Part 24: Dreams of Grandeur
Nagi knew to the people in the crowd of Central Street she looked a wreck. Her dulled senses that could only focus on keeping her conscious the night prior were now acutely aware of how uncomfortable navigating large crowds was. At cons it was exhilarating and exhausting at the same time, but the streets were a different beast and not one she could tame or control. She wondered how other people perceived her, more out of curiosity than worry, walking around with a shirt and thigh-highs stained yellow by vomit, or if this was even a sight to bat an eyelid at. Certainly she had seen many passed out drunkards, students and salarymen on some street corner before, from Ginza to Ikebukuro and right here in Shibuya most of the aspects of the metropolis not featured in brochures were just a common sight. Maybe she was just part of that. Certainly she earned some funny looks, but so long as they just stayed looks she was content enough. Easing into the beat of the city, she pulled out her phone whilst waiting for a light to go green and saw her message to Rindo had been seen but not responded to. She wondered what he had meant – something about Minamimoto and reports. Walking across the street and slipping her phone away, she could not help but think of the mathematician that had left them on the first week of the game.
Indeed, the spitting image of Lord Tomonami held her infatuation at the start of the Game. And not just because of his resemblance to His Lordship's most wretched beauty. He was perhaps the most fascinating example of remaining true to one's self she had ever met. Not one did he do or say anything that was not uniquely his own. His mannerisms, his word choice, his actions were all so himself. And yet it was that truth to himself that had left them, essentially, for dead. It was an action reflective of His Radiance and yet… she tried to shift that thought from her mind, but it was still lodged in there. Was it her fault? No, that was an irrational thought. She laughed inwardly for even allowing herself to think that way. But her demeanour towards him compared to her usual style of conversing was, admittedly… lacking. Fret had shown kindness to Minamimoto; perhaps moreso than even she, too blinded by his dark radiance.
She giggled silently thinking that perhaps somewhere, in some other time, in some other universe the two of them were friends. Two heroes of Light and Dark. Reality pushed the lodged thought deeper in she remembered the voice jeering about her system for categorising people. She wondered how that damn voice got in her head and if it would ever get out. She couldn't even talk about it. It was like she was cursed and there was no healer for the status effect. She clicked her tongue and sighed, as the voice set in again, presumably for a round of mockery based around daring to think about it. But it sounded different… Fret? She began to wonder why the voice had taken this form and was saying 'Nagi,' over and over until–
"–Boss!" Fret snapped his fingers directly next to Nagi's ear and watched as alertness returned to her eyes.
"Hwbuh?!" She jumped, staring back at him for a moment before coming to some sort of revelation.
"I thought you were a voice in my head," her words carried her usual semi-blunt demeanour, as if there was no bizarre aspect to the sentence she had just spoken.
"…I hope you mean your internal monologue." Fret took stock of just how ragged Nagi looked. Spotting her from across the way he could tell something was off, but looking at her now as they made their way across the scramble crossing – her shoulders tense from the crowd, her eyes bloodshot and bleary and her clothes dotted with back-alley grime and… puke? – he could not begin to fathom what happened to her.
"How was questioning?" She asked, as if nothing was amiss.
"It was…" Fret thought back to the malaise of being stuck in a bed answering questions he had already answered time and again, "…standard. Hospital, too, before you ask. Just discharged me like I didn't freeze half to death on a sunny day."
"Verily?" She asked, likely surprised he wasn't complaining more about his triage, "Very well; I assume you're homeward bound before EFest commences this evening?"
"Um, yeah, I am, but… uh…" Fret stared her up and down, "what… happened?" He wondered if the concern in his voice could be registered amongst the murmuring of the crowds near the Hachiko statue.
"I shall explain later. Via text, if you wish. It is a… rather intense and long-winded tale. If I can even tell most of it." Dourness seeped into her tone at that last remark, and Fret tried his best to bring levity to the situation.
"Long tales are a favourite of the Fretster!" He winked.
"Keheh," she chuckled, "I had no doubt you would listen the whole way through, Tosai." Fret felt an odd warmth at the use of his name without an honorific. No, not odd… it was something natural. A response from himself he didn't mind and wouldn't deny.
"Have you your cosplay at the ready?" Nagi asked, as they descended the steps into the station.
"Oh… those are mandatory?" Sweat began to bead on Fret's forehead.
"So long as you are in my company, I consider them so." Her gaze was steely for a moment, before it relaxed, "Unless you are not in the financial situation to… I mean… my apologies." She stumbled around her words for a moment and Fret smirked, seeing that she was caught off guard for once in a blue moon.
"Nah, it's cool. The Fretster always has a plan!" He punched his fist into his palm and gave the dumbest grin he could.
"Hm?" Nagi remarked, unable to suppress a smile at his enthusiasm.
"I owe the guy at Hog Fang a Jupes pin and he is totally trying to cheap out on me for it."
"Ah, I see. You mean to tell me you're going to use that to bargain for one of Lord Shirō's jackets from the Hog Fang 𐌢EleStracollaboration that ended a few weeks ago."
"Yep! Man, I knew you were on my wavelength Nagi! Even got the character right!"
"A mere trifle. I understand he and Æthelred are becoming your biases," her teeth clenched more and more as she spoke of Fret's two favourite characters and he began to fear speaking more on the matter.
"Uh… it'll be a pretty low budget cosplay, though."
"That matters not. I simply wish for you to immerse yourself in the EFest traditions. And… apologies for my harshness earlier. I let my fandom overrule my better judgment. You merely being there would more than satisfy me." Fret grinned, a genuine grin without bravado or cheek this time, and shot her a thumbs up. "Have you any plans for the cosplay outside of the jacket?"
"Putting me on the spot here, but…" Fret thought for a moment, "Oh! When my… father left he ended up leaving some stuff he didn't think was important with us. My mother mostly keeps that stuff in a box somewhere. There's japamala beads in there from when he used to be a practising Buddhist. Well, I say practising. Guy just hung 'em up around the house until he found a new religion. They can replace Shirō's rosary, I guess." Fret tried hard to not sound so down but whenever the topic of his father came up venom or sadness invariably found their way into his words.
"Ah! A convert?" Nagi asked. "To what, if you do not mind my query?"
"Drink." He spat. There was the venom.
"Ah." Fret could sense Nagi probably felt guilty.
"Ain't your fault, Nagirl. Actually, I'm headed home to see my mother as my first priority. She… hasn't called. Or text. I'm worried." Fret sighed.
"Overwork, I presume?" Fret could hear the sympathy in Nagi's voice, but he did not need it. She was right, of course, he just hoped his mother was okay – that the overwork hadn't finally caused her to shut down or something. All he could do was nod in response to her question.
"I shall not keep you any longer," she told him, as she stood at the turnstile to her line. "Besides, if I did, I would be late for my own train. Safe travels, Lord Tosai. I shall text you the details of where and when we shall meet later."
"Safe travels, Lady Nagi!" Fret said, mimicking waving her off before rushing towards his own platform, hoping to make the earliest train possible.
Fret tentatively opened the door to his home, peering in to see if it was empty or not. The blinds were all drawn and a wave of harsh sunlight shone into the living room from the kitchen, blanketing the whole area in a stuffy warmth. He assumed this meant no-one was home until he happened upon his mother, collapsed on the couch, drool running in a thin stream down the side of her cheek and her hand on the floor, her phone just a short distance away. He tiptoed up to her and debated whether or not to shake her awake. Today was still a weekday – she was probably late for work and that was what he feared. The moment he woke her all he'd be doing is pushing her further into this state, this cycle she could only escape from in her sleep. But she deserved to know where he'd been and though he still felt a twinge of sadness she hadn't called, he began realising that it was exhaustion like this that drove her to be unable to do so. He tapped her once.
"Mother," he whispered, but she still not wake. He prodded her shoulder a few more times.
"Mother!" His whisper had a harshness to it now, but she still was deep in sleep. He finally grasped her shoulder with his hand and shook and she stirred awake. Ane blinked once or twice, before she finally registered who was in front of her and bolted upright, pulling Fret into an embrace.
"Tosai! Oh god, you're okay!" Relief spewed forth in every muted word she said as she buried her face deep into his shoulder.
"Yeah," Fret could not help but release a chuckle, "I am."
"I'm so sorry, some policemen showed up at the office and told me that you'd been taken to hospital and that I should come with them but I said that I couldn't because without the OT I couldn't make rent that month and they asked if they could take me to the break room to ask some questions and they mentioned that you'd been hurt and I wanted so badly to run out the door and to wherever you were and just see if you were alright but you know how things are, it's just with the rent increasing and the pay cut because of the economy if I didn't stay and work I just couldn't, I can't–" Fret finally returned the embrace, causing his mother's frenetic words to cease.
"It's okay. I know how hard you have and it and all. I get you're doing your best to provide and… I probably haven't helped with that."
"No, Tosai… you've been as good a son as I could ask for," his mother pulled away from the hug, "Most of the time," she added with a wink, causing Fret to let out a giggle. He sat down next to her.
"I wish you weren't tied to that office your whole life," he said, not meeting her eyes.
"Me too, Tosai," a deep sigh left her lungs and in that instant she looked ten years older, "me too. To think I would have to sleep under my desk rather than see my son in hospital. And when they finally allow you out, I ring the E.R. only to find out you've gone and left already!"
"Hey, I'm all for getting assaulted by strangers if it means you get some time off work." Fret said with a smirk.
"Don't joke about that!" Ane tried to act annoyed but she couldn't keep herself from laughing.
"I've missed this time we spend together. So many weekends lost to the idiocy of that man… a million payments of the duty to maintain and child support could never make up for that." Ane's voice seethed with anger at the mere thought of her husband. Fret tried to divert the topic away from him.
"Maybe… you should take a day off? We can go out somewhere in Tokyo. Watch a movie, eat a meal, do the weekly shop… y'know, family stuff." His mother just stared at the ground.
"Tosai. Even the time I'm spending sitting here with you is time I literally can't afford. We both know that" She aged another ten years.
"…is this your way of saying you have to go now?" Fret asked, joining his mother in gazing downwards.
"I'm afraid so. Do you… have any plans for today?"
"I'm meeting with some friends." Fret felt miserable. He should've just left her asleep.
"Well," Ane stood up, "I hope you enjoy yourself." She leaned down and kissed him on the forehead.
"See you, Tosai." His mother turned to leave. 'See you,' Fret thought. 'See you.' Not 'see you this evening,' or 'see you later,' just… 'see you.' Because neither of them knew when they'd catch each other again. Fret walked to the window. When would he be able to reach his mother properly, outside of a call or a text? When would that happen? Would he ever guarantee when he returned home, she'd be there waiting for him? Would it ever happen? He gazed up at the sky, eyes brimming with fury.
Fret rummaged through the boxes of junk kept in the hall storage room for the prayer beads he was looking for. He remembered the story his father had so often regaled about them – his 'lucky fifty-one'. Fret's great-grandfather was a devout Buddhist and entrusted his son with his japamala. His grandfather would then go on to move to Tokyo during the Bubble period, where he rose to soaring heights and – much as with the rest of the people lucky enough to crest the economic wave – was drowned soon after. After clawing his way through old family photographs, trinkets his father did not want to take with him and other odds and ends, Fret found himself clasping the beads in his hands as he made his way to the bathroom.
The way he told Fret's father, the moment of downfall came when, after a night of drinking at every bar in town, he knocked the beads off the wall in a stupor, causing three of them to shatter. The economic crash came soon after. He told his son that if he preserved the beads in their current state, they would bring him good fortune, a reversal of his bad luck by way of their rebirth in his hands. To his father, they were a sign that his family were headed to success one day. To Fret, they were just another tacky wall decoration. He saw the beads out of the corner of his eye, the light from the sun sparkling and dancing in rainbow colours from the drops of water splashing onto them, as the sink carried hair dye down into the basin and spat tiny droplets onto its sides.
Fret counted the beads as he dried his now black hair. If he remembered right, fifty-four was their correct number. His father laughed at that idea as Ane pointed that out to him.
"Whatever was passed down to me," he said, as they ate, "is the lucky number. It's the one my father and the Buddha gave me as a chance to repent for sins. The prayers said on that are ones said on a clean slate." Later that night he told Fret that whatever number he inherited would be the one the he and the Buddha would choose for him, too. His father never once prayed on those beads. There were forty-nine of them, now. Two had been lost in the crates of junk his father had not cared enough about to bring with him into his new life. Fret took off his necklace. He took five pearls from in and threaded them onto the chain in front of him. They didn't fit the rest of the ensemble. They were sparkling white, not deep purple like the beads already there. But there were fifty-four of them now. He pulled his hair back and tied it in a ponytail, as Lord Shirō would have styled it. He held it in place with the japamala, the tassel of it hanging where Shiro's crucifix would have been. Not perfect. Not accurate. But it didn't need to be. Fret looked in the mirror, bared his teeth and smiled.
Fret stared back up at the sun in the kitchen. It beamed down on him, glorious and scorching. He could see the purple and white gleaming in the window's faint reflection. He thought of his mother, a victim of a city that churned out so many broken families. He thought of the ruler he had met before. The Angel that oversaw the ward a short ways from here. He wondered what it would be like to possess that power – the power of a being so great, it could choose not to wield any of it in the face of destruction. The power to choose not to care. If Fret held that power, he would change things for the better, he thought. He closed his eyes and thought of what he'd do with that power. He'd save his mother from the hell of overwork and alienation. He'd lessen the distance between Rindo and Shoka. He'd save Beat from whatever he was freaking out about. He'd allow the sun to warm Nagi's skin. He would choose to care. But for now, reality called. And it would continue to call. But he could dream. Just for this moment, where he was someone else, he would dream. And so Fret gazed up at the sky, eyes brimming with purpose.