Maya experienced a roller coaster of heavy emotions all within the course of just a few months. How is she going to cope with everything, considering her dire situation?
Disclaimer: I do not own Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight.
Chapter 3. A Request
That night in the bathroom had strengthened Maya's resolve, enough to allow her a decent and even restful night's sleep.
The following morning, she eats her breakfast instead of childishly picking at it while thinking there was no point, that the food was wasted on someone with limited time like her.
No. Today she eats it all, because she knows she's going to need every ounce of her strength.
She sees her nurses and doctors for the routine checkups, instead of making up excuses to push off the appointments. She attends her physical therapy sessions to help ensure she keeps her muscles strong. Then, when she is finished with the more mandatory parts of her daily routine, she spends the rest of the day searching the hospital for a flash of curly blonde hair.
Maya checks the play areas where Claudine would often be sitting and reading to or playing with the younger children, but she doesn't find her there. She then checks the library, where the teenagers like herself would be reading or chatting, but she isn't there, either. Nor is she in any of the other activity rooms where she would typically play or act or sing for the patients. She isn't even out in the garden tending to the flowers as they fight off the incoming autumn chill.
Maya searches for her for nearly two hours to no avail.
And she isn't the only one missing Saijou Claudine.
A little after lunchtime, she overhears a crowd of the younger children as they meet with one of the other volunteers and a nurse.
"Sensei? Is Kuro-Onee-chan here today?"
"She said she was gonna read to us!"
"And we're doing a play together!"
Maya turns to catch the nurse's answer.
"I'm sorry, everyone. Kuro-chan couldn't make it in today. You see, she has to go back to school soon, so she needs to get ready to go to her classes. She won't be able to come and visit as often anymore due to her studies."
Maya can feel her heart falling like those children's faces. But the nurse quickly continues.
"But don't worry. She won't stop coming forever. It just won't be every day. She made sure to tell me to pass along the message that she still promises to do all of the things she told you she'd do with you, just as soon as she's settled into her new schedule at school."
The response from the children is deflated, but still happy. They're just relieved Claudine will be coming back at all.
But for Maya… just a few times a week isn't enough. Especially when Claudine didn't even know her, due to Maya's own coldness and desire to avoid anyone and everyone. If only she'd accepted her feelings from the beginning, she could've been seeing, talking to, and connecting with Claudine all this time.
But now, she's already lost that opportunity.
Maya bites her lip.
No. She'll never be able to see Claudine and be with her enough to form a bond if they'll only be in the same building a few days a week. And even then, Claudine will be with the children more than anyone else. Maya knows she can't impose on that. She can't take Claudine away from the children, or the children away from Claudine.
She's going to have to think of some other way to find Claudine and to spend as much of her remaining time together with her.
Only because this is Maya's new dream, and only because this is the sole, single goal she wants to see through in the short amount of time she has left in life, does she decide to sink to a snooping level for it.
Over the next few days, she listens to the staff and catches wind of where they keep important files and documents. When she can, Maya sneaks into that office and digs up Claudine's file.
All she glances at is the name of the school. Seishou Music Academy.
That's all Maya needs to know.
She hurries out of the office and back to her own room, mumbling silent apologies for having gone about it that way. But since Claudine hasn't come in several days already, Maya had been given no chances to try and speak with her.
But even then, if she wanted to connect with Claudine long enough to be on the level of asking personal information like where she went to school, it would take several days, which would turn into several weeks if Claudine only came once a week right now. Maya simply didn't have that kind of time.
When she makes it back to her room, she closes the door and pulls out her cell phone to call her parents.
To them, she makes one single request.
This was a terrible idea.
Maya had been told this time and again, not only by her parents, doctors, and nurses, but also by a small nagging voice in the back of her own head.
With only four months left to live, her body wasn't going to have the ability to retain its strength for much longer. She wasn't going to be able to move or breathe or sing or act or dance like she used to for much longer. She was still going to get ill and dizzy and experience various aches and pains, and they would only worsen bit by bit.
Therefore, leaving the hospital care to instead live at the student dorms at Seishou Music Academy, and to attend classes there full-time as though she weren't terminally ill and dying, was a terrible idea.
After Maya had made that phone call home to request that her parents get her a school application, her mother and father had come to the hospital and called a meeting with Maya and her doctors. They had all sat through a very arduous and serious conversation about her condition and her dwindling health; even if she still felt and looked mostly fine now, in just a few months she wouldn't even be able to stand on her own anymore.
Maya ensured each and every one of them that she understood the severity of the situation. She made sure they knew she accepted it. And more than any of that, she made sure they understood that she wouldn't be swayed in fulfilling her final wish.
She wanted to be a normal high school freshman with classes and exams and friends.
She wanted to go to school for the art she was born for, for the stage that she loved.
She wanted to meet people and make irreplaceable memories.
She wanted to do whatever she could in the time she had left.
She wanted to have homework, and study for exams, and help fellow classmates with their techniques.
She wanted to fall in love.
For the final months of her life, Maya wanted to have the life she knew she should have. And she wanted to do it at the place where she would find the girl who had given her this new conviction.
Maya would have applied anywhere - wherever Claudine was attending school, even if it was somewhere overseas in Europe and her time here in Japan had only been temporary.
However, for once in her life, Maya had gotten lucky in being right about her assumptions that Claudine had the voice and body of an actress. Claudine was in the same field as her, and had gone from middle school years at Siegfeld Academy, to now transferring over to Seishou Music Academy for high school.
So that's where Maya wanted to go.
Of course, the entire process hadn't been as quick as she'd hoped. On top of taking nearly a week to convince her parents to let her do this, it then took another week for Maya to wait for word back from Seishou after sending in her application. The school year had already started by that point, and she would be applying late, and getting into Seishou in the first place was already quite difficult.
However, due to Maya's unique situation, she was ultimately accepted. The staff knew she was terminally ill, though this was sworn to be kept confidential. Maya wanted no judgement or pity from her peers and classmates. Sick as she was, she knew she would be a student that a prestigious school like Seishou would be proud of, given her bloodline.
Seishou accepted her not only for the sake of having the daughter of the famous Tendos grace their stages, but also to help a dying girl live out her final months as she wished.
The only conditions she was required to adhere to were routine checkups by the school nurse, as well as scheduled appointments at the hospital, and that when Maya was inevitably unable to safely and healthily attend her classes anymore, that she would be withdrawn from Seishou and transferred back to the hospital to prepare for the end of her life in a controlled and comfortable environment.
After accepting these terms, Maya is approved to enroll at Seishou Music Academy.
She is given one of the extra single dorm rooms at Starlight Hall, and her parents help move in her belongings. Maya is given her uniform, textbooks, and all other materials, as rumors and whispers about who she is begin drifting around the school.
Of course, all the students know is that she is a famous purebred actress. None know anything about her cancer or her limit on how long she will be here.
It's a cold Thursday in the start of winter when she may officially begin attending classes.
The staff and teachers had tried to persuade her to start on Monday, to take these two days and the weekend to finish unpacking her things and get acclimated.
But Maya respectfully declined, and insisted she begin her classes as soon as possible.
After all, she had a new dream to see come true, and only four months left to do it.
She wasn't about to waste a second more.
And so, Maya marches forward with her head held high, up the front steps of Seishou Music Academy, and into the place where she would once again find Saijou Claudine, whom she hoped to kiss at least once before her time was up.
A/N: A foolish, selfish, but entirely necessary decision on Maya's part. Going to school when she is so ill with only a few months left to live? But if it's for the sake of her dream, it must be worth it...
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