F A B L E S
A N D
T R A I L S
Some stories had rough beginnings.
They don't always go smooth, to where the main character gets the spotlight by introducing themselves without much to worry about as they go on with their everyday normal lives merrily, like Christmas on Sunday.
Sometimes it goes like this: it's a day, far from normal yet not inside the borders of abnormality. Something not quite common, but not too unorthodox. It's... a day you always see, but never took note of. Like the ships on the coast when they don't belong. They're bourgeois — habitual, something you're used to having around, but you don't know what makes them special. What makes them out of the norm. Maybe the ship was considered contraband, carrying various illicit devices. But you wouldn't know that; because you didn't care enough. Or maybe, because you didn't want to care. Either way, it stems from our perspective. Perhaps curiosity suits it better, or the natural pursuit of knowledge.
Kaya liked to think that all stories were like that. 'Far from normal yet not inside the borders of abnormality'. We see people everyday, we see them moving. We see them living a little, and then we turn away. Because we don't know them, and there's no reason for an endeavor to linger towards them. But in reading, hearing, knowing a story.. it makes you see more than what you already saw. Now you can't look at the people involved in the story normally. Now you'll see them as someone else. You've uncovered something about them, and perhaps that makes them a little bit not normal now, but you don't really know them enough to say they're deviant. And you'll never know them truly, not even when you're best friends, soulmates, or any other sentimental relationship.
You're you, they're them. You have different stories.
It will always stay like that.
So Kaya doesn't know what to do. She's aware of the fact that she doesn't understand most of the things connected to Katou, much less Pogako or Amira. Even lesser, Katsuki. But she wanted to understand, wanted to care, wanted to know. Kaya doesn't want to look at them stiffly like they're the same with the ships on the coast. Because they belong, don't they?
(Kaya wanted to belong too.)
The wind picks up.
Kaya sighs.
(But not like this.)
The cigarette almost falls from Kaya's fingers, and the embers fade against Kaya's fingertips, not without leaving a slight sting or a slight burn. The smoke goes sidewards, obscuring what was left of Kaya's view on her right eye. She puffs a bit more, coughing briefly at the end. Her lungs cave in and her throat burns. The smoke goes upwards this time, and Kaya was finally able to see the moon. She didn't know why, but it's red tonight. Like the color of fresh blood with the shadows of the same liquid when dried. It's fascinating to see. Kaya may be imagining the moon's colour, maybe not. But what difference does it make in their story?
Nothing.
- - -
Katsuki still wasn't back.
Kaya wanted to ask why, but then she realized it was a bit out of place. For reasons she cannot identify, it doesn't seem right to be asking him 'why?'.
(It seems more fitting if what she asked would be, 'did you finally realize?' that perhaps you never did belong here. That our stories were way too different, and mine had no hope of changing. But yours? Yours was salvageable. It was more than that, really; your story was meant to be saved. Meant to be shown and meant to be told. Perhaps I was only meant to be a snippet in your tale. Not a turning point. Just a stop that momentarily kept you on your toes. Not a side character, not a main, but I was just there. I would always be — only forgotten as you keep on planting yourself in history. As you leave your roots, I'll be there. Watering them everyday so your roots will keep following you until whatever you've built is done. So that you wouldn't crumble from the inside, from the gnawing of your throat like it always did mine. I'll make sure you're remembered.
Because you paved the way for my story to change, even just a little.)
If only when he comes back, she could tell him all of that.
Kaya knew she wouldn't be able to.
He'd probably only tell her she was being too much of a sap, anyway, and blow up her Yoake cap.
Kaya laughed at that; because, really— the red-eyed spiky blond would definitely do that.
Kaya shivers, for a bit, and she's thankful that she always had this uncanny aptitude to warm herself up. She feels the cold, sometimes, when she doesn't use it, or when she purposefully welcomes it. Because the cold, somewhat, makes Kaya feel a little more alive than warmth. With her cigarettes and natural capability to be warm, the heat gets a little too tiring. She's used to it now, to the point where she craves the cold. But when the cold gets too much, it's unnerving. Like one second you're alive and the next you're colder than a corpse. Kaya would call the feeling surreal.
She doesn't know if she's thankful that Katou came that night.
Although she knows that she's relieved.
"Did Amira talk to you yesterday?"
Kaya placed her cigarette on the ashtray, "Yeah."
"She didn't.. talk to me." It came out more of a question than a statement.
So Kaya answered, "She said she couldn't."
Katou didn't try to hold off the bitter remark, "Still a coward, after all this time she's spent away. I thought she would have grown a backbone after the job she took on. Doesn't being a prostitute require some lack of decorum?"
Kaya bit her lip to stop the flinch.
"You speak of Ami's job so lightly, Katou-san," she started, "She told me that she can't come back to Yoake anymore. That she's got a kid now, and he's.. he's already three. She said she doesn't deserve Po-san. She said she's sorry."
"And that's it?"
"That's all I remember."
"Ah. Did you want to forget?"
"Not really," Kaya put the cigar back between her lips to puff a smoke, "Well, scratch that. I guess I did. What she said.. I don't know if it resolved things or if it complicated them more."
"Why would it complicate things?" Katou asked.
"Because she just said that she doesn't deserve Po-san. She didn't say anything about not wanting him, too."
"So you think they're together?"
"Why wouldn't they be?"
Katou held up a can of soda and waved it in front of Kaya's face, "Nice talk, Kaya-chan. I'm getting this for free because I'm heartbroken, okay?"
If Katou wasn't by the door by now, Kaya would have smacked him, "Stop using your feelings as yen, Tou-san."
"Eh. It's my feelings. I'll use it the way I want to," he pushed Yoake's door slightly as he shrugged, "Thanks, Kaya-chan."
The chime tingled as he left.
Kaya hated the sound.
- - -
When the owner of Yoake's lot came by with a companion, Kaya expected that he would only collect the monthly fees.
Although paying for the property fee monthly was a hassle, it was the only way to keep Yoake standing. But when he told her he wasn't there to do that but to do something else entirely, she wished, with every soul of her being, that he was there instead to just collect.
"Kijiko-san, please. You can't be serious."
The owner of the lot, dubbed Kijiko, sighed, "Kaya, I'm afraid I can't adhere to your wishes right now. You see, our client here, Yuuhei-san," Kijiko gestured to the man beside him, "wanted this lot specifically, since it's closer to their other branch and they've already bought the buildings beside yours."
"Yoake's all I have left. What am I going to do if you're going to sell the store?"
"I don't know. Technically, the store is my property, since it's under my lot. It's in the contract your parents signed years ago. It's only as if you're overseeing what I own."
"And? That means what? That Yoake's yours in paper? And you can sell it and I have no say in this?"
"Generally, yes. Although, the client, Yuuhei-san, wanted to give you another option."
"I doubt it's anything connected to sustaining Yoake."
Kijiko ignored the comment and continued, "He's the owner of many clinics, you see, and he's tearing this building down so he knows who's currently occupying it," Kijiko paused, "he said that since after this you're stripped off your business, he can offer you a side-job. Enough to fend for your everyday needs. Though you need to move to another city."
"What am I going to do in a clinic? I'm not even properly educated!"
"You'll have to take that up to Yuuhei-san here."
Both of them spared the client, Yuuhei, a look. He was clad in a laboratory coat that wasn't too exceedingly formal, and his deep jet black hair was styled in a tidy manner all while he kept a genial smile on his face.
"You're young, Kaya-san, and we can help you learn some things here and there. You will only assist there, if you accept this offer. A secretary, or maybe a consultant. We're a clinic and not a hospital. I'm a psychiatrist and not a doctor. We need someone who can be taught. The job is fairly easy. And I can make sure that the salary will suffice."
Kaya wanted to say no.
Because Yoake wasn't just her 'business'. It wasn't just a piece of property that she looked over. It was.. a guide, in her life, a constant. It was something she knew will never change and will never go because it wasn't.. it wasn't a person. It doesn't leave.
It shouldn't.
But it had Kaya thinking.
That maybe this was a good thing. That maybe getting out of this place and getting a new environment would do her some good.
(She looked down at the cigarette trapped between her fingers.)
That maybe somewhere out of here, she can properly breathe and let go.
"Alright."
After that, Yuuhei told Kaya that they'll be back by two days. They'll give her tomorrow to clean the place and cut any connections with food dealers, and then the day after that, they'll get Kaya and move her to another city, get her started with handling herself as a temporary consultant. With how she'll manage that, she had no idea. She didn't even get to finish middle school. Even if she studied in her free time, catching up to what the world outside of her was doing, she doesn't know if she could do this.
Maybe the risk she took was too great. But after realizing that here, in a place, in a store, in an alleyway where nothing ever really changes — she won't get out of the chains that bind her to the smoke. To the cigarette. To her always scratching throat and barren corrupted lungs. Rose-colored they were, indeed; it was that with roses there were always thorns.
Kaya still hopes Katsuki comes back.
So she could say goodbye to her anchor. So she could tell him that it was okay now to let her go, after all.
Kaya could stand a little bit on her own now. She just needs some time, and then maybe she'll come back to this place. To the place where she built herself, and when she comes back she knows nothing changed.
And she'll take comfort in that.
Finally the story she thought was unchangeable was starting to shift in front of her own eyes. It's not exactly thrilling — but it had its appeal. It had so much of it, actually, and Kaya didn't know if that was a good thing or not. Perhaps she has thought that Yoake was fixed in its place, never to go or to pass. She was too used to its presence, as it was the only constant in her sixteen years of existence.
Eventually, all things come to an end.
Kaya knew that more than anyone else.
- - -
a / n ; ah. i love it when things go downhill! heads up, loves. we're almost at the end.
(i could probably explain kaya's decision in this note, but that takes too much time. just know that she wanted to be truly independent, a person without dependency especially to the cigarette. and she knows the longer she holed herself up in a place that's never-changing, which is a place where yoake was, where katsuki was, she'll never know how to change.)
SavageKill: heeey. yes, that chapter went to hell pretty quick, right? well, this one's not any better, i suppose, but im sure you're all used to depressing stuff by now! and as you can see, here's the update.
