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31_days2011-02-05 02:22 pm
treeflamingo.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2011-02-05 02:22 pm
[Feb 4] [Fruits Basket] Things Which Left, But Remain Anyway
Title: Things Which Left, But Remain Anyway
Day/Theme: Feb 4/I am seeing ghosts in everything
Series: Fruits Basket
Characters: Momiji, non-canon family
Rating: G
A/N: Pleaaaaase tell me this isn't too late. I live in Taiwan and it has just become the year of the rabbit. There are posters and icons and logos everywhere. So that's where this came from. Set waaaaay after the end of the manga.
It was February the fifth and Momiji was trying very hard not to look uncomfortable, but the ubiquitous posters weren’t helping.
Neither was the fact that his two year old daughter showed a marked preference for the animal of her infant brother’s birth year. (Nor the fact of the boy himself, tawny-haired and brighted-eyed, born three days after his due date, three days too late to be a tiger.)
His wife – his German wife – thought the Asian concept of the zodiac quaint and populated Momiji’s life with cutesy versions of his family’s dark history. It had been hard on Kisa last year, though Hatsuharu hadn’t seemed much bothered the year before. (Momiji wanted his nonchalance to be untrue, a charade, but he knew his cousin too well: Haru truly didn’t care.)
They had brought the baby home that morning. Little Franz, after his mother’s father. Little Fuyuta, as the spring was especially cold. Momiji was in charge of his daughter while his wife slept with the baby. They had named her Karina, because it was as easy on German tongues as on Japanese. (They planned to move to Germany when she entered middle school – it was why they had their two children (and his wife only wanted two) so quickly after marriage, after each other – so they could go back to Germany. But really, it was his wife’s plan, and he would do anything for her.)
(He hoped there would be no more changing yearly torture when they went to Germany. (They would move before twelve more years for sure, before another rabbit year. (And at least in Germany there would be no posters.)))
Karina was playing in the backyard. Momiji was sitting on the porch. He had his elbows on his knees, his head in a hand, his soft, bright hair bunched tightly in his fingers. To his left and to his right were red banners wishing him happiness (Did she have to put them on the back doors to? But he had never told her his secret, so he was not allowed to complain (about this, about anything.)) On the floor by his side was a discarded stuffed bunny, pink and pale gold, his daughter’s favorite plaything except when it wasn’t. She hopped around the yard on her haunches, happy and simple and utterly innocent, and Momiji thought how unfair it was to think of her as his tormentor. He tried smiling while he watched her. She had a plastic hare clenched in one baby fist.
“Usagi,” she said. “Usagi, usagi, usagi.”
Momiji stared. He should wake his wife (it was her first outside of mama, papa – bilingual children learned slower). He should teach her to say it in German (but he only ever spoke to her in Japanese, that was his job, he should wake his wife, to teach her the German).
“Usagi,” she smiled.
Momiji turned his face to his hand and cried.
When he felt her at his knees, he reached a strong, fatherly arm to help her into his lap, but his tears would not stop and so he couldn’t look at her. It isn’t her fault, it isn’t her fault, it isn’t her fault. A searing feeling burned at his heart and he couldn’t be sure what he was angry at, or why, or if he was angry at all.
“Papa,” she said, and suddenly her favorite stuffed bunny was tucked under his chin. He wanted to throw it away from him, and he wanted to grip it to himself tightly; he wanted to transform, to nuzzle his sensitive pink nose against her baby skin, and he wanted to hold her like this her whole life so she would never know pain and secrets like he had.
There were ceramic rabbits on his kitchen table (the salt and pepper shakers), there were simplified rabbit silhouettes static-stuck to the windows and doors of every conbini in the country, there were news reports and local interest stories and special exhibits at the petting zoo, but there were no rabbits with him now. No small, warm kinsman came to him though he was broken and crying again, and who am I angry at, anyway? and –
And the stuffed bunny under his chin shifted with his daughter, and he felt suddenly the heat of toddler tears through his shirt.
“Papa,” she said in a tiny, piteous voice.
Momiji scooped her up with both arms and let his tears fall into her fragile, silk-white hair. She wrapped her thick little arms around his neck, the bunny crushed between them.
“Papa,” she said again.
Momiji wanted to laugh, but it came out as sobs. Together, they cried for a long time.
Day/Theme: Feb 4/I am seeing ghosts in everything
Series: Fruits Basket
Characters: Momiji, non-canon family
Rating: G
A/N: Pleaaaaase tell me this isn't too late. I live in Taiwan and it has just become the year of the rabbit. There are posters and icons and logos everywhere. So that's where this came from. Set waaaaay after the end of the manga.
It was February the fifth and Momiji was trying very hard not to look uncomfortable, but the ubiquitous posters weren’t helping.
Neither was the fact that his two year old daughter showed a marked preference for the animal of her infant brother’s birth year. (Nor the fact of the boy himself, tawny-haired and brighted-eyed, born three days after his due date, three days too late to be a tiger.)
His wife – his German wife – thought the Asian concept of the zodiac quaint and populated Momiji’s life with cutesy versions of his family’s dark history. It had been hard on Kisa last year, though Hatsuharu hadn’t seemed much bothered the year before. (Momiji wanted his nonchalance to be untrue, a charade, but he knew his cousin too well: Haru truly didn’t care.)
They had brought the baby home that morning. Little Franz, after his mother’s father. Little Fuyuta, as the spring was especially cold. Momiji was in charge of his daughter while his wife slept with the baby. They had named her Karina, because it was as easy on German tongues as on Japanese. (They planned to move to Germany when she entered middle school – it was why they had their two children (and his wife only wanted two) so quickly after marriage, after each other – so they could go back to Germany. But really, it was his wife’s plan, and he would do anything for her.)
(He hoped there would be no more changing yearly torture when they went to Germany. (They would move before twelve more years for sure, before another rabbit year. (And at least in Germany there would be no posters.)))
Karina was playing in the backyard. Momiji was sitting on the porch. He had his elbows on his knees, his head in a hand, his soft, bright hair bunched tightly in his fingers. To his left and to his right were red banners wishing him happiness (Did she have to put them on the back doors to? But he had never told her his secret, so he was not allowed to complain (about this, about anything.)) On the floor by his side was a discarded stuffed bunny, pink and pale gold, his daughter’s favorite plaything except when it wasn’t. She hopped around the yard on her haunches, happy and simple and utterly innocent, and Momiji thought how unfair it was to think of her as his tormentor. He tried smiling while he watched her. She had a plastic hare clenched in one baby fist.
“Usagi,” she said. “Usagi, usagi, usagi.”
Momiji stared. He should wake his wife (it was her first outside of mama, papa – bilingual children learned slower). He should teach her to say it in German (but he only ever spoke to her in Japanese, that was his job, he should wake his wife, to teach her the German).
“Usagi,” she smiled.
Momiji turned his face to his hand and cried.
When he felt her at his knees, he reached a strong, fatherly arm to help her into his lap, but his tears would not stop and so he couldn’t look at her. It isn’t her fault, it isn’t her fault, it isn’t her fault. A searing feeling burned at his heart and he couldn’t be sure what he was angry at, or why, or if he was angry at all.
“Papa,” she said, and suddenly her favorite stuffed bunny was tucked under his chin. He wanted to throw it away from him, and he wanted to grip it to himself tightly; he wanted to transform, to nuzzle his sensitive pink nose against her baby skin, and he wanted to hold her like this her whole life so she would never know pain and secrets like he had.
There were ceramic rabbits on his kitchen table (the salt and pepper shakers), there were simplified rabbit silhouettes static-stuck to the windows and doors of every conbini in the country, there were news reports and local interest stories and special exhibits at the petting zoo, but there were no rabbits with him now. No small, warm kinsman came to him though he was broken and crying again, and who am I angry at, anyway? and –
And the stuffed bunny under his chin shifted with his daughter, and he felt suddenly the heat of toddler tears through his shirt.
“Papa,” she said in a tiny, piteous voice.
Momiji scooped her up with both arms and let his tears fall into her fragile, silk-white hair. She wrapped her thick little arms around his neck, the bunny crushed between them.
“Papa,” she said again.
Momiji wanted to laugh, but it came out as sobs. Together, they cried for a long time.