Atmung
A Rozen Maiden fanfic by Aondehafka
Disclaimer: the characters and concepts of Rozen Maiden are owned by Peach Pit, not me. This story is based on the anime, not the manga.
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Chapter 7: Nori's Question
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"It's very quiet without everyone else around, isn't it?" Nori asked. She and Shinku were seated at the kitchen table, with a cushion underneath Shinku to boost her up. Each held a cup filled with steaming amber fluid.
"It is," Shinku agreed. "With Hina Ichigo visiting Tomoe, and Suisei Seki with Sousei Seki at the watchmaker's shop, it's more peaceful today than it has been for a long time." She took a sip of her tea. "It's a pity that Jun isn't here to enjoy it as well."
Nori looked down into her cup. "I know. But I really did need all those things from the market, and I couldn't carry that much myself. He didn't seem too bothered by my asking him."
"Mm." Shinku blew daintily on her tea for a few moments.
"I never noticed before..." Nori said slowly. "Why do you do that? Blow on the tea?"
Shinku blinked. "To cool it down."
"But..." Nori looked down into her cup again. "That's not necessary, right? You could drink it even if it was boiling hot, and it wouldn't hurt you."
"I could drink it that hot and not let it hurt me," Shinku qualified. "But it would not taste good."
"Is it good now?" Nori asked. "I know I wasn't very good at making it when you first got here."
"In some ways it is much better," Shinku answered. "In others, it's not quite so good."
"I see," Nori said quietly.
"That time, I told Jun what the problem was with the way you prepared tea, why the flavor of the leaves was lost. I also told him that the tea had a very kind taste to it." Shinku stared at her companion, willing Nori to look up and meet her gaze. "This tea has solved the earlier problem. But it tastes of uncertainty, almost stronger than the kindness."
Nori closed her eyes and exhaled a long breath, saying nothing in response.
"Nori, whatever you wanted to ask me, you should ask me. Jun did not mind doing those chores for you, but he's still hurrying to finish them. He is already a third of the way through the list."
"H-how?" Nori's eyes shot open. "How could he go that fast, how could you know...?" Abruptly, she shook her head. "Why would I ask such a silly question, though?" she asked with feeble humor, bonking her knuckles against the side of her head. "It's the bond between you."
"Yes."
"Jun uses it to keep anyone from noticing you at school. So why shouldn't he do the same thing to himself, to keep anyone from seeing him run like the wind? And of course running so fast should be easy for him; after all, he's even using that power to make himself grow stronger and taller."
"It will be a little strange, to have to look farther up to meet his eyes," Shinku said. "By the time he is finished, I think he may be even taller than Enju."
"Finished... how much longer will that be?" Nori asked, finally making eye contact with Shinku again. "You asked me once if I thought it was okay for things to continue as they were. I said no, but I couldn't think what I needed to do to make them better."
"But when the time came, you did just what Jun needed you to do."
Nori smiled at the memory. "I did," she said quietly. "He's come a long way since then, hasn't he?"
"A very long way," Shinku agreed. "And halfway through your list."
"Ah!" Nori exclaimed. "I just... I don't... Shinku-chan, what happens now? Where are things going? What's going to happen tomorrow, or next week, or next year? Is everything just going to continue like this, some things staying the same while others never stop changing?!"
"Nori..." Shinku murmured. "Isn't that a good way to describe life?"
"I don't know," Nori answered. "I always thought that life, for you and all the others, was to become Alice. All the fights were about that, at least at first, and then after that you were fighting because there were other people attacking you. But Laplace is gone now, and you were able to show your last little sister what kind of a demon he really was. So there aren't any more problems with her. You did what your Father told you, and got Hina Ichigo and Sousei Seki back, and I thought all that's left is for you to solve his last riddle."
"And discover how to become Alice without playing the Alice Game," Shinku supplied. "Don't you think we are working on it?"
"I know Sousei Seki-chan is," Nori returned. What she really meant was clear in what she didn't say.
"Suigin Tou as well," Shinku replied. "Though I believe there is something else on her mind. She has not told me what that might be, though... Regardless, she is working very hard to find an answer."
"And what about you, Shinku-chan?" Nori asked quietly. "Jun goes to school, and you still go with him. Even after there's no more threats that might attack him there, and even after they told him he couldn't go to a normal high school. Whenever I see him, his ring is always glowing at least a tiny bit. He's grown half an inch in the last month..." She closed her eyes. "I can't see what will happen to my little brother either way," she whispered. "If you stay or if you go."
"And why should you be able to see what will happen, Nori?" Shinku said, gently but firmly. "Would that not be for him to decide, either way?"
"I suppose," Nori answered. "But... can you at least tell me what decision you made?"
Shinku was quiet for a long time. "I do not know," she said at last. "I don't know what the future will hold. I am still learning what it really means, to think about that at all."
Nori's brow crinkled. "I don't understand. You always looked to the future, even from the very beginning, right? You wanted to become Alice and meet Father again. The Alice Game was in the way, and what it would cost meant you didn't try very hard to push on to that future, but it was always there in front of you."
"But that is just it!" Shinku declared. "It was our destiny, my destiny. One choice, no other option. Eventually, we sisters would have to fight and break each other, so one winner could step over all the others to become Alice. It was unavoidable. The only question was who would win and who would lose.
"Can you imagine what it is like, to live under a shadow like that? With your only choices destruction or transformation? You cannot afford doubt, or second-guesses. You have to believe that becoming Alice would be worth everything. You cannot stop and ask yourself if you even want that at all." She shook her head, and continued in a whisper, "No, that is a thought you can't ever let come within a thousand miles of you..."
Nori didn't even hear the whisper, as she was too surprised by what she'd already heard. "Y-You don't?" she asked at last. "But... but all those times..."
'All those times when chasing that dream hurt us so very badly,' Shinku thought bitterly. "I do not know," she said, looking away. "Alice is more sublime than any flower, purer than any gem, and without a touch of impurity. She is a dream that lives inside of Father, not something that could ever be realized in this world. I haven't solved all the riddle, but I went far enough to know this." She turned back, staring at Nori with frightening intensity. "Becoming Alice means your old life, your old self, would be gone for good. All that you have, all that you are, lost to become the vision he carries in his heart."
"But... to become perfect like that... isn't it worth what you're paying?"
Shinku closed her eyes. "If he wants me to believe that, then he needs to come to me and convince me," she said. "He could, you know. None of us know the way to him, we only know that whoever becomes Alice will meet Father again. But he could come to us at any time, at least in our dreams or when we are in the N-field. And he doesn't. He just stands too far away for us to see him and expects us to cross that distance all on our own."
"Shinku-chan... I never knew you felt like that..." Nori said sadly. "I... you know, Jun and I don't get to see our parents either. They're overseas, working to make the money we need. I know it bothers Jun, and it's painful for me too. But I still love them, and look forward to the day I can see them again."
"To the day they come back to you," Shinku riposted. Then her features softened, and she heaved a sigh. "But I understand what you're saying. Never think I do not love Father," she said quietly. "I do. But he is not God, Nori. He is a man, probably the greatest master craftsman ever, but still a man.
"Does it sound so strange, to hear me say that?" she asked in response to Nori's boggling look. "It took Jun and Enju both for me to finally see it. Enju, who learned so many things from Father, who could do things that I only ever thought Father could. And Jun, who loves us as we are and says that we are wonderful, not lacking, not worthless if we don't reach farther and grab hold of perfection."
"Jun said that to you?" Nori said. "I never knew that... I... I'm proud of him."
"You should be," Shinku declared. "If he chooses, I believe he might even surpass Father. It is certain he could create his own living dolls one day, if he honed his talent enough."
"And if he had someone to tell him how," Nori murmured, staring thoughtfully at Shinku.
"What is it?" Shinku asked, as the silence stretched uncomfortably long.
"Just that I think I understand a little better now, what you mean about looking to the future and seeing there could be more than you knew before." Nori smiled. "Thank you, Shinku-chan. I don't feel so uncertain now. I hope you find the answers you're looking for."
"I will," Shinku declared. "By the way... please do not mention any of this to anyone else. It would be a very bad idea to let it get back to Suigin Tou."
"I wouldn't say anything to her," Nori said. "And... what about Jun?"
"Jun?" Shinku echoed, a hint of a smile on her lips.
"Yes. Don't you think you should tell him?"
"I already did. It was two months ago, after the final battle with Laplace." Her expression faded as she stared away into the distance. Then, shaking her head, Shinku continued, "That was when I confronted what I was feeling about these things."
"I see. I'm glad," Nori said. "Come to think of it, with as fast as you said Jun was moving, shouldn't he have been back already?"
The smile was back now, and much more obvious. "Yes." Shinku took a sip of her tea, ignoring the fact that it had gone cold. "I was lying."
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Author's Notes
Rozen's intervention at the end of Traumend and his revelation that there are other ways to become Alice than playing the Alice game would naturally shore up Shinku's faltering confidence in that goal... for a time. But one blurred appearance during all the centuries the Maidens have spent trying to find the way to him—and that done only when otherwise there'd be no-one left to become Alice—is hardly enough to silence all the questions Jun has asked about what kind of a father he is.