Gift drabble

[tarigwaemir]

Blair Hall Apts., on the Feast of St. Benedict

Much belated drabble for viridian_magpie for guessing me correctly in the last round of blind_go. The original prompt was "Sai reflecting on the Shindous," but I, uh, ended up inverting it. (I hope you don't mind, viridian_magpie? I'll try writing another drabble if you want.)

Haunting
Written for viridian_magpie

She looked up from the television as the door slammed shut. "I told you, I don't want to play!" Hikaru said loudly, as he plopped down on the floor to yank off his shoes.

"Hikaru, is that you?"

"Yeah, I'm back," he called back, shuffling into the living room in his socks.

"I'll have your snack ready in a bit. Should I take it up to your room?"

"Yes, please--oh, will you just be quiet for a second!"

"Hikaru!"

He gave a nervous laugh. "Oh sorry, Mom, wasn't talking to you."

She frowned. Was he talking to himself? Hikaru had never been the type to have imaginary friends. But he seemed to be growing more absent-minded and strange lately. She often caught him muttering under his breath or staring into space or making faces at odd moments. Just now, he wrinkled his nose and pouted at the empty air while heading up to his room. Shaking her head, she took a glass of juice and a plate of mochi upstairs.

"Fine. We'll go tomorrow. Now will you please help me with my history homework?"

Was he on the phone? Strange, she hadn't heard it ring--

"Hikaru? I'm coming in." She pushed the door open with her hip.

"Wait! Don't walk through--"

She felt a slight chill as she entered the room. "What is it?"

Hikaru gaped at her for a moment. "You...he...uh, nothing."

She set down the tray, puzzled. There was a whisper of movement, a faint shimmer to the air as she looked around the room. "Is there a draft in here?" She went to close the windows but they were already closed. She followed the direction of Hikaru's gaze to the bookshelf behind her but saw nothing.

"Hikaru, is there anything wrong?"

"No, Mom," he said, turning quickly back to the empty notebook open on his desk and pretending to look absorbed.

"Hm." She gave the room another sharp glance before she left. At the end of the hallway, she heard Hikaru's muffled laugh and paused, feeling goosebumps rise at the back of her neck. "I'm being silly," she said out loud, and wrapping her arms around herself, she hurried down the stairs.

END

Yours &c.

Comments

[qem_chibati]

Poor Shindou-san. It must of been really quite strange having to put up with Hikaru's increasing amounts of oddness.

There's a really eerie feel here, perfect for Shindou-san, even though as a reader I know what is happening.

[troisroyaumes]

Oh, I'm glad that the slightly eerie tone I was aiming for came through. And yes, I feel sorry for Shindou's mother as well; she must have wondered what on earth was going on with her son. ^_^

[dorrie6.livejournal.com]

Your Hikaru is just spot on. *happy sigh*

Also, I have a soft spot for Hikaru's mom. I have wished for more fic featuring her. She is so lost since Sai came into the picture. I'm glad you wrote this.

[troisroyaumes]

Thank you so much! That's the best compliment that I could hope for. XD

I really do admire Hikaru's mother because despite spending most of the time confused about her son, she always remains supportive of him. ^_^

[issen4.livejournal.com]

I love this! It's fun to see how Hikaru deals with Sai in daily life, and to have it from Mitsuko's perspective is great.

[troisroyaumes]

Thank you! And thank you for the rec as well. ^_^

[troisroyaumes]

Oh and Muri wrote a fic in the comments! *_*

*sneaks in*

[murinae.livejournal.com]

X3 I really shouldn't be reading fic, since I am hip deep in essays and reports and such, but I couldn't help myself when I saw the title and the subject and who wrote it. This is excellent, and one of the few fics I've seen deal with Hikaru's mum. You have his voice down very well! XD

Oh man, this is why I am on ficban. It's making me want to write something else cause it touched off a spark in my muse. Oh dear. XP

But anyway, I loved this!

-muri

Re: *sneaks in*

[troisroyaumes]

<3 Aw, Muri, I'm really flattered you read this despite your ficban. ^_^

[love_archived]

<3 This was very cute and I loved the outside-looking-in POV on Shindou and Sai. <3

[troisroyaumes]

Thank you! Glad you liked it. XD

Oh fudge, now it won't go away ... part 1

[murinae.livejournal.com]

"I saw him with you, you know," she says. Hikaru looks up sharply, but she has tilted her head back down again and her eyes are blank.

"Mom?"

He waits. Five minutes later, just as he's reaching for the water glass and the pill bottle, she speaks up again. This time she talks about the white curtains hanging in a house long gone.

She mentions she wants new sashes to tie the cloth back. Hikaru nods, because he can't quite bring himself to speak.

The curtains in his (their) apartment are blue.

He wonders if, at a hundred and five, he too will ramble about window sashes, while living (reliving?) times long gone.

For some reason, the thought doesn't frighten him as much as he thought it would. As long as the mental kifu stay true, he thinks briefly. And the company, as well.

"You saw him too. I know you did," she says. Wrinkle lips pucker briefly as she opens and closes her mouth, like a baby bird -- or something equally loud and baldly appalling. Or appealing for something.

Yes, that's the more correct term, he thinks. She's reaching for something.

Hikaru is good at waiting, and years have taught him when to make a move and when to look for a reply.

"I saw. I used to hear too. All the time. Everywhere. And feel. It's like a coldness in the bones."

Thin fingers skitter like spiders up and down the bony shoulders. He reaches over to pull up the blanket higher in her lap. Her eyes do not track his movements and the fingers continue their track up and down.

"Always wanting! They were always wanting. But I decided I wouldn't look, I wouldn't listen, and then it went away, it went away, went away ..." Up and down the fingers scrabble, and he finally has to reach out and stop them.

Her fingers feel like sticks underneath his own, steady fingers. He folds them carefully back on her lap, as careful as any placement of any stone.

"Mom ...?"

Re: Oh fudge, now it won't go away ... part 1

[murinae.livejournal.com]

"I don't look. I didn't. Because the other children and my friend and Mamoru never did ... Mamoru ... oh! Ah, I need to get dinner don't I?"

"Dad's ... not coming home for dinner, mom." He says. And he hasn't been, not for forty years now, since he fell over in Shinjuku station, right in the middle of rush hour.

"Late again," she says. She, always, always, remembers this much. No matter what she sees out the window or dreams up in her head.

"So two again for dinner? Just us. No, three right? He will probably come along."

"Mom, you know Akira --"

"No, no, not Akira-kun. The one with the pretty, long hair. The one who was always there. But I musn't, you know."

"Mom ...?" Hikaru thought he has become accustomed to those odd, spinning drop-turns that his stomach takes when he looks at her, this intimate stranger, and tries to track the different patterns that diverge in her head.

The doctors have scratched out, in time lines and in bottles, the grim, inevitable approach -- worse than yose in a losing game.

He knows to prepare himself for the day she looks at him but does not know his face.

He isn't prepared, though, for this.

"He was quite pretty, though. All that long hair. Lonely. I pretended I didn't see. Or maybe I really didn't, right then. I got really good at that. It's the only way you know."

"Mom? Who are you talking about? Long hair? None of my friends --"

"No, no, he wasn't a friend, was he? No. Not like that. He followed you everywhere. Though I thought you might be following him too. I was afraid for you. But I couldn't look."

No, he wasn't prepared for this. Of the possibility that she might not actually forget but remember-

"You know they go away if you don't look. And you can't listen. But you looked. And you listened. Did he still go away?"

He can only stare at her, at those stick claws hands, and wonder why he suddenly wants to shove her and her brittle bones away from him.

"You only saw once. Only one. Lucky, lucky. And maybe ... you learned too. Not to see. Not to hear. And that's why he went. It's the only way ... and you're such a quick learner, Hikaru! So fast at winning games. I never understand Go at all, really. Oh, are you going to another one now? Hikaru?"

His hands are shaking on the glass as he presses the cup of water into her hands. The glinting of light through the shaking water makes her blink, and her face smooths over. "Remember the sashes for the curtains."

"Ah."

She mouths then swallows the pills obediently; he had come for that purpose after all, but he wonders why he feels so guilty.

And whether if, indeed, he hears a quiet voice in the back of his head as he quietly shuts the door and goes down to back to their living room where Akira is waiting to finish their game.

And that isn't white he sees. No. His curtains are blue and he's not falling for that again. He has looked for Sai. And it never works. He's looked.

Hasn't he?

-end

Ummm ... errr, crap.

[murinae.livejournal.com]

Okay now that I've posted it in your journal, I'm thinking I should've just not done that to you and posted it in mine with a lock just for you or something. Oh crap. -___- Um. You can delete if you want?

XD I just read your fic, and the line popped into my head that "Hikaru has to have gotten it from somewhere ...."

And next thing I knew, I was writing. sincerely, ouch.

But yeah. Your fic is that good and this is seriously why I am on ficban til I finish my own stuff. -___-

-muri

Re: Oh fudge, now it won't go away ... part 1

[troisroyaumes]

Muri! This is fantastic! And don't apologize because I feel like I've just had a fic written all for me. ^_^

And we must be on the same wavelength, because yes, that was exactly the thought that triggered this fic ("Hikaru must have gotten it from somewhere") except it never occurred to me to make Mitsuko even more sensitive to ghosts. There's so much to your fic: Hikaru taking care of his mother when she's old and ill, the whole idea of his mother having seen ghosts all her life, the memory that comes with forgetting, his own remembrance of Sai. The last line is heartbreaking. *_*

Re: Oh fudge, now it won't go away ... part 1

[murinae.livejournal.com]

<3 Thank you! I was worried I had committed a faux paus -- I'm not certain of the right procedure to go through when one has one of those odd "blurps" of idea on someone else's journal page.

I tend to just drop everything and write on the nearest space (as evidenced by the scads of napkins and all sorts of little bits of paper floating around me with bits of stories on it.) I'm also infamous about writing stories on the AIM at anyone talking to me. XD

It really hit like lightning after reading your fic; it's so utterly compelling, the way you write, and it was like it hit and went straight to the story center in my brain. Heheh, I'm thinking it might be a tag scene to yours ... I mean, it's something she may have suppressed over the years, and it's come out now that some of her mental borders are fading away. Or at least that's how I saw it when I was typing away.

Thank you for letting me do this on your journal and for not being mad that I basically drooled all over your idea. X3. It was so awesome.

I'm kinda really relieved now that I did break the ficban and then had a opportunity to write and share it, because you really did inspire me! Though I have to admit that I wish I had a chance to edit. XD That's the one problem with these all of the sudden public things. X3

cheers,
muri

Re: Oh fudge, now it won't go away ... part 1

[love_archived]

Oh MURI. The last line breaks my heart. *wibbles*

[owari.livejournal.com]

You know, for a story about a boy and his ghost, I haven't come across that many fics that deal with the more supernatural element of Hikago. That's why it was such a joy to read a drabble like this one. I've always had a soft spot for fics from the perspective of one character looking at another, and to have this one featuring Hikaru and his odd behaviour through the eyes of his mother was just perfect.

I should really friend your journal. You've already been kind enough to comment on my fics, so the least I can do is to return the favour. ♥

[troisroyaumes]

Thank you! Yes, Hikaru no Go is surprisingly, well, normal despite its premise, although that may be a large part of its charm. ^_^

Oh, and of course, I'll friend you too. ^_^ I really enjoy your writing, by the way; you have such a clean style of storytelling, and your characterizations are always perfect. ^_^