi followed at a slower pace, letting the rain, which was falling harder now, beat down on her head in a steady rhythm and soak through to her skin.
Raindrops caught on her eyelashes and Tokyo, though it was only three o'clock in the afternoon, was lit up with tall, sweeping layers of bright neon lights. Signs were flashing, swirling, and vibrating everywhere she looked, advertising more products of as diverse varieties as one could find on a single busy street. High skyscrapers loomed overhead, lights from rooms above piercing the foggy sky with their warm glows.
And then, the rain stopped and its absence startled Hitomi from her musings. Blinking, she looked up and saw the sky blocked by the fabric of a black umbrella.
"How are you, Hitomi?" Folken asked from beside her.
"Are you going to ask me that every time you see me? Well, all right, I suppose," she replied. "Considering . . ." Her eyes followed her parents' forms up ahead. "It's just . . . different."
They stepped through a puddle and Hitomi felt cold water splash her ankles.
"Everyone's acting really weird around me," she said. "Mom and Dad barely say anything to me anymore and whenever I walk in a room and they're talking they go silent. Mrs. Uchida keeps going to tears whenever she sees me and I can't even count the number of times Mr. Uchida's either threatened or come on to me." Hitomi sighed. "I just want everything to go back to the way it used to be."
Folken didn't say anything.
Hitomi blew out her breath. It lingered in the air for a minute, another tiny gray cloud to join the fog already blanketing the city.
"So, what're you doing here?" she asked, looking up at him. Folken's face, as Hitomi had come to expect, was expressionless. Was there any other person in the world able to hide their emotions so well as he? "You didn't really know Yukari, did you?"
"No," he replied, "but I just thought, well, since I was the first to find her . . ." He trailed off.
Hitomi nodded. "I guess that's a good reason."
"I suppose I knew her—or about her really—pretty well because I notice how different things are without her around."
"How so?"
"Everything's been so gloomy since that day," Folken explained. "Especially you. You're not the same person without Yukari around. It's like . . . it's like there's a part of you missing."
He couldn't have put it into better words. Hitomi felt a pang of regret in an empty chamber of her heart where Yukari had been. How right he was. Sometimes Hitomi felt like she was sleepwalking through a world that was only partly real, knowing that something was missing, some ethereal object she could not quite place, then realizing that something was Yukari.
- X - x - X -
Back off, I'll take you on,
Headstrong to take on anyone,
I know that you are wrong,
And this is not where you belong . . .
- X - x - X -
They arrived at the funeral home several minutes later. It was on the ground floor of a high-rise right on the street only a block from the train station Hitomi and Yukari rode the train to school from. The upper floors of the building were an office for a business of some sort, and below was a morgue.
The building had a haunting dead feel to it when Hitomi entered. The entrance room was cold, almost as cold as outside, and decorated with sad colors of blacks, burgundies, and dark wooden hues. She shuddered and held her coat tightly closed. Folken saw her distress and placed a calming hand on her shoulder. Hitomi hardly noticed as she spotted Mr. Uchida talking to the receptionist at the front desk.
"He's here," she growled, her teeth clenched.
"Who?" Folken asked, shaking the rain out of his umbrella and folding it closed.
"Mr. Uchida." Hitomi jerked her head in the direction of Yukari's father. "How dare he come here?!" Her voice was low and menacing. "He has no right to be here!" She brushed Folken's hand off her shoulder and strode purposefully toward Mr. Uchida.
"Wait, Hitomi!" Folken tried to stop her, but Hitomi's ears were deaf to his words. Eight steps and she grabbed Mr. Uchida roughly by the arm, yanking him around to face her.
"Hitomi!" he gasped, caught unaware by her sudden appearance. "W-what're you doing here? I didn't know you'd be coming." Mr. Uchida found it hard to keep the nervousness out of his voice.
"I should ask you the same thing," Hitomi retorted coldly, "but you don't deserve the chance to explain yourself. Get out of here!"
"What?" Mr. Uchida gave a nervous chuckle. "This is my own daughter's funeral. I have the right to be here." He smiled and patted Hitomi on the head. "You must be confused, Hitomi."
Hitomi was fuming. Mr. Uchida half expected her to burst into enraged flames by the angry fires in her eyes, which were reminiscent of burning forests. "How dare you say she's your daughter?! Yukari deserved better than you for a father! After all the things you did to her, don't you dare presume you can just crawl back in here and pretended everything's like it should have been!"
"Hitomi," started her mother, "what's this all about?"
"It's nothing, Mrs. Kanzaki," Mr. Uchida assured her, smiling and pushing Hitomi away. "Poor Hitomi's surely been having a horrible time since Yukari's passing. Her judgment must be a bit off with all this excitement."
"Damn you!" Hitomi slapped Mr. Uchida across the round face. "It's your fucking judgment that's off, you bastard! No one in their right goddamned mind would do the stuff you did to Yukari!"
Mr. Uchida, who was holding a hand to his cheek, was no longer trying to make Hitomi's outburst look like a mistake. His face had filled with fear and Hitomi could almost hear him willing her in his mind not to tell everyone what he had done.
"What're you talking about, Hitomi?" asked Mr. Kanzaki. He and his wife, as well as Folken and Mrs. Uchida, were standing around Hitomi and Mr. Uchida. Hitomi was glowering wickedly and Mr. Uchida's high-set forehead was shiny with sweat.
Hitomi thrust an accusing finger in Mr. Uchida's face. "This sick bastard's the reason Yukari's dead! He's been raping her ever since the beginning of the school year!"
Mr. and Mrs. Kanzaki gasped. Mr. Kanzaki grabbed his wife's shoulders as she staggered back and both looked horrified. Mrs. Uchida had fresh tears in her eyes and Folken scowled down at Mr. Uchida with his cold gaze.
"He's been lying," Hitomi went on, "about everything ever since Mrs. Uchida threw him out the first time. He keeps crawling back to her and saying he's changed, but low, scum-sucking fucks like him don't change!" Hitomi spat ever word as if it were poison. All the feelings of anger, spite, malice, blame, and hatred since Yukari's death solidified into one purpose and it was vengeance by destroying the source of Yukari's torment.
"I can't believe," she continued, "that none of you could see through all his lies, his fake reformation, and pure bullshit to the monster he is! How can any of you come here today and say you tried your best to help Yukari when you let him wonder amongst you as you speak?"
She turned to where Mr. Uchida, white-faced and frozen, stood. "And you, if I ever—ever—see your face again, I swear on Yukari's grave I won't hesitate to kill you." There was such ferocity in her voice; Mr. Uchida had no trouble believing she would carry out her threat.
"Get the fuck out of here and don't ever come back," she snarled.
With everyone's gaze following him, Mr. Uchida backed toward the door. His eyes darted desperately from one face to the next, searching for some bit of sympathy to his plight. But even weak, romantic Mrs. Uchida, crying freely into her hands, would not give her husband another chance to hurt her again. Mr. Uchida knew it was over; he had lost his hold on her forever. He slowly backed out of the funeral home and was never seen again.
- X - x - X -
Visions manifest,
Your first impression's got to be your very best,
I see you're full ofshit and that's all right,
This is your plague /got to get there every night,
Well now that's over . . .
- X - x - X -
The ceremony was cold, quiet, reserved, and, as Yukari—who thought funerals were the worst sort of torture a person could endure—would have said, dead. At the head of the room was a shallow alter covered in brightly blooming flowers amidst which stood Yukari's open coffin.
Yukari looked ghostly, even in the smooth yellow light of the big hall where the ceremony was held. Her skin was white and her cheeks dusted a cold, frosty rose. She was wearing a black designer dress with lattice straps down the sides that, though she swore she would never be caught dead in, she secretly adored. Hitomi hated the irony of it all.
A stuffy church pastor delivered a rather long and tedious monologue about death, god, and life after death. He was a fat balding fellow in black priest's clothes with a forehead slick and sweaty. Hitomi, who was sitting in the second row next to Folken a little way from her parents, found him difficult to listen to and herself paying closer attention to the music playing in the background, a collection of Yukari's favorites.
Most of the songs were sung by a band called Linkin Park, with whom Yukari had been obsessed to the point of insanity during life. "Numb," "Breaking the Habit," "Somewhere I Belong," "Crawling," and "Points of Authority" played behind the priest's speech and Hitomi sang along with each one in her head.
Eventually, Mrs. Uchida stepped up to the podium and delivered Yukari's eulogy, most of it into her handkerchief where she hid her face from the congregation. Mrs. Uchida wept freely with the words as if she were hearing and feeling them touch her heart for the first time, as they were Hitomi, rather than rereading the same speech she had worked on for several days now.
At the end, she motioned Hitomi to take over. Hitomi took the stand with her eyes wiped dry and a determined visage.
"Yukari," she began, "was my closest—my best—friend ever since one day in primary school when she shared her chocolate pudding with me. We've always been really close, and I don't think there was ever something we couldn't tell each other.
"There are a lot of things about Yukari that most people don't know. Like, that she always had a horrible crush on one of our friends, Dilandau Albatou, since seventh grade but never had the guts to tell him. Or that her favorite movie was never actually Queen of the Damned, but Beauty and the Beast. And especially not that she really hated American rap but pretended to like it to impress her boyfriend, Van."
There were a few reserved laughs and Dilandau turned a little pink, but most of the reactions were polite, not completely heartfelt. There was too much sadness in the air for Hitomi to lift.
"I suppose I probably shouldn't have told you all that stuff, especially since Yukari made me swear never to tell anybody till the day I died, but I like to think she would have wanted everyone to know the truth. Maybe not about Dilandau . . . but I can't help spreading the juice, and that's really what best friends do. Yukari was always telling everybody stuff about me and, even though a lot of times I pretended to be mad, really I though it was pretty funny."
Hitomi took a breath and looked out over the congregation. "I'm not exactly sure where I'm going with this. There are a lot of things I know I should be saying about Yukari, except that, without her here, none of them seem to matter anymore. Yukari was more than just a friend to me. We were like a part of each other and, with her gone like this, I feel empty.
"Sometimes during the day, I stop and wonder what I would be doing if Yukari were still here. I try not to think about it, but it's like trying to ignore a part of myself. I really can't do it. It sounds pretty crazy, I know, but life doesn't have to make sense.
"I still don't understand why Yukari's gone. I mean, I know the reason well enough, but I can't help wondering why. Why'd it have to be like this? Why did things have to get so bad that Yukari thought there was no way out? How come no one tried to help her?
"It's because Yukari was strong. Before this year began, she was the fighter between she and I. She was the one beating up the kids who called us names or threw fruit cups at our heads, but I was always the one picking her up and straightening her uniform or dabbing her cuts with toilet paper after she'd had a bad fight. We were always there for each other.
"In her memory, I want to dedicate this song. I always said Yukari was soft for romantic music, despite her attitude. She doesn't seem like the type at all, but Yukari really was a sucker for romance. I'd like you to take a few minutes and listen and think about how you knew Yukari and if she showed you the true her."
- X - x - X -
Back off, I'll take you on,
Headstrong to take on anyone,
I know that you are wrong,
Headstrong, headstrong . . .
- X - x - X -
The volume on the music in the background turned up and the sounds of "My Lover's Gone" by Dido echoed on the walls. Hitomi stepped off the dais and took her seat again. The congregation, lost in thought to the soothing melody, did not notice the tears in her eyes.
"My lover's gone, his boots no longer by my door, he left at dawn, and as I slept I felt him go, returns no more, I will not watch the ocean . . ." sang Dido as Hitomi took her place.
God, how can this be happening? Wondered Hitomi. How can I possibly be going through all this? It hurts so bad . . .
". . . Bring him home again, my lover's gone, I know that case will be my last, no more his song, the chill upon his lips has past, I sing alone, while I watch the ocean . . ." went the song.
Hitomi's eyes were on the coffin. It seems like she's just faking it, but she hasn't sat up yet and started laughing and telling everybody the joke's on us. She just keeps laying there dead when she should be sitting next to me with her elbow in my ribs wondering out loud how much longer Father Skinhead's going to yammer.
". . . My lover's gone, no earthly ships will ever bring him home again," Dido continued, "bring him home again . . ."
I wonder if Yukari thought at all about how I would feel after she was gone, Hitomi thought spitefully. I bet she wouldn't have done it if she actually had. Yukari's not heartless like that . . . at least, not the Yukari I knew. This world just didn't want her here. That's why her dad did all that stuff to her and why she was always so sad. She just didn't belong here.
". . . And as I slept I felt him go, returns no more, I will not watch the ocean, my lover's gone, no earthly ships will ever bring him home again, bring him home again . . ."
- X - x - X -
Where you belong,
This is not where you belong,
I can't give everything away,
This is not where you belong,
I won't give everything away,
This is not where you belong . . .
- X - x - X -