by Kira ([email protected])
Author's Notes: Short, fluffy, and to the point. ^^ Enjoy!
"Ne, Hajime-chan, why do you think the stars twinkle?"
He waved his hand vaguely, smoke sifting from the tip of his cigarette and forming tendrils in its wake. Putting it to his lips, he took a long, slow drag, and breathed out almost meticulously, savoring its taste as though it were his last.
"I don't know," he said, voice bordering near irritation. She always asked him questions like these. And he hated them, because he could never answer them the way he thought she wanted.
Why is the sky blue, Hajime-chan?
--I don't know.
Why do birds sing, Hajime-chan?
--I don't know. Kannuki, leave me alone; I'm trying to work.
She stretched out her legs before her, hands smoothing down the school girl's skirt she wore. He wondered why she dressed that way. Maybe she thought it suited her -- her, an eternally young girl, once with infinite opportunities in life. Nothing was impossible. But then she died -- they all had died -- and the immortality that seemed so easy to grasp in childhood came to a crashing end, forcing them face to face with a harsh reality.
"Maybe the stars are angels."
"They're not angels."
"How do you know?" She asked him curiously, not defiantly, as though she were daring him to argue her theory. She asked him in a way that made him think she really wanted to know, that his answer was really that important to her.
He hated that. He hated not ever knowing what to say. Hated wondering if what he said was what she wanted to hear.
"It's gas," he said simply. "Read a science book sometime."
"Even in Meifu?" she pushed.
Even in Meifu, a utopian society. The cost of that brilliant, perfect society was only death. Only a small thing to ask for eternally perfect life.
Maybe.
"Even in Meifu," he murmured.
"I don't think so."
"You don't think a lot of the time," he returned, almost snapping. But he bit his tongue, forcing back down as much of the bark as he could. "Meifu's sky... it's not any different from the real world's sky."
"Maybe, when you die, you can become a star."
Who would want to be a star for eternity, he wondered. It would be boring. Monotonous. Who wanted to stare down at the rest of the world for all time and never experience anything?
But then who wanted to be the walking dead that and never experience anything real, anything tangible? Who wanted to watch life happen around them, amongst them, and not be part of it at all?
"I think I'd like to be a star," she said, giggling. "Do you think I'd be a pretty star, Hajime-chan?"
He snorted.
She was ridiculous. A star, of all things... who wanted that.
But--
She would be a bright star, he thought; shining brighter than all the other stars in the sky. She would want to shine that brightly. She would want people to look upon her brilliant, shining light, and wonder. She would want children to make wishes on her as they said their prayers before tucking in. That would be her dream.
She wanted people to be happy. If shining in the sky, out-dazzling all the other stars would make others happy, then she would be happy.
"A star," he said, softly.
"Mm. A star -- an angel."
An angel star shining bright in the sky.
He turned away. He did not want her to be a star. Even if it made her happy, to be amongst all those other stars, all those angels she believed them to be, he did not want her there.
He wanted her with him. He wanted her always to be with him.
You would be a beautiful star, Kannuki.
But you shine brightest here on earth.