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Picture Credits:
Till Our Lives Burn Out
Chapter 6 – This Is How We Fight
(Part 5b)
“… Of course, we did. Hotaru, you are being unreasonable here. We cannot have … ” This conversation was going around in circles, Setsuna realized. Really, it was about one thing, and one thing only. She went to her, turned her chair out and put her hands on Hotaru’s shoulders.
“Hotaru, listen to me. I … I am never, ever going to have anyone that way. It is my destiny, my duty. I am proud of my duty. It is the meaning of my life. Not everyone gets someone like that. Some of us just do without.”
“That’s so sad,” Hotaru whispered, as once again her own heart ached with the realization of how beautiful Setsuna-momma was, and she wondered how much greater the effect had been on Kuryakin.
“Sadness is our natural state. There has never been a happiness that wasn’t tinged with it.”
“Really? You see everything, the sadness and the happiness. Why is the sadness always so real, and the happiness always the illusion? Just because it’s not permanent? I’m the Senshi of Death and I’m not that morbid.”
“Happiness is fragile,” Setsuna said. “More fragile than you can imagine. It has be guarded so very carefully and with our utmost determination.”
“Even if it means some of us will never know happiness?”
“For the common good, yes.”
“What good is a common good, if not everyone can taste of it?”
“It is my choice to make, Hotaru.”
Hotaru had said everything she wanted to say, and everything she had been thinking that afternoon. She had sounded bitterer than she meant to, but in that moment, it was the truth as she saw it. Now, though, she felt badly and wanted to take back the bitterness. “It’s okay. I still love you, Setsuna-momma, because I really want to, more than ever. That’s my choice to make. And you need it now, more than ever. You … were very wrong.”
“Hotaru, where are you going?” Setsuna asked as Hotaru pushed her way past.
‘That’s it,’ Hotaru thought, as she all but ran upstairs. ‘This is about our tragic destinies. Is there no hope for us, no way to avoid it? Are we the sacrificial lambs, who must live in continual death, so that utopia can come? Oh Queen, did you give us these tasks, knowing we would never taste of the rewards for ourselves? Is that why we were kept far away, lest we hoped for more than you and your beautiful light could ever deliver? If so, I will obey. But is there no higher court of appeal? Oh, please, someone, anyone, isn’t there something more? I don’t care about myself. Haruka-poppa and Michiru-momma have each other, but please, for my Setsuna-momma, is there nothing more?’
She threw herself into her bed, and quietly sobbed.
Haruka and Michiru sat down at the table, while Setsuna returned to her seat looking very pensive. There was something now between her and Hotaru. Worse too, there was now something between her and … her unrequited love. Henceforth, she was never going to be able to think of Endymion without thinking of Kuryakin. By every practical measure, she was sure she had done the right thing. He had even admitted after a fashion that she was right, and he had meant it. It was the best thing for Hotaru. He had even placed Hotaru’s need before his own very strong feelings for Setsuna.
“Where did all that come from?” Setsuna wondered. Some of the things Hotaru had said hit closer to the mark than she was comfortable with.
“How wise she’s grown,” said Michiru, who was starting to look a bit despondent herself. “She’s like a volcano. She goes along, simmering and brooding, and then boom. It must be hard on her. She’s really facing the great struggle we all face now. Her mind has raced so far ahead of her heart and her body, that as … ahem … Mister Kuryakin predicted at the dolphinarium- this was bound to happen. She said nothing that we all haven’t thought at one time or another. Or am I wrong?”
Kuryakin had said much the same thing to Setsuna, but admitting anything to do with him was the last thing she wanted to do now. She was livid at the man, and the way he had insinuated himself into their ordered lives.
“Not that it was ever in doubt,” said Haruka, who listened to this with a knowing smile hidden behind her pensive pose, “but she’s definitely one of us.”
“This is all his fault,” Setsuna fumed.
“Fault? I’m not necessarily imparting blame here.”
“I am. I blame myself first of all. That was a mistake from the beginning and I knew it.”
“She was being a bit harsh,” Haruka said. “She just really bonded with this teacher and she doesn’t understand why her plan to get you two together didn’t work. She’ll be okay, soon.”
“Bonded? Never have I seen such a crush,” said Setsuna.
‘Oh really?’ thought Michiru, chuckling inside. If only half the things Hotaru had noticed were true, there was something going on there no matter how much she denied it.
“Well,” said Haruka, “I wouldn’t say it’s a crush exactly, but some kind of bonding was pretty much inevitable. You know how it works with foreign teachers. In the school system, they purposely put girls with guy teachers and vice versa. And she was his only student, the center of attention. It was his job to think about her, night and day, really.”
“If you knew this was going to happen,” asked Setsuna with some consternation, “why did you not say something at the beginning?”
“Because I didn’t see it as a bad thing. Michiru said he was trustworthy. That was good enough for me. Besides, you knew it would happen too, didn’t you?”
“In the abstract, I suppose, yes. I only went along with it because Miyuki-chan was sure he could help her.”
“And he hasn’t?” countered Haruka. “In some ways, it’s been wonderful for her. She’s sharper than ever. She’s even stronger physically. Look how she expressed herself with your birthday gift. Look at how she’s growing. She’s becoming who he is. Just because that’s causing problems for us – or for you, really - doesn’t make it a bad thing.”
“Besides,” said Michiru, “she’s not the only one who has some sort of crush on him.”
“What has made you believe this of me?” Setsuna asked.
“I didn’t say it was you,” replied Michiru. ‘Now watch this, Haruka,’ she winked to her lover.
“Oh? Yes, of course, it must be Haruka you are speaking of. How silly of me. You two shall make a wonderful couple.”
Michiru and Haruka simply looked at each other and shook their heads.
“She really doesn’t know,” said Haruka. “It’s so cute.”
“You’d think she would. She notices everything about everyone else.”
“It’s so girlish, …”
“ … so starry eyed,”
“… so teeny bopper,”
“… so romantic of her.”
“It’s terribly cute,” they said together.
“Please cease speaking of me as if I am not here.”
Both of them smiled at her.
“Ah,” said Michiru, with great wistfulness, “Setsuna Meioh in love. What is the universe coming to?”
“I always wondered what it would look like. Who knew it would be so … interesting?”
“No,” Setsuna said firmly, “you could not be deeper in error.”
“Oy,” said Haruka, “this is more serious than we thought. She must be completely out of her mind for him.”
Setsuna shook her head in exasperation. Michiru became very serious.
“Setsuna, think about how you’ve been acting for the last four months.”
“In what way have I acted uncharacteristically?”
Haruka chuckled wickedly, which for her was the equivalent bursting out in peals of laughter.
“Hotaru’s first day with him?” she began, “That evening you talked with him on the phone for an hour and ten minutes.”
“One hour, nine minutes and fourteen seconds.”
“Oh, 46 seconds,” Haruka smiled, “that makes all the difference, silly us … Setsuna, you have never, in my hearing, spent more than five minutes on the phone with anyone.”
“You make jokes now, you hum little tunes now and then,” said Michiru.
“You tailed him,” said Haruka, “I can’t believe you actually did that. You were obsessed with finding out everything you could about the guy …”
“He could be a threat …”
“Setsuna,” Michiru said with finality, “in the last four months there were times, a few, but there were times where you seemed … happy. Really, honest-to-God, not-a-care-in-the-world, fly-me-to-the-moon happy.”
Finally, she was seeing herself as everyone else had seen her these last four months. She was shocked.
“Very well. I understand how might have given the mistaken impression that I … I …,” she paused, sighed and then gave in. “I admit that I feel something for him. He is kind, and smart, and very likeable. He is strange, and handsome, in his way. And yes,” she said, her eyes misting, “that night he kissed me was the sweetest thing I’ve ever known. But I am … never going to have anyone that way. I can not. Too much has been put on me and I must remain true to it. I must.”
“I thought that’s how you’d feel.”
“But the fact remains,” Haruka said, “you led the guy on, for Hotaru’s sake, yes, but … maybe he didn’t deserve that.”
“I am reasonably sure he knew what I was doing.”
“Possibly. But even so, it looks like he had really fallen for you, and doubt that makes it any less painful,” Haruka said. “So that’s probably why Hotaru is so upset. She’s mad that you weren’t honest about it, and even madder that you used it like something … to be thrown away.”
“And she’s mad,” Michiru continued, “because he won’t be. He’s …”
“… too good a guy,” Haruka, said completing the thought. “… and he’s too in love with you.”
“Haruka,” Michiru said, looking a bit shocked, “you are just full of surprises these days.”
“Just being honest,” she shrugged. “I admit it. I think it’s nice that he’s in love with you. He seems pretty self-contained. Like you. And then one look at a pretty face and suddenly he feels … incomplete. Yes, Michiru, he is a good guy. If he weren’t a guy, and so brainy, I would almost say Hotaru is right. He does share certain aura with her. Funny that. Uncanny really. I try to dislike him. He was kind of a jerk to me at the fish pond, so I shouldn’t have had any trouble disliking him, but somehow … I couldn’t stay mad at him. Not for two minutes. Maybe you are hiding from something, Setsuna, and hiding behind her. I don’t know of course. Anyway, I say too much now. It’s not my business, and I don’t handle this stuff well.” Haruka got up to leave.
“That is the point Hotaru seemed to be making,” said Setsuna.
“This is this, and that is that,” she smiled. “I don’t like butting in to anyone’s personal life like this, but the point Hotaru was making was that you may have felt something genuine, but you didn’t like where it was taking you, and you used it –quite ruthlessly- both to deceive him and manipulate her, and protect yourself from it in the process. IOW, you wrecked it on purpose. That is what I think she was saying.” Haruka winked at her.
“I never protect myself. I was protecting our Princess, and her future. That is the only thing I protect, and the only thing I am interested in protecting.”
“Yes, yes. That guy is such a threat to our Princess.”
“He might be.”
“Oy, oy, I’m the biggest xenophobe here. I just don’t see it. You think too much. You’ve always been the most introspective of us.”
“Of course, I spend much time thinking,” said Setsuna. “I have had plenty of time for that. For most of my existence, that is all I have had. Hotaru should be glad she has not had so much of it. I am proud of my duty. It was an honor to be trusted with it. It is hard, and that is why I am so proud to be the one to bear it. We must always be vigilant.”
“Yes, we are what we are, and this is how we fight,” said Haruka reflexively. “We’re always more or less at war. And that’s why you used someone –very effectively - and then slammed the door. Sometimes hard decisions have to be made. That’s our job. We aren’t the kind to second-guess ourselves.”
“And that, too … is the point Hotaru was making.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Haruka smiled, as though she’d finally made the point she wanted to, and then she left the room. “I’m going to bed now.”
She left, and went upstairs, but before going into her bedroom, she stopped and looked in on Hotaru. Hotaru probably didn’t want anyone to bother her just now, and she would honor that by not speaking unless spoken to first. Hotaru was facing away from her, and as she approached her, she curled up tightly as if to say, “buzz off.” Not one to be deterred though, Haruka sat down on the bed beside her, and stroked the littlest Senshi’s hair for a minute.
‘Oh Hotaru, my kitten, my princess, you’re growing up. There are … compensations, but it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, is it?’
She leaned over, kissed her and left.
Back downstairs, Michiru was very pensive. Levity notwithstanding, this had been a strange few minutes, and it was leaving an increasingly sour taste in her mouth. She had suspected what Setsuna was doing even before she’d overheard that conversation. She felt very sad when she heard it. She wanted to be wrong about that. Aside from how Haruka had amazed her by nearly everything she’d just said, Setsuna had just shown the tiniest flash of the inner struggles her task as a Senshi had imposed upon her all those eons. Michiru couldn’t think of one time that had ever happened. Setsuna was a rock when it came to the hardships of her duty. She did not doubt for a minute that Setsuna was proud to bear her duty and that it gave her life a meaning more important than happiness. She did it so well, with such grace, no one ever thought to wonder just what price she was paying. But then, they all projected-intentionally- such an aura of cool, no one ever seemed to think they were paying any price, or ever bothered to care what price any of Outer Planet Senshi were paying, really. There are things that do not bear close scrutiny; that was happening now, in spades. Hotaru was the one who brought it on.
“Setsuna,” she asked, “Did you love Endymion simply because he was forbidden?”
“Of course not. Even in my youth, I was not such a fool to fall for such silliness.”
“Let me rephrase that. Did you continue to love him because he was forbidden?”
“I loved him because I love him,” she said, with a sigh. “I was all alone and sometimes he would come and visit. The queen knew. She even sent him. I think she felt sorry for me. She can not bear to be alone, and she must think no one else can bear it either. In a way, I think she was showing her trust in me. Or her trust in him. She had so much, and all I had was my duty. She could afford to be ‘generous.’ I guess she was ‘sharing’ him with me, a little. I know how things must be. That settles it. In its place, I have had to accept other loves. Small Lady, and now Hotaru.”
“The Destroyer of the Invalid Old, huh? There’s no denying the effect Kuryakin-san has had on her. But she’s passed her tests. She’ll start Funabashi Academy with us next term. What’s done is done.”
“This is not so melodramatic as ‘what is done is done’ makes it sound,” said Setsuna defensively.
“Perhaps not to you. Give her a few days to work this out. She’ll be all right. However the goal was accomplished, it has been accomplished. All’s well that ends … or … something.”
“I shall retire now.”
“That’s probably a good idea.”
Thirty minutes later Setsuna was brushing out her hair, a fifteen minute process that, like her job, gave her plenty of time for reflection on the day’s events. “The Destroyer of the Invalid Old,” that was what she’d said. Where had she heard that phrase? And then she remembered: Kuryakin-san’s lecture. He had used that phrase when a member of the audience asked a question about the influence of Greek thought on European History. In the concise and very opinionated discourse that followed, she remembered hearing him say “…whereas I, along with Kierkegaard, see Socrates as primarily an ironist, and a destroyer of the invalid old.” She couldn’t help it anymore. She was beginning loathe the man. Ten minutes later, she repented that, because where is guilt, we come to hate the person we’ve wronged, because their very existence reminds us of our guilt. Setsuna understood this as well or better than anyone. She would not fall into that trap. She had no reason to feel guilt she told herself. She was in some fashion Hotaru’s mother. What would any mother worthy of the name not do for the sake of her child? She had done nothing wrong.
Haruka was propped up reading a book, but her mind was drifting. It had, indeed, been an interesting evening. Eventually, her thoughts came around to why Michiru was taking so long in the bathroom. There was never any formal arrangement -so little between them really required any words- but Michiru always used the bathroom connected to the bedroom as her own, while Haruka often used the separate bath down the hall. If Michiru wasn’t using ‘her bathroom,’ Haruka was free to use it, and would often just wait her out rather than …
She heard the sound of the hair dryer stop and then the sound of someone slumping to the floor.
“Michiru?!” she called as she quickly got out of bed. Haruka opened the bathroom door and saw Michiru sitting on the floor. Her expression was desolate.
“Haruka …”
“What’s wrong, Michiru?” she asked as she crouched down to look her in the eye.
“Just hold me. Please.”
Haruka saw her hairbrush in the corner. She must have been drying her hair out in front of the vanity. Haruka wrapped her arms around her. Michiru never cried outwardly, but Haruka could tell she was ‘weeping on the inside.’ From time to time, even the toughness of the Outer Planet Senshi had its limits, especially when they had to look at themselves in the mirror. After a while, she calmed down.
“I killed her, Haruka. It was my blast that took her star seed. I’ve never really felt it until now. I think tonight we saw just a glimpse of how much Setsuna has suffered. And the thought that ‘I killed her’ suddenly overwhelmed me. Do you remember the pain in their faces when …”
“Yes,” Haruka said dismally as she closed her eyes for a moment. “I remember.”
“One more futile, thankless, pointless death for each of us,” Michiru shuddered. “No wonder Hotaru is having such trouble. Our choices are always so hard. Why us, why do we …?”
“I’m here, Michiru,” Haruka said very tenderly into her ear.
“I’m sorry. We’re supposed to be stronger than this,” she whispered.
“Contrary to what some might think, we’re not machines. It’s all right, Mi-chan. We can show weakness, as long as it’s to each other.”
“Exactly, Haruka, we have each other. But they aren’t like us, neither of them. What do they have, when – as you said- only through love does anything matter?”
“So you were pulling for him, too?”
“I don’t know. But I do know I was pulling for Hotaru, … and Setsuna. They are so closely linked.”
“So that’s why you’ve been down lately. You could feel what she was doing, couldn’t you? Dear, beautiful Michi … I know you’re a little upset right now,” she continued, “but … this is a really nice moment for me.”
Michiru’s breathing still shuddered from the inward sobbing, but otherwise she remained silent. Haruka turned Michiru’s face to her own, and smiled that confident, little smirk.
“I know I do a lot of boyish things, and I have a man’s heart, but … I really am a woman, and sometimes, to be a woman is to be very insecure. So … it’s nice to know that you really do need me.”
“Of course, I need you. So, does this mean that you’ll stop flirting with other girls?”
Pause.
“No.”
Michiru giggled, then Haruka looked at her very matter-of-factly.
“Michiru, I think it’s time you told me what you saw in your talisman.”
She did.
“Weird,” said Haruka pensively. “What do you think it means?”
Michiru stood up.
“It means that we hope she knows what she’s doing, and let this play out, no matter how it goes. No matter what.”
“Okay.”
Chapter 7 –Bloody Sunday
(Part 1a)
Epigraphs:
“Yes, man is mortal but that would be only half the trouble.
The worst of it is that he’s sometimes unexpectedly mortal –there’s the trick!”
- Woland (the Devil)
- Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita
“Glaub unsereinem, dieses Ganze
Ist nur für einen Gott gemacht!
Er findet sich in einem ew'gen Glanze
Uns hat er in die Finsternis gebracht,
Und euch taugt einzig Tag und Nacht.”
"Believe us, this Whole
was made only for a God
who is to be found in an eternal Splendor.
He brought us into the darkness,
and what you get is only day and night."
- Mephisto, Goethe’s Faust
The Steinway Model D Concert Grand Piano sitting in studio Juku-PK was a mighty thing with a mighty sound. Tomorrow it would be going into storage. Tonight, about the time Hotaru and Setsuna were finishing up their ‘discussion,’ its 230 strings, under a combined tension of nearly 30 tons, groaned under the pounding they were taking. The ossia cadenza from the first movement of Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto had plenty of notes to hit, and Peter Kuryakin was hammering every one con tutta forza. He’d broken two of the upper register strings already and was going for a third, hopefully in the middle register. He’d not yet been able to break one of those, even in his many years of practice and the occasional performance. He had started at the beginning. The brooding, very Russian melody in the minor mode suited his present, black mood perfectly. The subsequent agitato passages suited its turbulence. The rising and falling, the double and triple fortes, the leaping cascade of notes, all flowed untrammeled from his hands, but when he got to the final run of the cadenza there was a discordant crash of missed notes all the way down. He sat there frozen, and insofar as music was concerned, his concentration lay in a broken heap at the bass register of the keyboard. His right hand began aimlessly tracing out a melody while he pondered the situation. Then, in disgust, he slammed the lid of the piano shut as he realized he was playing the turgid and much detested “I Will Wait for You” from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.
Why was he mad? And at whom, exactly? Was it Miss Meioh? If so, he loved her and wouldn’t abide that anger. Not for a moment. Not where she was concerned. Take it out on the piano, on something, anything but her. He wished never to speak to her except with words, tender and quiet, of comfort and edification. In fact, he ought to have been happy. In a backhanded way, the lovely Miss Meioh had solved a problem for him. He was still in love with her, more than ever, but as he now saw, in the grand scheme of things she had taught him an important lesson. He could go home now. There was nothing between him and the place he was once so alienated from. There was nothing, really, to keep him here in this place that marked the farthest of his wanderings.
He ought to go home. He hadn’t seen his family in a long time. He and they had been at odds after ‘the tragedy,’ but it wouldn’t do for that to go on one moment longer than necessary. To his parents, he was their first born of the much heralded, much anticipated seventh generation; to his siblings, he was the elder brother, and they adored him – except for the youngest half of them of them, whom he’d actually never met. The family had grown quite a bit in his absence. Anytime there was contact from them, it always ended, at first, with pleas that he come home, and then over time with requests that he at least tell them if he might ever come home, and under what circumstances. They understood how he felt as best they could, but it was never the kind of understanding in which real empathy was possible, and that was part of the problem. He did love his family, and miss them, but tonight, every time he said, “yeah, I really ought to go home,” he could hear his own voice tell him that he’d be back here before he knew what was happening. There really was something to keep him here after all.
Two somethings:
That unbelievable woman …
… and that amazing girl.
What was it about them that had enchanted him so? It was easier to explain in the case of the former than the latter, but there was a linkage between the two of them far stronger that that even between a biological mother and daughter, and that fascinated him most of all. They were, for want of a better term, conjoined, not unlike the way The Kittens were “one,” though it was, obviously, different too. If trouble there was, and it was Miss Meioh who was in trouble, Hotaru was in trouble, too. Surely it all had to do with that ‘first thing he noticed,’ the day he met them. To go home or to see it through? No one, who knew him, would ever call Peter Kuryakin a coward. In all his life, he had done only one cowardly thing, and that had been finally, conclusively, comprehensively rectified by the events of these past four months. It shouldn’t be that hard a choice, but he was in love, in different ways, with them both, and it was threatening to anchor him here.
He ought to give it further thought, and there was only one place to do that now. In a way, it was good that ‘that place’ was near their house. He would make his decision in close proximity to the only two reasons to stay. Thus forty minutes later, he sat there, his van shut down and darkened, looking out over that scenic view that he first noticed the day he first drove Hotaru home, and where he and Miss Meioh had stood a week ago. By the time he’d gotten there, the choice was made. Both of them were but a few kilometers away, yet remote as the stars. He smiled at his own choice of words there, and briefly flirted with calling to see if he could speak to Hotaru at least. It just wouldn’t work. No one knew better than he the dangers of interference, and of unintended consequences, but he was good at watching carefully from afar. Perhaps he could keep an eye on Hotaru that way. The decision was made, and it hinged on a single word: ‘papa.’
After Haruka had left, Hotaru got up and paced in her room. She felt really terrible. She knew it wasn’t quite as simple as she’d put it, and felt selfish for what she’d said. Something really had come to an end, and it had become an occasion for thinking about her purpose and existence from the point of view of someone with something to lose, someone who was on the receiving end of … destruction. She saw as clearly as ever that something else must now be born from the ashes of this, or die in the trying. Mainly to stop pacing, she left her bedroom and, unseen, went up to the "observatory," a glass bubble atop the house that constituted the whole 'fourth floor'. Though it was really a rooftop sun room, they called it that because Hotaru kept her telescopes and other optics up there, and because, except for the wood framing, it was perfect for stargazing. The night was cool, clear and shimmering. Their house was far enough away from the lights of Kisarazu to give her an excellent view of the sky above. The constellations of late fall wheeled overhead, and she always found solace in stargazing. She got out her telescope to take a look at a few of them. To the south, the winter constellations did not yet dominate the sky though they were rising. Hotaru pointed her telescope to the southwest where Fomalhaut was burning brightly. It was a blue-white star but always had such a beautifully subtle orange-red hue around it. Hotaru always thought of it as ‘the loneliest star’ since it was, from the terrestrial perspective, in a very sparse and uninteresting part of the sky. She glanced at a few other celestial objects of interest. Then her thoughts turned gladly to getting ready for bed. It had been a miserable day.
She was about to put the telescope away when she saw the glimmer of headlights on the nearby road to their house. Traffic was usually very light at night, and there was an occasional car or two, especially when teenage lovers wanted to park at that scenic view spot down the road. She smiled slyly, and thought to take a little peek. She zoomed in on the vehicle. It was a minivan. Dark though it was, and upside down in the lens, she recognized it at once. Her heart leapt. Was he coming to see her, or thinking of it at least? Maybe he’s thinking things over. He said it reminded him of a special place. All thoughts of getting ready for bed vanished at once. She ran back down to her room, and put on a jacket. In the time it took her to figure the best way out of their big house without being seen, Hotaru was out the door and on her way through the woods between their house and the highway.
She ran through the darkness as fast as she dared. Dead branches on the ground and living branches in the trees clawed at her as she did. She didn’t even notice. She had to get there before he drove off. An image in her mind of futilely running after his retreating vehicle, hollering his name, was, strangely, one of the worst fears she’d ever experienced. She missed him, badly. She made it to the edge of the woods, and he was still there. She crossed the highway, and ran the rest of the way, thumping hard, breathlessly, and very suddenly against the hood of the van.
“What the …?!?” came Kuryakin’s muffled voice from inside the van. “Hotaru-chan?! What are you doing here? Get inside and warm up,” he said as he opened the front passenger door.
“What are you doing here?” she said, breathing hard. “Were you coming to see me?”
“I … No. No, I’m sorry. I wasn’t,” he said, as he started the van. “We’ve got to get you back home right now. Hopefully before they’ve noticed you’re gone.”
“No, please. I want to talk,” she said pleadingly, as he grabbed the gear selector. “It may be the last chance I get.”
Kuryakin closed his eyes, dropped his head and sighed. It was really hard to say ‘no’ to this kid.
“Okay, but you’re shivering, so let’s keep the heater running,” he smiled. “So then, why is this ‘the last chance’?”
“She’s really angry. At you.”
“Oh, is she?” he said, unable to prevent a slight edge of mordancy in his words.
“So why are you here?” Hotaru asked again.
“Like I mentioned before, this view reminds me of another place, a very important place. How did you know I was here?”
“I can see this spot through the trees from the top floor of the house. See, right through there?” she said, pointing. “I was stargazing with my telescope, and I saw the headlights of your van. I saw you park here, so I took a look. When I saw it was you I came straight here. I’ve … missed … you,” she said shyly.
“You came through there? That explains why your clothes are all scuffed up,” he said, while she started brushing herself off. “I didn’t realize. Usually, I notice everything … I must be slipping. I generally know when I’m being watched, even from a distance, as Miss Meioh found out. I’ve missed you too, but you shouldn’t have come here, all alone, at night. What if you’d fallen and hurt yourself ? And it’ll look bad when I have to take you back. It’ll look like we were up to something. I really need to take you back right away, before they realize you’re gone.”
“I’ll walk back,” Hotaru said.
“No, no, it’s too cold out and I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you. I’ll get you close and you walk the rest of the way,” he said, reaching again for the gear selector.
“Wait, no, please!” she pleaded. “I need to talk to you. I did something terrible.”
“We’re both going to be in big trouble. What’s up?”
Then she told as much as she thought she could of her row with Miss Meioh. He sank deep into thought for a couple of minutes.
“You defended me?” he said with a terribly charmed expression on his face. “Against the person you care about the most? You really amaze me, kid. Do you know why I love your name?”
She shook her head.
“It fits you so perfectly. That’s exactly what you are: a little flickering light, small but so pure, impossible to miss, dancing in the air, a beacon in a dark place. A place that, to me, is in twilight even during noon in high summer.”
Hotaru quieted her mind. She could feel it. He was going to open up to her. She was about to get answers to the questions she had long wanted to ask, ...
(Word Limit Reached)
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