And so, Claudine has resolved herself to move on with her life in knowing she will never see Maya again. And time, as it always does, has continued to move on and on in a world without Maya...
Disclaimer: I do not own Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight.
Chapter 5. Moving On
- - - Three years later - - -
She'd never expected it to be easy.
The process of having to come to terms with, accept, and move on from the devastating loss of someone close in life was handled differently by every person, and Claudine never anticipated being fine again after just a few months.
But even now, three years later, Claudine still aches for and misses Maya as poignantly as she had the day she'd lost her.
Even though she'd said farewell to Maya the day she'd graduated and left Japan, she still couldn't escape the memories, the yearning, the wondering of what could have been...
She tried as best she could not to let the tragedy affect her plans for the future, as much as she knew it was going to. After all, how could she ever have expected to let herself carry on in this line of work without finding constant, everyday reminders of who Tendo Maya used to be?
Even over in Europe, people had been talking about Maya's talent, her career, and her death from the first day Claudine had landed.
She'd honestly tried to move on as healthily as possible in between her weekly therapy sessions to help manage her grieving and her stress. But given her circumstances and how closely she had known Maya, there was never any shortage of people who approached her and brought up the subject.
For at least the first year of her time with the troupe, Claudine couldn't go a single day without hearing at least one person saying Maya's name. They would ask her what Maya had been like, what it had been like to perform with her, eat with her, sleep in the same dorm as her. The more ignorant and insensitive people had even asked Claudine if she'd had any keepsakes from Maya or her autograph.
Claudine only ever told people the truth; that Maya had been a brilliant young woman, as skilled and beautiful as the stories had ever said. She kept all of the more intimate details about Maya's personal life and her personality offstage secret, wanting to feel like there were at least a few things special to her, and her alone.
And for the ones who asked for physical keepsakes to remember Maya by, Claudine gave them the bitter truth as well. That she had nothing of Maya's to remember her by. Nothing at all.
Not only had the family home been demolished along with all of Maya's belongings, but all of her things at school had also immediately been seized and taken away. Once Maya's dorm room had finally been accessible again, Claudine had wandered the empty space for a long, long time, hoping to find something - anything - that had been left behind.
A hair clip. A handkerchief. A sheet of homework. Anything with her scent, her presence, or even just her handwriting.
But there had been nothing. Not even a hair or a fiber of clothing had been left behind.
All Claudine had to remember Maya by were the photos she and her friends had taken, and the memories themselves. Nothing more.
Claudine had scoured her own dorm room at the time, hoping to find anything Maya might have left the last time she'd spent the night. But even then, there had been nothing. No forgotten shirt or chapstick roll or phone charger.
There was just nothing.
It had been as though every trace of Maya had been completely removed and erased, as though whomever had ordered the seizure and destruction of her belongings had wanted the rest of the world to forget her entirely. But even though all she had were photos and a few blurry videos, Claudine was determined not to do that.
So for three years, she had kept Maya's memory alive with those same few dozen photos and videos, which she would return to time and again just to prove to herself that Tendo Maya really did once exist, and that they truly had been friends.
After about a year, the rest of the world had been content enough to forget about her legacy and leave her behind. And Claudine did her best to move on as well.
But the one thing she swore she would never let herself do was forget.
Initially, she'd presumed it might be easier for her to move forward with her life once she'd left Japan and started living and going to school in France. She'd thought that living on a continent where Maya had never set foot would be easier to help her accept things and progress.
However, the reserved, quiet, more respectful nature of the people she would have encountered in Japan was sorely lacking in the straightforward Europeans, who seemed to only have an interest in Claudine due to her previous association with Maya. Everywhere she went, especially within the troupe and her new university, people would ask her about Maya when she wasn't yet ready to discuss her, which made it all the more impossible to heal properly.
Her thought process had been that moving away from Japan, away from the country where Maya had resided and been so well-known, would be better for her to cope. But it ended up being just the opposite, and Maya's memory began to haunt her instead of comfort her.
And at first, Claudine still kept to her promise of returning to Japan a few times a year to visit her old friends.
The first time the eight of them had reunited had been the most difficult. Naturally, Claudine had gone around the group, greeting and hugging every last one of them, only to recall that Maya wouldn't be there.
Even when they all hung out and discussed their current lives and careers, Claudine couldn't stop thinking about Maya. Where she would be right now in life. What she would be doing. How she would be teasing Claudine in that infuriatingly genuine manner of hers.
It was difficult, but Claudine had thought that each consecutive time she visited Japan, it would get a little easier.
But as it would turn out, the pain only ever seemed to linger at the same intensity.
Because their group had always been nine, and they would always be nine.
And to only ever see eight of them from then on…
Maya's absence was too glaringly obvious. Too painful.
Even after a year later, they sometimes still slipped up and told the restaurant they were going to that they were a party of nine, or things of that nature. It just never got easier for Claudine to see the others if it meant Maya wasn't with them.
It was after her fourth visit to Japan at the start of her second year at college when she realized it hadn't gotten much better. Evidently, she needed more time to heal; away from Maya's home country and friends.
Therefore, she'd stopped visiting Japan after that.
Over the next year or so, Hikari would be able to come and visit her from time to time, and once even Junna and Nana managed to come see her. But it's been over a year since the last time Claudine had seen all eight of them together, and over three years since she had last seen the full nine of them.
Despite the fact that she's been living in France for the past three years, Claudine had, of course, stayed true to her Japanese heritage as much as her European lifestyle. She had a photo of Maya set up in the corner of her apartment, surrounded by a few other pictures of her and Claudine, and some of all nine of their friends.
Here, she would burn incense and kneel down to pray and speak to Maya at least once a day. She kept her updated on the events that were going on in her day-to-day life, everything from the major successes to the minor inconveniences. She imagined how Maya would have reacted to and handled certain situations, imagined what she might've said to Claudine.
It was a very fine line between trying to remember her in a healthy manner, and projecting unrealistic expectations on a memory.
It was very easy for her to get stuck in the rut of "what ifs?", which was consistently difficult to pull herself back out of. She typically could recognize when she was getting to the point of no return and force herself to step away.
But every once in a while there came a particularly difficult night where Claudine would cry herself to sleep again, wishing against all hope that Maya could still be laying beside her like she used to three long years ago.
Claudine had grown up since then. Not only had Maya's sudden and tragic passing forced Claudine to become an adult more quickly than she'd likely been ready for, but the process of moving overseas back to France, attending university, joining a troupe, getting her own apartment, and everything else that had come hand-in-hand with that stage of her life, had also pushed her along into adulthood.
It was here she had thought long and hard about what her feelings for Maya had been - and what they could have been. And she's certain that she hadn't just been some naive high schooler back then.
After having years more of experience, meeting new people, and seeing more of the world with her own two eyes, she'd been entirely accepting of the fact that she had truly been falling in love with Maya back then.
And it was undeniable that some piece of her heart still loved her, or at least wanted to.
It was an arduous battle with her own self not to let those feelings develop any further toward a person who was no longer of this earth. Rather, after her first year with the troupe, she thought it might be best if she started getting acquainted with the people around her again, instead of someone who was gone.
Naturally, many, many people were interested in Claudine romantically. After all, not only were her skills among the troupe unmatched, but so too was her beauty. And as she grew closer to the people around her, her bright, amiable personality was able to shine as well.
The first young man to ask her out had been respectable enough. He'd also been one of the few who hadn't swarmed Claudine with questions about Maya. On top of all of that, he was quite a well-off actor, and someone with very impressive skills whom Claudine could see being a good match for her in terms of motivating her to push higher.
Only after a year did she finally decide she would try dating, and that man had been the first to ask her out. So she accepted.
He ended up being very kind to her and very sweet. He had a great personality, and of course most of their interests coincided.
But no matter how hard she tried - truly tried - Claudine just couldn't help but compare.
Whenever she was with him, she thought about Maya. How Maya would have been acting on such a date. What Maya might have said. How Maya would have dressed…
She'd hoped these thoughts would stop after a few dates, but they just never seemed to go away. Knowing it was unfair of her to be constantly thinking of someone else while on a date with her colleague, Claudine had gently ended things with him before they could really begin. He respected her decision, and luckily they were able to remain friends.
Claudine had made it a point to try and date men, specifically because she knew that if she dated women, it would've only been all the easier to compare them to Maya.
But as it would turn out, it didn't matter who she dated. Men and women alike made her think of Maya.
She had avoided dating women at first for fear that they would remind her of Maya that much more, even though that was Claudine's most comfortable preference. But not even dating multiple men throughout her second year had made thoughts of Maya fade any further.
Once she realized it was unavoidable that she would just be being rude to anyone she tried to date, Claudine decided she needed to stop with that as well.
And so, after giving up her visits to her friends in Japan in her first year, and giving up her dating life in the second, Claudine had found that her third year at university was quite lonely and lacking any sort of close, genuine companionship.
She had a few friends, but they were closer to colleagues; people who would invite her out drinking or to karaoke and things of that nature, but wouldn't be there to hold her hair back for her when she got sick, or give her a shoulder to cry on on those darker nights.
It's some night well into her third year of college, when she finally just cracks.
After the years and years of trying to move on - rather unsuccessfully - of trying and failing to date other people, of pushing herself beyond her limits in a physical sense in her classes and performances, and in an emotional sense through her loneliness…
One night, she just breaks down in her apartment. More so than she typically did.
It was usually a few tears at Maya's shine in the corner, a few sobs in the shower, or a few tissues before bed. But on this particular night, she just loses it completely.
She falls to her knees at Maya's picture and wails, letting out everything she'd been trying so desperately to suppress and accept over the past three years. She hadn't cried this hard since the day she'd been informed of Maya's fate.
It just all comes crashing down on her at once.
All of the effort she'd put into therapy, healthy coping mechanisms, trying to do right by the people around her by not comparing them to someone else…
None of it had seemed to work.
In the end, she still winds up crumpled on her apartment floor, sobbing uncontrollably to the memory of a girl her heart would never be able to leave behind.
"I'm sorry…"
As the words tumble out between sobs, Claudine isn't sure who they're for.
If she's apologizing to herself for how miserably she'd failed in trying to pretend she'd moved on.
If she's apologizing to the people she'd wronged and hurt in her misguided process of trying to cope.
Or if she's apologizing to Maya for the way she'd last spoken to her, for not forcing herself to face and realize her feelings sooner…
She'd never put those feelings into words before. She'd only ever once texted them to Maya's disconnected cell phone, where they'd sat without a response for the past three years.
But now… she just can't bear it anymore.
At this point, she didn't see the harm in saying it out loud when she herself would be the only one to ever hear it.
And so, after a dozen more shuddering sobs, Claudine finally finds the breath enough to make that confession that came three years too late.
"I love you… I love you, Maya…"
It's a miniscule relief at best. If anything, it hurts more than it helps.
She'd considered it years ago and decided it would only bring her more pain to confess such feelings to a person who was long gone. And yet she'd failed in that too, and ended up doing it now so much later.
At the very least, she hopes the verbal admission will be able to help her avoid hurting anyone else's feelings.
Even though it's troubling that she has yet to find the strength and will to move on from those feelings that have no one to receive and reciprocate them, perhaps admitting it now is better than never. For closure, if nothing else.
So she kneels there, crumpled up on her apartment floor, sobbing before the picture of the girl she never got the chance to truly live with.
It feels like a relapse, but she just can't stop herself from pulling out her phone and watching some of those old videos again.
Just to see Maya's face. Just to hear her voice.
To watch her move and listen to her speak almost allows Claudine to immerse herself into thinking it could still be real. That it isn't just a recording she knows by heart of exactly how Maya is about to move, and exactly what she is about to say.
She watches one video. And then another. And another.
All the while Claudine cries as the remnants of whatever progress she might have made shatter and crumble away.
It just becomes all the more clear to her now. That the extent of her feelings toward Tendo Maya hadn't been simple enough that she would be able to overcome them after just three years.
The feelings she'd had for her - and still has for her - would last a lifetime.
And she knows she can't allow that. She knows she can't let herself wallow in this inescapable grief forever. She will move on. Evidently, it was just going to take much longer than she'd hoped...
And so tonight she cries. Simply cries.
Until she doesn't have the strength left to do anything other than curl up there on the floor and fall asleep.
In front of the picture of a girl who would never get to know just how irrevocably her presence - and absence - had changed Claudine's world forever.
A/N: Claudine is trying... she is trying so hard to move on for her own good... but it's just not that easy, even after all that time...
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