A Million Miles Away
Well, here it is the final chapter to Over Now. Its not much but its what I had originally intended when I set out to write this fic. I know I had planned for it to be finished sooner but I had a convention that needed my full attention, and no that stupid rhyme wasn't intended. Still here's the final chapter. I do not own Mai Hime, it is owned by Sunrise and lisenced by Bandai.
Hey I think that someday I might need you somehow
I, I think I might have loved you
These things I said but you were
A million miles away
A million miles away
Fuel, Million Miles
In an apartment along an urban boulevard in the west district of Tokyo, a door was being opened. through the door had come the apartment's only resident one Yuuichi Tate. The single resident arrived home after another day of work as the editor and chief for a travel magazine. It paid well and the title of editor and chief had allowed him to be the one to call the shots and give the orders around the office. A far cry from his days of being given orders back in the days of being on the student council at Fuuka academy. The memories of that place had been coming to him much more frequently for the past two years, and that had begun to worry Yuuichi. Memories of talking with Mai while she was crying in the rain, memories of chatting with her younger brother and trying not to worry him about taking his beloved big sister away, and the memory of the day when Mai had come up to him and told him that she had chosen Mikoto over him, and the easy smile he forced himself to wear telling her that it was ok by him. It was a lie, a lie that he was certain she saw through just as well as he did. He honestly didn't like thinking back to those memories again after having done such a good job of finally repressing them, only for them to come flying back at him. Pouring down on him like the tons of gallons of water from a shattered dam.
Hanging up his coat, Yuuichi went to his refrigerator and reached for a bottle of Bacardi Silver. It was a foreign drink he had developed a taste for after celebrating a new year's party with some of his coworkers. One of them had it shipped in from a distributor in Newport over in the U.S. Since then Yuuichi had made it a habit to have a drink of Bacardi Silver once every night when he began his usual ritual of writing in his journal. He had been given a journal as a Christmas gift by his mother saying that his father, her late husband had made it a habit to regularly write in it every night. Yuuichi wasn't fond of that memory coming back to haunt him either. His father had died three years ago due to a stomach ulcer that had gone untreated for far too long. Tate had known just how much of a workahaulic his father was, but he knew that he worked that hard to support his family, but it was the very work he was so dedicated to that killed him. Irony was notoriously cruel like that. A coworker of his father had said that the bank wouldn't be the same without his father around. He always spoke of how he would go on about how proud he was of his son, how he went from an angry trouble maker to an editor to a popular magazine. That alone was enough to bring a smile to Yuuichi's face, as well as knowing that his father was proud and that he went from this world peacefully.
Yuuichi mentally shook the thoughts from his mind and sat about continuing the tradition his father had began by putting the pen to paper and recording his thoughts of the day.
March 15, 2017.
I haven't had any thoughts pertaining back to Fuuka academy and the students I knew there until a few months ago, and that's begun to worry me.
The memories I've had pertaining to the students of the Academy are not pleasant ones. Instead my mind is constantly subjected to the painful images of my own death, and my rejection from the woman I had fallen in love with. She had rejected me for another woman, leading me to wonder why I was ressurected, and why I had even fought for her in the first place. They say love makes us all blind to the truth, and I have never seen any more truth to that statement than when I thought I was in love with her.
I sometimes think that maybe the good things were only meant to come to everyone else on that island, and not to myself.
Shizuru and Natsuki have moved in together, and are living comfortably in Shizuru's native Kyoto. I'm not sure of what else the future has in store for them, for I have no more knowledge of the future than any of those fake psychics on daytime television, however I'm sure the two of them are more than willing to face any challenges that comes their way together.
Kazu and Akane have already welcomed their third child into the world, I'm very proud for them, I honestly mean that.
Reito graduated from Tokyo University and has since gone on to running a very successful marketing firm. Hopefully his path has gone on to lead him down the road to happiness as well.
Despite the good news that has come to some of my friends, not everyone has had such good tidings fall into their laps. Masashi Takeda was found dead in his apartment, a plastic bag wrapped around his head and both of his wrists slashed open. On the mirror of his bedroom written in his own blood were the words "I'm Free" He was twenty seven years old and left what meager possessions he owned to a drinking buddy of his named Hirokazu Tanaka.
I'm not sure if the memories of his time on Fuuka academy had gotten to him and were the sole source for driving him to the grave, or if it was some other type of misery he had encountered after he had left the island. No matter the case, may he forever rest in peace.
As for me, I'm still the editor in chief of a well known travel magazine, but my own history with Fuuka academy has left me feeling a little differently towards the rest of the world. I try not to look back when I see someone drive past me on a Ducatti motorcycle, I try not to think to much about it when Hiro, the office otaku goes on about a schoolgirl with a big sword, I politely refuse an offer to drink green tea, and I try not to think too much about the images of a dragon and what it once meant to me.
I'm not sure of what the dreams and reoccurring memories of Fuuka will add up to in the long run, whether or not it means that somewhere back in the corner of my mind, I should make peace with the people I left behind, or that maybe I made a mistake back then in turning my back on everyone, but I know this. The things I learned, and the memories ingrained within my mind from Fuuka Island. Remain.
Setting the pen down and closing up the journal for the night, Tate picked up his glass of Baccardi and moved over to the window. Gripping the thin rope that moved the blackout curtains, Yuuichi pulled them aside, blocking out the light from Tokyo's shopping district. It was a habit he had picked up after moving into this apartment. It wasn't meant to block out the light from the stores or the buildings. It was because in that general direction, had one followed it with a telescope or the right kind of equipment, one would have found the island known as Fuuka.
Now its over. The fic has come to an end and nothing more will be said or typed and posted. I originally got the idea for this fic after watching the final hour of Stephen King's "Storm of the Century" when I saw how the protagonist reacted to his own friends doing something unforgivable to him, I wanted to try and recapture that whole feel in this fic as well, but mine didn't come off anywhere nearly as angry as King's did. Shows that I don't have anywhere near the guts that he did
The title for the song came from listening to the Alice in Chains song, Over Now, and was intended to be featured as the songs used in the intro portions proceeding the actual story. However other songs found their way into this fic in the intros. Still tell me what you all thought of the story in a review.