Guys. I haven't left. I've just been extremely busy. /shot to infinity But believe me when I say I LOVE you all. WAIT WHO SAID THAT? Pfffft.
Also, I am COMPLETELY blown by how many alerts and favorites I've gotten for my fics during my absence. Daayum, I don't deserve any of it. Thanks for sticking with me, everyone ;3; And if I didn't reply to any reviews, I'M REALLY SORRY AHHHHH. I think I lost track. /fail
…Btw. HETALIAAAAA /hanged for treason
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There are people who are so caught up in life that death is never an option. Nakamori Ginzo held in his liver a deep, broiling anger that kindled his blood and lit him alive. The anger led him up thirty flights of stairs, out into a white-flushed night, up towards a ghost of a friend, and then tossed him down to his death.
There are people who are so caught up in life they forget that it is not forever. Perhaps the reason people can live so long is because they are buoyed by an urgent, rushing feeling grounded with a sense of caution. This did not make sense to Aoko's father. He—
"This is the most disgusting funeral speech I have ever read," said Saguru. "We are celebrating his life. I am utterly relieved this is also a dream, because Kuroba should never degrade himself to this level."
Aoko wakes silently. It is blue in Japan and black in New York City, and she hangs in limbo. Her hair clings to the pillow in sweat.
She rises and takes a shower, shivering in the dark.
The funeral begins with a limp. No one really knows what they're doing. Incense, curling through the temple, slows them.
Everywhere there are hands, hands touching her shoulders, on her hair, steering her back, holding her hand, leading her arms—where the hell are they all coming from, she is walking through a forest of hands that carry her through, and all Aoko wants to do is go Goddamnit, I am not a fucking invalid, and shut up I curse because I want to, not because my father did—
She stays silent, though. Aoko has never loved the people around as much as she does now.
Her father looks like he's sleeping. This is a cliché, and Aoko is disappointed to find that it's true. But his brows are furrowed and his lips are frowning, and she entertains the thought that if he is sleeping, perhaps he is dreaming, and if he is dreaming, perhaps in his dream he is on the toilet very constipated, considering the look on his face.
Aoko holds in her laughter, and cries some necessary tears.
(If he is sleeping, then he is waking.)
"I wish we were elephants," says Kaito.
This is his speech's opening.
Aoko is about to rise when she thinks back to her dream, and takes a hurried glance at Saguru. He looks murderous, and Keiko's family, the Task Force, the owners of the bar by the police station, and all the other faces (and hands, hands) look extremely jarred, as if shaken from sleep.
She stands, but not before Saguru does.
"Because then our memories will be forever," Kaito continues, and maybe with a hint of hurriedness, because he knows the deep water he is in right now. Kaito is the outsider. Aoko finds herself not really caring.
"If each and every one of us remembered him for the rest of our lives, it still wouldn't be enough. And it still wouldn't, even if the rest of Japan gets to remember him too—because our lives, they're short, and our memories sort of die with us. And if we were elephants, the memory would stay forever—every single person in Japan would keep him in their elephant mind, and their kids would too, and everyone else in the world, and the memory would float in the air and drift across oceans and reach everyone, and it wouldn't even matter how many newspapers had his name in it, because people don't remember papers much either. But an elephant's memory is the longest in the world.
I—I think it makes sense for the bravest man in the world."
He's never been so awkward before. Aoko follows him with his eyes as he bows spastically and takes his seat two rows away from her, shrinking into himself. She feels like she's stopped breathing. She sat down some time ago, between 'if' and 'the rest of Japan'.
God, that was the weirdest funeral speech ever. But it was so—it was so—it was—
Saguru's features are soft. He turns to Kaito and says something; she can't hear it. Aoko looks at her father and pretends that he is still drinking his last moment water, spilling it onto his dark suit, and after the funeral, she goes to kiss him. Something inside of her breaks and mends again.
Outside the temple, it may have been snowing. But it may have not.
January 10, 2010
He left everything to her.
I—I think it makes sense for the bravest man in the world
Things do not stay quiet. She draws her sweater closer around her and opens the door in her New York apartment before promptly slamming it, eyes wide.
Kaito waits several seconds before knocking again.
Aoko waits several seconds before opening the door again.
His cheeks are sucked in and red, and he squints against the wind and at her, hair blown sideways. A green scarf flaps at the gray air. For a strange reason Aoko thinks of a paper boy, although Kaito's hands are clutching nothing but wool. It must be the thinness, she thinks. The bracing, braving thinness, huddled on a doorstep in the middle of the winter.
Aoko wants to say 'What are you doing here' or 'How did you find me' or 'Get out of my sight' or 'Nice weather, isn't it' or 'What's with you and elephants', but what comes out of her mouth is this:
"Come on in." She's let in enough cold already.
"Thanks," he breathes. "Um. D'you have any food?"
Aoko shuts the door and raises her other hand to slap him. He flinches. The hand tucks a piece of her hair behind her ear.
She feels like they could stand there forever in the hallway, hunching shoulders and warming from the cold.
Instead she goes into the kitchen and makes oatmeal with seaweed and shrimp. Kaito looks up from the sofa when she steps out with two steaming bowls.
"I'm sorry," he says with a wind still twisting his tongue.
Aoko hands him a bowl and lays her head on his shoulder. The hands cupping his bowl are shaking, and she doesn't guess why. "I know. So am I."
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In Japan, when a person dies, a Buddhist priest moistens their lips with "last moment water", or 末期の水 (Matsugo-no-mizu). In the coffin, the men wear suits and the women wear kimonos. Also, I are lazy and left out a ton of other Japanese funeral rituals…go check them out though, they're all sorts of beautiful. C:
Man, the funeral was so hard to write. ;A; First ever funeral scene and aghh, I'm really sorry if I overstepped a boundary or got too melodramatic. Feel free to bash my head with a humongous vegetable.
There's one more chapter to wrap things up, I think. I have a feeling I'm rushing this...