Title: Myself

Published: 27 October, 2012

Author: Ribbon

Target: Tezuka Kunimitsu

Default Name: Shui Fujika

Author's Note: It took my quite a while to figure out how I was going to continue this story when 'Yourself' was actually only the first part out of a saga. Turns out I had to replace a few chapters, so readers might want to check that out. I sincerely apologize for the huge slum in updates and the terrible cover image, but my resources are quite limited at the moment. I promise to fix that as soon as I can! Thanks for your patience, readers!

II. MYSELF

One: Dream

Flaws in time can resurface as anomalies years after an event.

In my mind, there are many memories from my past and premonitions for my future that I can no longer see. But the ones that I can have a purpose for remaining there.

I've been told that all things happen for a reason, and likewise, all things remain for a reason.

When he expressed his penchant of his time reading The Ringmaster's Daughter, I felt like I couldn't have been wrong in making such a blatant assumption. It seemed so possible that Tezuka had lost something important—something he was waiting to be reunited with—and yet so impossible that he'd made a fact about himself so clear.

That was the time I truly felt as if I'd gotten to know Tezuka Kunimitsu.

A catharsis is the only way to free oneself from the regrets tied to a past memory. I've found that 'waiting' only prolongs the discomfort, the guilt, and the anxiety that comes with it. If all Tezuka was going to do was wait, then it would certainly explain why he needed to buy more time for himself.

But why would he bother?

The act of lingering back and waiting for things to be dealt with was a common human behavior. Fear was a natural instinct. But somewhere along the line, one would have to realize that consorting with time was never beneficial, and the faster they gained control over their own life, the faster things would begin to move along for them.

I lived on borrowed time. Long before my time ran out, I realized what 'waiting' had done for me. With the remaining time I had left, I would write my own story.

Tezuka lived on bought time. I wonder how long it would take him to realize who his real enemy was in the war raging on inside himself? If things continued as they were, his story would not last.

Was it possible for two people so similar to struggle down different paths?

That was something I had to live long enough to find out.

- x -

The most powerful thing that Tezuka and I shared was the desire to have reunite with something important that we had both lost. Life was not something that I could lose myself as easily in as I could a book. There were some things that couldn't end like a fairy tale. Not everyone could live 'happily ever after.'

Sleeping Beauty had been a large part of my childhood self. The tenacity of the prince's love and his determination to awaken his princess was the one thing that drew me in about the story. It was read to me countless times for that lone reason. I would wait in anticipation for the ending, pretending I didn't know what happened next, every time my father read it to me.

I can still remember my father smiling when he read to me how the prince awoke the princess with a kiss. When the smile reached my face, he would close the book and set it down on my bedside time. He laughed when I said, "Again, daddy!"

He would reach out and ruffle my hair. "Not tonight, princess. You should go to sleep, or your mother won't be very happy with me." He would wink. "But I promise we'll read it again tomorrow night, alright?"

Most mornings, I would be awake earlier than I needed to be, but I pretended to be asleep anyway. My father always knew I was awake. He would see my eyes narrowed to slits as I would wait for him to gallantly kneel down beside my bed and kiss my forehead. "Rise and shine, princess!"

I think that, growing up, my family was the most important part of my life.

The benefit of living in real time was experiencing how long things lasted. In a fairy tale, the story had to be told quickly, so the little girl reading it would never fall asleep before the end. It was gratifying to be able to treasure my years with my family for such a long time.

But reality's shortcoming was that once a part in life had been lived, there was no way of being able to return to the past—no way to re-read or re-see anything. Once I had lived it, there was no re-living it; the closest I could get to it was remembering what had happened over the years.

And perhaps the worst part was that, in reality, pain was prolonged.

I can't imagine the pain that my father felt as he withered in his hospital bed, becoming a carcass of a former human in the flesh. He knew that any moment, his heart would tick down to his countdown. Reality was his greatest torture.

I can remember wishing once that it would end, and that he would finally be granted the peace he deserved. I hated standing the sight of fear in his eyes. Neither a knight nor a prince could show his fear—especially in front of his princess. Better happiness in death than pain in life.

As I look back, I hated myself for wishing that.

His steady journey to a fabricated recovery was enough inspiration for me to venture out and follow in my father's footsteps. I told myself I would take the leap of faith that he did, and make him proud for when he returned home. He would see that everything could go back to normal. In a week, he would see me graduating from high school, and my father would be in the crowd, applauding and cheering shamelessly as I received my certificate.

Then the call came.

They told me he had passed away from a sudden heart attack.

Before they carted Shui Ryoto away to be buried in a coffin worthy of a man such as he, they let me see him. I was seventeen by then, and well aware that fairy tales were nothing more than a thought-provoking part of my childhood. And yet, the smallest part of me wanted to see his eyes open when I kneeled at his bedside like a gallant knight, and tried to wake him with a kiss on the side of his face.

He didn't stir.

- x -

There was more to Tezuka than met the eye, and I knew that. Despite his intelligence and talent for perception, there was little chance that he could read deeper into me than my superficial demeanor. Likewise, I didn't expect to find out much more about him than he knew about me.

Fairy tales weren't something I could cling to anymore. Whatever I felt for him was irrelevant.

I loved my father, but fairy tales never brought him back to me.

In another way, I loved Tezuka. But fantasies weren't enough to keep him beside me.

- x -

That morning, Tezuka walked in that morning several minutes late.

There was a muffler wrapped tightly around his neck, and his hair was in disarray—and not in the artistic way he usually had it. Certainly, for a man of such precision and composure, it was unexpected.

His eyes were lightly laced with red and rimmed by shadowy lines when I greeted him with a jug full of hot coffee in one hand, and an empty cup in the other. "Long night?" I asked with a sheepish smile.

Despite his condition, he returned the gesture and said, "Very."

"This might ease the transition." I said, pouring him a cup of coffee. We both watched me pour this time, should I spill it like I had already done so on numerous occasions. I lifted up the spout before the coffee level drew too close to the top, and forked his morning cup of coffee over. "No one said waking up was easy."

September passed by in such a hurry. At first, I wondered what it was running away from so quickly.

As I left Tezuka in peace for early morning cleaning, I realized that it was that I, a person, and September, a personification, held in common. It was time that we were running from, savoring the hope that we would find what we were looking for before the bargain ended.

Why do I feel the need to keep running?

The broom in my hand served little more purpose than something for me to lean on as my eyes wandered to Tezuka. He was lost in Beslan: The Tragedy of School, his face clean of any emotions, and the only give-away of his thoughts being the finger on his right hand that traced the rim of his cup.

What is he running from?

Then I blinked slowly.

Right hand. Not left hand.

How much further do we run?

- x -

Tsuwabaki surprised me later that morning.

"Ah, Shui-san: just the person I was looking for." She said, walking up to me with a broom in her hand. To my surprise, however, she did not extend it in my direction (at least, not immediately), but rather, leaned it against a nearby table. She made a gesture. "Take a seat. Let's have a meaningful talk."

I wasn't sure what her definition of 'meaningful' was, but did as I was told. She took a seat opposite to me, and was quick to launch into her topic of interest.

"Shui-san, when was the last time you took a break?"

That made me blink. Nothing of a 'break' came to me immediately. In fact, nothing came to be at all. I tried to form some kind of response, but I was clued into thinking my words weren't what she was waiting to hear. "Last week. I took Sunday off."

"That's not quite what I mean." She said, sighing. "I give every employee at least one day of the week off, so Sundays don't count for you. Do you remember the last time you took a real holiday?"

"No." I admitted. "I can't remember having one."

"I thought so." Tsuwabaki said, folding her arms over the table. "I decided you should take a rest for, so I didn't roster you on at all for the next two weeks. If I keep you here too long, then something bad is going to happen. You seem to be the quintessential force that drives bad happenings around here."

"Oh… I'm sorry." A two week break. Some might have considered that a long break; others, a short one. I didn't place it in either category. My primary focus was wondering what I would do for half a month with nothing but a small, empty apartment and my largely thought-filled mind.

"Well, it also won't be as lively without you stirring up any ado." Tsuwabaki noted. "My advice would be to make the most of your time on your break."

Time…

"Go and see your family. I'm sure tireless years of work at this café can't have done much for your relationships." Tsuwabaki said. She rose to her feet, signaling that the conversation was at an end, and seized the broom.

She extended it in my direction. I blinked at it, slowly taking it.

"That being said," she said, "the shop needs sweeping."

Tsuwabaki caught the general area where Tezuka was already sitting with his coffee in a grand sweeping gesture. Too, did she unintentionally catch Tezuka's attention. He looked up briefly and offered a smile in our direction before returning to his book

She turned to look at me with a skeptical eyebrow. "I think keeping relationships steady is your biggest priority at the moment. Don't waste the two weeks I gave you."

"Tsuwabaki-san… thank you."

"No need for thanks." Suddenly, she looked encouraging. I hadn't seen her like that for a long time. "You haven't had a day off in a long time."

Then she left without turning around.

- x -

It was strange that Tsuwabaki should have mentioned my family in the first place—even stranger than the fact that I couldn't remember my last proper break. I was contemplating her words over a cup of coffee with my reflection in it—one that, as usual, Tezuka had bought me.

I hadn't realized that what bothered me looked like it was bothering him.

"You look troubled." He said, words lifting my gaze. His right hand was resting on the spout of his cup. Beslan: The Tragedy of School lay to the side as I sat with him. He never read while I sat with him. "Is something bothering you?"

"Something... I don't quite understand."

"May I ask what?"

"How relationships fade so easily."

He was silent for a moment. "Friends?"

I shook my head. "Family."

For some reason, he relaxed. "Faith is a difficult thing to grasp." He said.

"Making the leap is even harder."

"Waking up to the realization is the hardest thing."

We sat there for a moment, smiling over the rims of our raised coffee cups. Then, Tezuka asked me something that I didn't expect. "How do you think hysteria defies logic?"

I blinked slowly. "It's easier to believe ill of someone than good." I said. "To genuinely be able to praise a person without jealousy is an accomplishment for any human being."

"Do you believe ill of your family?"

"Far from it." I said.

"You want to believe ill of them?"

"I don't think so."

That, in his eyes, left one option. "You don't want to your thoughts to defy your already-perceived judgments." He said. "You dislike change."

These words of his took longer to sink in that the others that he had said to me in the past few minutes, and for some reason, and crawled under my skin like a memorable quote would.

This time, I had no defense in response to his words. So I didn't defend myself. "It feels as though I'm being read like a book."

"We are all human." He said, amused by my self-proclaimed narrow-mindedness. "Change is something that ruins the familiarity of our world. It becomes an unfamiliar land completely, and we long for nothing but the past that we used to know. What we long to know, we are not eager to, for in order to do so, we must first traverse the terra incognita that we come across."

He spoke with a wistfulness, which showed in his unusually expressionless face as well as in his unusually distant voice. There was something about the way he spoke—a greater lack of emotions than usual—that made it hard to grasp what he was trying to convey.

My perceptions could never be as great as Tezuka's. But it struck me that Tezuka was trying to convince himself of his words as much as he was trying to convince me.

His transition from his day-dream back into reality, however, was subtle, and I found him soon smiling reassuringly at me. "In these times, there is nothing to do but accept what has been. The lands that aren't marked on your map, but you are expected to discover that for yourself, if you choose to. There are answers that lay off track to your destination. Would you ignore them, or continue on towards the future?"

I could not respond immediately.

And I didn't have to. "It's up to you to decide where you want to go." Tezuka said. "Unearth the answers you've been waiting to hear, or forget everything happened and move on."

My smile was forced. "Both of them sound a bit naïve."

"As we all once were." He finished.

There was a momentary silence. Tezuka had not been so upfront to me about such things before. And even if he had noticed, he didn't mention anything of it.

The atmosphere of expectancy faded, and with Tezuka's more laid-back discussion, the normal mood of the café came back. That was, as normal as the café could feel.

"I hear you have next two weeks off." Tezuka said.

This time, I was able to smile genuinely. "I wonder where you heard that from?"

"A little bird sang it to me on the wind." Tezuka said.

"With a rather raucous cry insisting that, too, I should sweep." I could help but laugh a bit at that one. My coffee cup was empty. Not even a granule remained. "Which I shall."

Tezuka was not quick to let me leave. He pulled out the money for another cup of coffee, and it hard not to refuse his offer. I gratefully poured myself another cup of coffee as he asked me, "Will you visit your family over that weekend?"

"Tsuwabaki said the same thing." I said, half to myself. It felt like the conversation about my unknown lands had passed by with a blur, and for a second, I didn't remember any of the words that we had exchanged. "It's not that I don't want to visit them. But they live a long way away. I'm not sure if interrupting the peaceful flow of their lives is something that they'd be altogether happy with, nor am I sure I can afford to pay for the flights."

Tezuka was silent. I somehow felt like I was disappointing him.

"I'll call them, though." I said. "Maybe they'll be home, and I can talk to them."

He gave a small nod of acknowledgement. Then, he surprised me. He gently prized the napkin out from underneath his coffee cup and asked for a pen. I handed him one, and he started to write something down. Then he slid it over towards me.

A mail address.

"In case they don't answer." He said, clicking the pen and handing it back to me.

- x -

Two weeks was a long time a person had to do something with their lives.

I hadn't heard from my mother for four months. The last time she spoke to me was when she broke down over the phone, recalling how Ryoto proposed to her on the day of the Tanabata, and how special he would make their anniversary every year. At a time like that, there was nothing else I could have done but listen to her.

She was never the same after my father died. Lately, she would call less and less often, having used up the many excuses she thought up of to call me. I told her she didn't need any excuses to talk to her own daughter. But she stopped calling anyway.

Shui Keiko used to be a woman of authority. She would not take half-hearted excuses from me, and I remember the countless times she grilled me for coming home late after a tutor session at school or after babysitting the children up the street because their mother was on a business trip again. I think that as my dad's strength faded, so did my mother's assertiveness. And, as things were now, I could not help but wonder if her authority was the only thing she was losing.

My mother had always borne the guilt of Ryoto's death. She had always been the one too busy working for the money to pay the hospital bills that she was the last to find out about her husband's death. It was a fate that no human should have deserved—least of all a dedicated, hard-working, loving, loyal wife and mother.

When I called her, and she recognized the voice of her daughter, the incredulous note in her voice made me cringe. "Fujika? Is that really you?"

"Mom, you sound so surprised." I said, laughing a bit. "It's been a while since I talked to you, so I wanted to call you and see how you were doing. How are you? Is everyone treating you well?"

"Yes, they always are." I heard her say. The surprise hadn't faded from her voice. "It's a very calming atmosphere. How about you, Fujika? How are you getting along?"

"I'm alright." I said back. "Nothing ever too exciting in half a lifetime."

"Don't be silly." She said. "I'm sure life is interesting for you. You're just growing up."

It felt so unnatural to talk to my mother as she was now, like a submissive creature, afraid of the unknown lands around her. It was more like we had lost the words we'd wanted to say to each other for so long—words that neither of us had the courage to stay, nor ones that would be conveyed well over the phone.

"Are you eating well?" She asked. "Sleeping well? Working hard?"

"Yes." I said. "I'm treated well."

"That's good." Maybe, at a time like this, she could have been smiling. "See? Things may not be interesting as they are now, but they're nice."

Unspoken words filled the subsequent silence between us.

"Say, Fujika… are you coming to visit any time soon?" She sounded uncomfortable, as if she didn't want to pressure me, or feel like she was forcing me into visiting. Once again, she was being submissive.

"Actually, Tsuwabaki-san gave me the next two weeks off. I want to make the trip, but I'm not sure if I can pay for the air fares. So I wondered…" I paused momentarily. "Why don't you come and visit me instead?"

"Oh… oh, yes, I could do that." It took a little while for her to be able to register what I was trying to say, but when she did, her voice started to pickup. Submersing herself in some form in anticipation allowed her to regain a vibrancy in her voice I hadn't heard in a long time. "Is that alright? I can come and visit you?"

"Mom, you would know if I didn't want you to come." I said. "And there will never be a moment when you're not welcome in my apartment. Come next week. Stay for a little while."

"Can I call you closer to the weekend to confirm?"

"Sure." I said. "Just give me a bit of notice so I can pick you up."

There wasn't much more fuel to keep the conversation going. Our combined awkwardness made the phone call border on uncomfortable. So the rest of the call was short-lived; we both said our goodbyes and hung up.

I knew time at work would pass much more slowly; in exchange for time's help, he expected something in return. Time would wait forever, if it had to. But I could not.

Tezuka spoke of 'terra incognita' as something that was so easy to get lost into. He may have mentioned the divide between ground known and unknown, but he did fail to mention one thing—unless he just left it for me to assume by myself. Should one choose to find answers, deterring oneself from such a path was inevitable. The deeper they went, the more lost they would get, and the harder it would be to get back to familiar ground.

And even if one could get back to familiar ground, it would never hold the same meaning again.

Outside of work, there was little I did. An exciting day for me consisted of hearing from my family and Tezuka, on top of work, reading, and daily chores for my small apartment. There was little more to do, and few places to go other than the café and a little book store nearby. When Tsuwabaki first mentioned that she would be giving me a break, there was not much I had to look forward to.

Now that my mother promised to visit me, I wasn't sure what to think. It wasn't that I wasn't excited. It was more that I didn't know what we would do while we were here.

After my father died, there was little much more to talk about—the past was out of the question; the present was filled with unsaid words; and in the future, we could see nothing but the hope that maybe, one day, one of us would take the initiative to speak to one another.

I didn't understand what I could possibly say to her.

I guess she must have felt the same way about me.

I'd sent Tezuka mail after the phone call with my mother, giving him an address to reply to whenever he felt the need and addressing the matter of my mother. She would come, I made sure to write, but as for what we would do for the next two weeks, well, that was still to be decided.

His reply came just before I went to sleep for the night.

'You are never given a relationship without the power to make it work. If your relationship with your mother was meant to falter, it would have done so already. Don't lose hope, Shui-san. The words to be exchanged by you and your mother may come more naturally than you think.'

'Shui-san.' Months, and it still felt like those words were unnatural for Tezuka. In a way, he was the closest friend I'd had in a long time.

I made sure to reply to him.

'Is there ever a moment when you lose that empowering note to your speech? I think in the end, I'll live by these words. Thank you, Tezuka-san. —Fujika.'

I closed the lid to my phone and set it on my bedside table before I went to sleep.

Notes:

Terra incognita: Unknown land. It's used in cartography (map drawing, I believe) to regions and areas that are literally unknown, but I think it's also been used in other contexts. I hope. And if not, just pretend I'm using a cartography metaphor. -sheepish laugh- Thank you, Wikipedia. I appreciated your services.

Tanabata festival: It's a festival that's typically celebrated on July 7th, but I believe it can be celebrated on various other days throughout July and August. It celebrates the annual meeting of the gods Orihime and Hikoboshi (represented by the stars Vega and Altair respectively)—lovers who are separated by the Milky Way and are allowed to see each other only once a year. This day is when Tanabata falls. The festival originated from the Chinese Qixi Festival. Kudos to Wikipedia again.

Princo & Ribbon

October 27, 2012.