Enjoy it!
Fathers
Portsmouth, Virginia
26 May 2008
Day 37
The traffic light was still red, and she threw down a vacuums while waiting for the green light to give the green light.
She felt upon herself the curious, and enviously, gaze of the boy in the Toyota who flanked and a smile is painted on his lips, kept well hidden by the helmet.
"Ehy, Ehy friend." She turned to the car: the guy was down the window, and now he signals himself in his direction.
"What is the GSX-R 1100?" She glimpsed the orange light of the traffic light in the roadway that crossed hers, and again gave a pair of faint.
And when that is done red, a mental countdown started. Three. Due. One.
"No." He answered dry at the time still waiting, which did not give up.
"So it's 1000, eh?" She took the green, and freed all the power of one thousand cubic centimeters and the four-cylinder engine in line, burning the Toyota, and in the same way the others still stopped. The front wheel is slightly lifted, but moved the weight forward to tell from the black and silver arrow that it is riding.
First. Second. All around is confused, mixed with speed as it sped along the dark strip that had become the asphalt. Third. Fourth.
Lost feelings awakened in her. She remembered the adrenaline at every break and at every turn; the emotions of those days, the only gift from the General she remembers, shortly after the death of her mother.
When she still did not know what he was preparing, and studying, in every detail. When it is still not known that other adrenaline addictions have entered the circle, like those before every blitz, when clenching the rifle was thrown headlong into the fray, emptying the mind and letting yourself be guided by pure and uncontrolled madness.
Because every moment could be the last one. And, really, she did not care.
Fifth. Sixth.
She saw the asphalt, at the bottom, deform in a curve, before bending and facing. He opened the gas again, and Suzuki roared his approval for the maneuver. And the closer it got to the curve, the more the braking moment was brought to its extreme limit.
She considered, for a moment, not to stop, and let the fate of a fate of cruel joke decided to leave her alive in Iraq, finally recovered as it was.
After all, who should have cried her death? That question brought with it an unexpected answer: because now someone was insinuated in her solitude.
The fingers quivered on the clutch, undecided.
She who always said she wanted to help her. She had been shocked by the car as much as she had been shocked to learn that she had a daughter. She who hid a deep pain, which was seen clear and clear in those blue eyes, the day when she had left her just to think that she could not help it.
Yes, it's just a memory, a Mosul. What an irony, she thought: for the theory of the six degrees of separation, there to say that you have known it since 2004.
The curve was now approaching, and the point of no return dangerously close.
Her face framed by aquamarine hair filled her thoughts, again. And she wondered if her life was worth even one of Kaioh's tears. Fifth. Fourth. Third.
The bike lasted one lap, and braking the crease setting to face the curve. The vehicle scrabbled furiously, but it was quick an unpredictable to its recalcitrant wheels. 'Coward', mentally reproached herself, returning straight to the saddle and pushing the clutch.
Fourth. Fifth.
She passed the sign indicating the entrance to the Edward Dewenish Medical Center, which disappeared from the peripheral view momentarily, and the Suzuki's engine roared again as the asphalt slid away beneath the wheels.
x
"I'll kill her, I swear I'll do it." Michiru closed the communication, while for the umpteenth time Tenou's cell phone was ringing.
Like the doorbell of her house, and she, standing on the landing, felt like a perfect idiot.
Once again, she did not show up at the hospital, and wondered how long it would be before the Dewenish administration started asking questions, at best.
Who asked her head, at worst.
She picked up the phone intending to call Haruka again, when she turned and saw the elevator doors open: on the tip of her tongue she already had a series of invective to download on her stubborn patient, but instead of Haruka she saw a figure dressed from head to head feet of dark technical clothing, and a well-worn helmet on her head.
The centaur stopped as soon as he saw her, and Michiru watched her bring her hands to the edge of her helmet and start pulling it off: she could not stop a moan of dismay, deriving from the realization of what that clothing meant, when from under the shell black as the clothes opened Tenou's face, which shook her head to revive the blonde hair in a very theatrical gesture and, Michiru was more than certain, not entirely involuntary.
A motorcycle. She also has a motorcycle. "Look, if I keep finding you here, I'll denounce you for stalking."
Michiru watched her approach her, all smiling, and folded her arms to her chest. "If you came to the hospital, I would not have to sit here impaled in front of your door."
"And who is forcing you?" Tenou raised an eyebrow.
"They pay me to treat you, Haruka, if you do not come to the hospital, how can I show you doing my job?"
"Bah." Haruka snapped her lips as she inserted the key into the lock and opened the door wide.
"As if Chiba fired you for real." Then she looked for the other's eyes, smiling slightly. "Someone still claims that you two do it without your wife's knowledge, doc." Michiru shook her head, and followed the other inside the apartment, which now had a new appearance, thanks to the furnishings they had chosen together.
Her first encounter with the other came back to her mind, and she smiled.
"And I'm more and more convinced that you have a forked tongue." She saw Haruka open her mouth to answer her, but then stop and, grunting something, put the helmet on the dining table and take off the jacket that he threw to the side, falling on one of the two L-shaped sofas on the right side of the living room.
Michiru could not explain her own blush at the sight of the other when she was wearing a rather tight t-shirt, which for the first time did not hide her feminine forms: she decided to distract herself by grabbing Tenou's jacket, and while Haruka disappeared into the kitchen , he touched the reinforcements on her shoulders, elbows and back.
"Strange." She said after a long moment. "What's strange?" Asked Haruka, pulling away from the bottle of water she was drinking.
"On 'forked tongue' I expected a joke, at least slightly vulgar." That made herself thoughtful, then she shrugged
"Mmh, it's true, I had not thought about it." Michiru tilted her head, convinced that the other had thought about it, but had refrained from telling her.
Since she had introduced Hotaru, Haruka had cooled.
She avoided jokes with obvious double meanings, or being closer to them than necessary. She had often rethought their talk on the roof, and had begun to fear that the devastation sought by Tenou had to do - as well as with their own inner conflicts, even with the learning of the child. And that her gesture had brought more damage than anything else.
That Haruka had, in some way, felt abandoned? What for the other was becoming a kind of landmark, in that kind of roller coaster that was its existence? Without leaving her jacket, she approached the table, touching the helmet with her fingers.
"Was this the other gift? A motorcycle?" Haruka looked indignant.
"A bike, but no, the helmet is for the Millennium Falcon."
"You did not see it, parked here outside?" The girl looked at her inquisitorially.
"Was not that thing that you insist on calling cars?"
"That thing has a name, it's called Dodge Viper." Broke off the other, putting them in front of her.
"How would you feel if you called Hotaru 'what'?" The doctor looked at her basely. "What's that got to do with it? Hotaru is a girl, not a car."
"Said the woman who forced me to greet a puppet." Michiru left her jacket and pointed her forefinger on her chest.
"Well, listen to me, I refuse to fix your head if your desire, not even so unconscious, is to break your bones." Haruka looked at her for a moment, perplexed. Then she began to laugh, moving away from her.
"Do you know that you are a single annoyance, but who are you, my mother?" "I'm a person who cares that it does not become a Tenou jam." The other shook her head, without without ceasing to smile.
"I'm not naive, doc." She reassured her then. "I already told you, I know my business."
"And what would this phantom be yours, let's hear." The churches, not at all consoled by the answer.
"I'm really curious, because if it's the same that makes you hold alcohol ..." Michiru left the sentence on hold, returning with her mind to the morning spent helping Haruka stomach.
Which, after all, had also been rather instructive: she had never seen anyone throw up so much. Haruka rolled her eyes, stepping back a few steps to lean against the edge of the living room table.
"I admit I had better days." And she scratched the back of her head, before continuing,
"I think I did not even thank you for staying." The doctor shrugged. "I'm sure I have an abusive distillery in front of me, rather than a champion of Etiquette. "
"Oh, what a ball." She snapped, resting her hands on the table behind her.
"You're fine with nothing." Michiru smiled, and approached her again.
"Bike aside, I'm glad to see you're better, did you detoxify yourself yesterday as I told you to do?" Haruka nodded.
"I spent the day drinking water and sleeping, and," she pointed to a point behind Michiru's shoulders,
"playing the Playstation." The girl turned, and saw in the middle of the large black-lacquered wooden bookcase - which now occupied almost the entire wall between the door that led into the sleeping area and the one that looked out on the balcony - right next to the forty-five-inch flat screen, the latest in the Sony console. "Do you want to play a game?" Asked Haruka amused, sitting on the couch, but Michiru shook her head, flanking her.
"No. I'm a total wimp with those business." "Sure, I have the new Tekken."
"The new Tekken!" Michiru's eyes widened, feigning a surprised expression.
"And what would it be?" Tenou looked at her puzzled, and wondered if Kaioh was there or did. Then, after a long moment during which the girl did not stop staring - probably still waiting for an answer, she got up from the couch and headed for the table, where they had remained jacket and helmet.
"Okay," she began, grabbing the garment and pulling it to a surprise Michiru, who took it on the fly more for an unconditional reflex than anything else.
"In Iraq, the best way to understand things was to see them with your own eyes. The doctor looked at his jacket first, then Haruka.
"Jokes?" But that was already gone in the corridor and Michiru stood up, holding the garment tight. She felt tears and the noise of crumpled paper, and shortly thereafter Haruka returned, holding a helmet very similar to the one she had seen her coming from, from which she was removing cellophane residues.
"They're going to be a little big, both this and the jacket, but we do not have to do the coast to coast of the country, so it'll be just fine." Haruka handed the helmet to Michiru, who stepped back.
"I'm still young to die."
"Come on, Michiru!" The other broke.
"You always tell me that I have to trust you, but how can I trust you if you do not do it first?" Tenou's reasoning did not make the slightest twist and, after a moment of uncertainty, took the helmet with both hands.
"If I had known, I would have made a will." She gave her a smile, and the other rolled her eyes.
"Exaggerated, but if it comforts you, I do not have a will." Tenou went to the door, grabbing the helmet from the table and a sweatshirt that tied up to the neck, and Michiru followed her into the elevator while wearing the jacket, feeling small inside the garment of at least two sizes larger than that that she used to wear.
The garage opened to their sight, and the Haruka box shutters began to rise as Tenou pressed a small remote control key with keys.
Michiru recognized the back of the Viper and, next to it, the object of discord: he watched Haruka climb astride the racing bike, and move back to the box with the engine off; as she put on her helmet she pressed another button and the garage door at the bottom of it began to open. "Come on, doc."
She encouraged her by tapping the skewered passenger seat before starting the engine.
Michiru groaned at the roar of the vehicle. Oh Jesus.
Haruka helped her to settle behind her, then, bending slightly to the side, pointed her forefinger toward an indefinable part beneath her butt.
"There should be handles down there, to hold on."
But in response, Michiru clung to her back, wrapping her arms around her waist and clutching her tightly enough to make her cough.
"Yes, and fall as soon as we get out of the garage?" Haruka did not move, but after a long moment Michiru heard her sigh.
"Well, I looked for this one." She heard her say, her voice muffled by the padding of her helmet, and he could not help but smile from ear to ear.
Haruka took her hands and placed them better, at the level of her stomach, and after a couple of faded, the bike went out into the sunlight and entered the road, heading for Virginia Beach.
Tenou smiled, protected by her helmet, when at the first acceleration she felt Michiru's arms tighten her strongly, and suppressed in a corner of her mind that feeling of well-being born of that contact with the doctor.
At the same time, Michiru tried to relax thinking that, all in all, dying embraced in Haruka could not be so bad.
x
"Michiru, if you press a little more, you will make me the Heimlich maneuver."
The girl opened her eyes, and quickly releasing Haruka from the hold realized that they were finally still.
"Sorry." She muttered, taking off her helmet, and the other gave her a hand to get off the Suzuki.
She also took off her helmet and, after putting it on the bike's tank, leaned on it. "Still convinced of Tenou's jam?" Then asked Haruka, a smile to curl her lips. Michiru did not answer immediately, not entirely inclined to give it to her.
But the experience was certainly something: Haruka seemed to be one with the vehicle, and not having problems with the speed.
"I admit that maybe you're right, in fact, you know your stuff."
"I knew I'd change your mind."
"I said maybe." Haruka tilted her head, and Michiru glanced at the beach that extended beneath them, leaning against the wall that marked the roadway.
"I drove my first bike that I was not even fourteen, doc. I do not miss the experience." The voice of the other reached her ears, and she felt her gaze on her; but when dhe turned around, Haruka preferred to stare at an indefinite point of the horizon, still firmly sitting on the bike,
"When my mother died, I ended up on a very unreliable tour. The idea of being alone with the General was something unbearable. "
Michiru felt a shiver running behind her back at the thought of what Tenou could do, shocked by the pain of her mother's death.
"But one morning he had me find a motorcycle, I thought he never even realized how much I loved speed and racing, but he was there in the garage of our house, it was a Honda, a hundred and twenty-five cubic capacity. , to tell the truth."
She smiled at that memory, mind Michiru tried to process the image of a fourteen year old Haruka riding a motorcycle.
"One day he threw me out of bed, and we took a plane to California, and stayed a week, in which I was allowed to shoot in Laguna Seca, riding a prototype of Honda, I thought I would have died of happiness: it had always been my dream to run in a real circuit. "
"He must have moved seas and mountains, to do it." Haruka shrugged.
"He never went into detail, he just told me that he had contacted some of his friends in Japan, and my father was never proffessional."
"I do not know why, but it does not surprise me." Tenou smiled at the joke, aware of the resemblance to the parent. Then she came back serious, assuming a thoughtful air.
"I think it was the only thing he ever did for me." Michiru reflected on those words. "Haruka, I do not justify what your father did to you," she began to say.
"But I refuse to think that it could remain indifferent to such a situation, a minimum of affection-"
"Takeshi Tenou does not love anyone, outside of himself." Haruka interrupted her, looking at her.
"He did not do it out of affection, I'm more than certain, he was interested in me not going into other trouble, waiting to put his plan into action."
"How long have you not heard?" Haruka thought for a moment.
"The last time I saw him was returning from Iraq in February, he told me I had done my duty, that being taken prisoner was part of the game." The other widened her eyes.
"He could not have told you something like that."
"He himself was taken prisoner in Vietnam, and that experience earned him honor, it earned him respect, and for him what happened to me is something to boast about." Michiru was appalled. Then a thought struck her.
"He knows?" But Haruka shook her head. "No." She remained silent for a long moment, before resuming talking.
"From that day we have not spoken to each other."
"Do you know that they landed at Mamoru's house at five in the morning, the day after the episode here in Virginia Beach, to order your shelter?" A flash of amazement passed into the girl's eyes, but disappeared immediately.
"Once again, he only worried that I would not create more trouble, and that someone good could give me a hand, to be able to postpone me there, certainly not to get a permanent leave." A sigh came from Tenou's lips, and Michiru approached her.
"I spent a lot of time wondering how it could be having a father who loves you." Haruka's statement filled the doctor's heart with bitterness.
"Then I understood, I realized that I did not have to expect anything from him, and that I would have to do it alone, all the time." "You are not alone, Haruka." The words came out spontaneous, and sincere, from the lips of Michiru, and the other looked at her without emotion.
"How is your father?" She then heard herself ask, and was struck by the unexpected request.
"He was fantastic." She merely told her, and Haruka realized the loss at that time in the past.
"Excuse me, I did not want to be intrusive." Michiru shook her head, and put a hand on her back, her shoulders barely bent.
"I would say that for today it may be enough, Major."
Tenou smiled, looking for her gaze.
"You see, I do not have to come to the hospital." The other one rolled her eyes, exasperated, and Haruka stretched her arms, bending them behind her head.
"Are you nervous about the concert?" He suddenly said to her, and Michiru looked at her in surprise.
"A little." She admitted, and she watched her bring her fingers to the cheekbone now deflated, but still had a purple complexion tending to black, also extended to part of the orbit.
"You know, I do not think I'll spend the day after tomorrow." He told her after a moment, and Michiru smiled.
"You could get some foundation." She suggested: Tenou groaned at that advice. "Better dead, than make up." Michiru hit her shoulder, and whistled.
"However, when it is said to have a half-measure." Haruka refrained from answering, and put on her helmet.
"Come on, it's time to come back."
"Oh, right, there's also the return."
"If you want to take a taxi, go ahead." She challenged the other, before giving her a long, narrow key, pulled out of a trouser pocket.
"What's this?" Asked Michiru curious.
"It's the key to my house, so you'll stop planting the tent on my landing, and maybe you'll even be useful, waiting."
The doctor inclined her head.
"For whom did you take me? For a Maid?" She heard Haruka's laughter muffled by the helmet, and after taking the key she pulled her own, then climbed back on the Suzuki.
"Hold on, I would not like to turn around halfway and not find you." Michiru slapped her helmet, and Tenou laughed again as the bike roared her return to life. And along the way, each lost in their thoughts as the vehicle hurtled over the asphalt, Michiru wondered if in the speed Haruka was, in some way, looking for herself.
x
Portsmouth, Virginia,
28 May 2008
Day 39
1,31 am
She stroked Hotaru's hair, asleep with her head on her lap, while the images flowed on the living room TV, bathed in darkness. "Hey, how do you feel, dad?" She was asking for a male voice, belonging to the person who held the camera. The black-haired boy turned his cobalt gaze toward the screen: his face was tired, but his eyes flickered with happiness, while he cradled smiling the bundle wrapped in a pink cover. "It's really a good feeling." "You have a twisted face, Mitsuo." The voice outside the field continued, and the boy rolled his eyes. "Well, I'd like to see." He answered, returning to look at the child in his arms. "The princess has well thought of being born in the middle of the night." A smile escaped Michiru's lips, and a tear slid down her cheek. She watched the image on the screen catch the little hand sticking out from under the flap of the blanket.
"Hotaru, greets my grandfather, hi, grandpa." The boy now did not stop looking at the girl in his arms, and slowly bent to touch the baby's forehead with his lips. Michiru pushed the pause button, and the screen crystallized that kiss.
She recalled those happy moments that never, never, would have presaged the precipitate of events, in two months' time.
She wondered, for the umpteenth time, where she was wrong; how could she have let Mitsuo slip back into oblivion without realizing it. She swore that she would not repeat that mistake, and let a first suffered sob come out of her mouth.
And then, one after the other, tears broke the banks and Michiru covered her face, while Hotaru slept the same innocent sleep as when, with just a few hours of life, her father was holding her in a hospital room of Portsmouth.
The gaze full of love, apparently free from the demons who, from his return from Iraq after the assassination of Mosul, instead would no longer abandon him.
x
Portsmouth, Virginia
28 May 2008
Day 39
8:48 am
She placed the bouquet of white lilies on the grassy mantle, just in front of the granite headstone. Then she crouched down in front of her, brushing her against it: she shuddered at the touch with the cold stone.
"Already three years, otou-san." She murmured, putting her fingers on the engraved letters, stroking them one by one; on the figures indicating the date of birth and death, May 28, 2005.
'I'm sorry, Miss Kaioh. We did everything we could, but his father did not make it. I am mortified...' she kicked out of her mind the memory of what the doctor had told her, in the waiting room of the Reanimation, shortly after receiving the news of the infarction that had struck him.
"I miss you," she said, shaking her head.
"I needed you, I still need you, I do not know what to do, I'm so confused I'm afraid of myself, Dad, of my feelings, of what I feel ..." she released a sigh and stayed for a long time to think about the grave, trying to get a comfort that did not come; hoping that somehow something would be revealed, helping her to understand what was happening around her.
x
Harrison Opera House,
Norfolk, Virginia
Day 39
8:41 pm
You can do it. You can do it.
Michiru took a deep breath, trying to slow down the beating of the heart. The mirror in the dressing room brought back an elegant and refined image, in the blue linen and viscose dress up to the knee whose drapery at the height of the breast created a curling in the shape of a rose.
She poured some water from the jug on the low table at the side of the door, and slowly sipped the liquid, trying not to think about all that was that day, but only to the chords and the music that, shortly thereafter , would fill the Opera House concert hall.
She breathed deeply again, making the failure of any attempt to calm down discouraged.
She decided to get out of the dressing room and reach the large hall where the public was already starting to flow, and after going through the maze of narrow corridors that constituted the backstage - and reassured several employees that would return immediately - found herself on the edge of the parterre : some orchestras were tuning the instruments, while others chatted with friends and acquaintances. The great hall was animated by the cheerful chatter of the audience waiting for the Memorial Day concert to begin.
She took a few steps, looking for a friendly face in the crowd.
Or just a face, in particular. And to the previous emotions that still made her ask what the hell she was doing there, she added the unpleasant feeling of being able to see Haruka in the company of someone. She continued to enter the parterre, making her way through the many bystanders, many of whom began to take their seats. She spotted Mamoru and Usagi, and started to approach them when a corpulent invited in a tuxedo bumped her involuntarily: the twelve heel betrayed her, and she could already be seen on the ground if not for a body behind her and two hands to grasp her elbows, helping her to recover the balance.
"Welcome." A familiar low voice murmured, and Michiru turned to find herself staring into the emerald irises of Haruka.
And to lose, for a moment, the use of the word: Tenou wore a dark suit, complete with a white shirt and a black tie that was lost inside the buttoned jacket.
Her hair had been arranged, which now was evidently shorter, although some rebellious strands kept falling before her eyes, and Michiru had to appeal to all her will not to reach out and move them; the face had only a small dark spot at the level of the cheekbone, and she imagined that Tenou had succumbed to the magic of a compact foundation. Haruka's voice picked her up from that gigantic 'wow' that engulfed her thoughts, and she hoped she would not see that much, outside.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" She asked that one, raising an eyebrow.
"I do not go well?"
Oh my God, you're doing just fine. Go very well.
"I am surprised." Michiru told her instead, recomposing herself.
"You thought I was in uniform." Haruka pouted, and took a flap of her jacket between her thumb and forefinger, lifting it up a little.
"I arrive in Armani, and you want the uniform?" Michiru smiled, and raised her hands in surrender.
"Okay, let's leave it, thank you for coming, I'm very pleased." Tenou smiled too, and, pulling aside her jacket, put her hands in her pockets, nodding.
The constant coming and going of people around them was nothing short of annoying, and Michiru pushed Haruka to one of the entrances of the hall, savoring the momentary and ephemeral quiet of the corridor revealed to her after she had moved the velvet curtain away.
"So we can talk more freely." Haruka looked around without looking at Michiru, who was trying to hide the anxiety of the ever more pressing concert and the total admiration for the other's set under a quiet façade. "Are you alone?" She could not resist asking the doctor. Haruka tilted her head, and a sardonic smile curved the corners of her lips.
"Yes." She told her after a long moment. Michiru nodded, trying to mask the relief derived from that answer.
"Do you already know your place? Did you ask the hostess?" She began to ask her in a burst, snatching laughter at the other. "Calm down, I just arrived, and I was just looking for my row of chairs before someone fell on me." The girl blushed slightly, then Tenou seemed to reflect on what she had just said.
"Did you say hostess?" Michiru laughed, shaking her head. A nervous laugh, and Haruka understood it immediately.
"It will be great, Michiru, do not be so nervous." The other suppressed her surprise, always unwilling to the altruistic outbursts of Tenou, and instead released a sigh. She wanted to tell her how hard it was for her to be there, and the reasons for the weight she carried in her heart.
Instead, she remained silent and Haruka did not inquire, respecting her.
"Hotaru is not there?"
Michiru did not expected this question.
"No." She then informed her, accompanying denial with a movement of the head.
"I would have liked it, but a concert of more than two hours is not ideal for such a small child."
A dismayed expression was painted on Haruka's face.
"A moment, like more than two hours? You did not tell me." The doctor snapped her lips.
"You're big and vaccinated, do not complain." Haruka grunted her disagreement, and scratched her head. Then she looked at Michiru from head to toe, as if seeing her for the first time. "Pretty dress."
"Oh." It was the only thing that managed to articulate the other, smoothing imaginary folds.
"Mh, maybe it's better to come back," she told her then.
"I'll help you find your place, then I'll go." Vocal invested her again when she found herself in the hall, and her attention was captured by a fully dressed steward, an identifying pass hanging from his neck. "Miss Kaioh, I was looking for you! She has to come with me, we're about to start." Michiru nodded and started to turn to Haruka when she felt the other's hands on her shoulders, and Tenou's lips touch her ear. "Lay us all, tiger."
x
The Maestro stood up from the piano stool when Michiru entered the Opera House stage, welcomed by the applause of the vast audience.
She kissed her hand, gathering a smile and a small bow from the other, who held the violin and bow with her free hand.
She returned to her seat as she settled herself in front of the music stand with her own score, the instrument firmly positioned between the shoulder and chin. She exchanged a look with the pianist, who with a nod of his head let her understand that he was ready. Michiru closed her eyes, and every emotion was amplified, making herself vivid.
She channeled those feelings into her hands, the mind that stopped thinking in order to leave control to her heart, whose furious beat was slowly regulating itself. The fingers pressed the chord and the bow rubbed on the strings, starting the melody that was soon accompanied by the sound of the piano. Through the notes Michiru spoke to the ignorant audience of Mitsuo, her father, Hotaru. And in a complete catharsis, the girl dissolved that pain, held for so many, too many years, in music.
x
Handshake, 'thank you'.
Handshake, 'thank you'.
Yet another narrow.
'I'm flattered, thank you.'
Michiru was exhausted. The evening had been a success, and her performances warmly acclaimed by the audience: after the debut, with two pieces accompanied on the piano, it was produced in a solo that had aroused a standing ovation even if, initially, at the end of the piece Michiru she was baffled by the two or three seconds of silence in the audience, which then exploded into applause.
But of what he thought all those people cared less than nothing: she needed only one hot comment. But it seemed that the whole Opera House wanted to congratulate her that evening, and she had not managed to free herself up until that moment.
She left the enthusiasts Mamoru and Usagi to head for the buffet organized in the Hall, the heart that was beating wildly for fear that Haruka had left.
She crossed a hall, finishing at the beginning of a connecting corridor between that and a secondary concert hall.
And there she saw her. She stood in front of the wall, slightly bent forward, her hands in her pockets, and watched a series of photographs hung on the wall, dating back to past events in the Opera House. Michiru smiled when, approaching her as silently as possible, she noticed the knot of the loose tie.
"Look, it's hard to get behind me." Haruka informed her, barely turning her head to the other girl.
"I thought you were gone, I could not find you anywhere."
"And get me the buffet? You're crazy." Michiru laughed. "What are you doing?" Haruka motioned for her to approach. "I took a ride, and I found these, look." She pointed to Michiru, a black-and-white photo of a long-legged woman in evening dress, her light hair tied in a bun, smiling at the lens holding a bouquet of flowers in one hand, while with the other she was touching the edge of a grand piano positioned on the stage.
Michiru's eyes widened as she concentrated on the face of that, recognizing in a moment a familiarity.
And more for a confirmation that did not need anything else, read the tag placed under the photo.
'Emily Woodsbridge; celebration of Genius of Mozart's Evening, October 27th, 1978 "And your mother." She murmured in amazement, leaning towards the photo as if she wanted to get inside.
"She was beautiful, was not she?" She asked her that.
"She was still happy here, she always was, when she was playing." Haruka remained silent, trying to fetch old memories from the darkness, now buried by the heavy ruins that were her youth.
"She talked through the music, she told how much she loved my father with the piano, and vented the pain of when he, quite inconceivably in his eyes, accused her of having brought me into the world." Michiru watched Haruka's emotionless face, the cold emerald eyes staring at the young and eternal image of that mother who must have loved more than herself, and whose death was a wound still open and bleeding for Tenou.
"Playing she expressed herself, freeing her feelings, a little like you did tonight, Michiru." The girl looked at her in puzzlement, realizing how much Haruka had gone deep and understood her own outburst in the music.
"You spoke to us tonight, I do not know what, but the more I watched you play, the more I realized, doc." Haruka looked for the other's gaze.
"Perhaps of him ...?" Tenou's eyes were of unbearable intensity, and Michiru had to answer them.
She just nodded, and Haruka did not add anything else. But Michiru felt she owed something to the other.
"My father died on this day three years ago." She said everything in one breath.
"It was not easy for me today, but it was a liberation, in a sense, to know that I could do it." Haruka's face remained the same indifferent mask as before revelation.
"I see." She simply told her. For a long moment, silence filled the narrow corridor. "It was amazing." She told her then.
"You looked like another person on that stage, I saw a side of you I did not know." Haruka smiled at her, and Michiru was relieved of the subject's turn.
"Ah, Skywalker, that was the dark side of the Force."
She joked, and Tenou did not stop smiling. "You made me excited, and I assure you that it has not happened to me a long time, doc." Michiru basked in those compliments, the smile that spread from ear to ear as she looked away, clearly embarrassed by the reaction.
"Well, you deserved it tonight, but do not get used to it." Haruka looked back at the picture, and a slight sigh left her lips.
"You know Michiru, probably a lot of things would have gone differently if she were still alive, but I'm sure of one thing: you would have liked her, and quite a lot." The girl cocked her head. "Artistic affinities?" Haruka laughed.
"Yes, surely, but not only. My mother would have loved everything you're doing for me, doc. "
Michiru did not answer, struck by that further, unexpected compliment. Haruka's movement, which stood at attention, caught her attention, then watched the girl reach out to her.
"Do you grant me, Madamoiselle Kaioh, the honor to escort you to the buffet room?" She asked her, assuming a French accent, including the 'r'.
The other tried not to laugh, and raised her chin, an air painted on her face.
"I thought you were busy with the hostesses, Major Tenou."
But that shook her head.
"What can I do with a hostess, when I have the star of the evening at my disposal?" "When would I say I was available to you?" Haruka snorted, bringing her hands to her hips.
"How controversial you are, and I wanted to be kind." And as she said that she turned her heels and went away, leaving behind an amused Kaioh who, after shaking her head, ran after her and took her arm in arm, provoking every kind of protest from the other.
Author's notes: wow! I did it, I'm sorry for the absence, two weeks! I have been very busy because of the school, I promise I'll try updating sooner.
I'm glad people are liking this fic, thanks for you support!
Did you understand who is Mitsuo already? Let me know it! Until next time this is Milla23 ;)