========
Wanderlust
A Princess Nine story starring Morimura Seira
By: Mark "Moogle" Brown ([email protected])
========
"You were the one who wanted to have a child in the first place! If you hadn't made
me have Seira, we could have ended this sham of a marriage years ago!"
The words still rang in Seira's ears as though they had been spoken only the day
before, even though it had been a few months since that dreadful encounter that caused her to
strike out mostly on her own. They still stung, of course, but not as much as right after
she'd heard them. Having time to come to grips with reality certainly helped her.
For her, the hardest thing to accept had been that it was her mother who had spoken
the words. She knew that her parents fought - everyone's parents did - but she always would
have thought it would be her mother who was happy to have her there. But, no, she did not
even get that much. Perhaps the woman was overreacting when she said it, and she certainly
didn't know that Seira was on the other side of the door, but Seira was aware that she would
only be deluding herself to think that her mother cared for her after what she'd said.
Her father actually seemed like he cared in his own backwards style. Except he was
too busy having a complete emotional breakdown from the separation process with Seira's
mother, and after the first night she'd spent away from the house he had never even had the
police come looking for her.
Seira opened her eyelids and peered upwards, finally conceding that she would not be
dozing off again that morning. Almost immediately her pupils shrunk in the face of the bright
light provided by the rising sun and she squinted before turning on her side to get it out of
her face. For a brief moment as her blue eyes gazed on the street next to her she allowed
herself to think that maybe, just maybe, things could be a lot worse.
A truck driving by in the lane closest to her ran smack through a pool of sitting
water in the street, blaring its horn all the while.
She groaned a bit before clutching her head and muttering, "What a mess." Well, she
supposed that she had asked for that one when she thought that things could be worse. On top
of a hangover, now she had to deal with being soaked with no place to dry off. Maybe it would
have been a little better if she could remember where she was. But then again, she'd been in
worse spots before. She just couldn't remember any of them at the moment.
"Ungh..." Reluctantly, Seira sat up and leaned back on the bench, staring out into
the street. Though she never would have admitted it, she felt absolutely disgusting, and as
she tried to peel her matted and wet red hair from the seat of the bench, she was pretty sure
that she looked just about as disgusting. And that wasn't getting into all of the stagnant
water that had just splashed all over her face and her clothes. 'At least I'm not wearing
white,' she thought.
Despite it all, Seira could not think of anything bad to say about living life as a
vagrant, flitting from bar to bar at night time as though she had no other cares in the
world - which she almost had herself convinced was true. Being an individualist, following
only where her wanderlust took her, certainly had its strong points. Though none of them were
much consolation on the rare occasions where she felt so unpresentable that she could not
bear to be seen by anyone until she cleaned up. And cleaning up meant going home, at least
for a little while.
The young woman mentally ran through the checklist she ran through every time when
considering if she needed to go home. More than five days since last trip home? Check. Middle
of the day so father at work? Well, it looked like it was about ten in the morning, judging
from the sun. Check. Hungry? The last thing she'd eaten was bar pretzels about twelve hours
previous. Check. Feeling so disgusting as to go home even if father is there? Check. That
last one was normally not on the checklist but her mind felt it important enough to point out
to her conscious even so.
Not that any of her determination helped her when she had no clue where exactly she
was. The events leading up to her ending up on that bench were just a bit fuzzy. Probably for
the better that way, anyway. Seira had no need to remember beating up a bunch of damned
winos. She did it often enough.
Her plan of action decided upon, she needed only one final thing to be on her way.
That being to figure out where she was. Unfortunately, this involved talking to someone, as
street signs tended to be in scarce supply, especially when she needed them. But some things
were necessary in the path to food and clean clothing, and dealing with a stranger was
certainly one of them to Morimura Seira at that precise moment.
"Oi!" Some guy was riding along the sidewalk on a bicycle. Seira called out to him as
soon as she noticed him. Not getting a response right away, she again called out, "Oi!"
She watched as the young man applied the brakes, then hopped of the bike and turned
to look at her. He was a schoolboy, definitely, in some sort of middle school uniform that
she did not recognize, and wearing some sort of briefcase-backpack combo thing. Probably
about her age, in fact. "I'm sorry, were you trying to get my attention?"
Something about his attitude grated on Seira's nerves right from the get-go. Dressed
all proper, speaking like he was better than everyone, carrying himself like he was the
greatest thing since sliced bread. "Yeah, I'm kind of lost," she replied, trying to hide the
scorn from her voice. "Am I anywhere near that park with the huge oak tree?" That was Seira's
reference point. From that oak tree, she could get ANYWHERE. It was being other places that
occasionally gave her difficulty.
The young man looked back at Seira, grinning as he made a 'hmm' sound.
'Oh, please, who does this guy think he is? Casanova?' Seira thought snidely. Though
even she had to admit that if he wasn't so stuck up he might not be too bad. The guy had one
of those generic 'cute' looks about him - sandy-colored hair, brown eyes. 'Bah! I sound like
some kind of sycophant.'
"Actually," said the fellow after a few moments pause, "I just passed that park as I
was heading this way." He gestured backwards to emphasize his point. "Just keep walking that
way down this street and you'll get there."
Seira peered at him curiously for a couple of seconds, trying to sniff out any sign
of deception, but she detected none. "Thanks!" she called out over her shoulder as she turned
and ran down towards the park.
She was already gone when the young man informed the empty air next to him that it
was quite welcome. He simply stared after her for a little while.
"Now where have I seen her before?" he mumbled, sure that it had been somewhere on
TV. But that didn't make sense for someone like that to be on TV... 'Oh well,' he thought.
'I'm sure I'll figure it out later.' Then he got back on his bicycle and rode off to Kisaragi
High School.
***
Thankfully, the trip to what had long been a broken Morimura residence was an
uneventful one that did not take too long or involve running into anyone that Seira would
rather not have seen. The key to the gate to her father's property functioned; it would have
been just her luck if he'd changed the gate locks some time since she'd been gone. Not that
Seira couldn't climb the brick front easily and finesse her way through a lower floor window,
but she preferred not to have to do that regularly.
As much as she might have hated her house, going there during a weekday was really
her only sure guarantee of cleaning up. It didn't take her too long, as Seira did not care to
tempt fate and stick around for longer than absolutely necessary. A shower, a change of
outfits, and a fridge raid later, Seira was back through the gate and following where her
whims took her once more.
Seira's only problem was that for once there was nowhere that she wanted to go.
During the day, nothing interesting ever happened, and there was no way she was going to
catch more sleep with the sun as high in the sky and bright as it was. None of the usual bars
would be open so early, either. That left walking aimlessly down the street in a random
direction. It was a past-time that Seira usually could appreciate, but on that particular day
she felt as though she needed direction for the first time in months. More annoying to her
was that she did not know why she felt that way. At least the hangover was gone.
Nothing meant that she'd end up at the oak tree sooner or later, because it was the
convergence of all of the paths that Seira wandered, it seemed. She was never quite sure how
she felt about that.
The sound caused by her feet tapping against the sidewalk in a somewhat brisk cadence
relaxed her somewhat, even as she thought to herself that if she was wearing different shoes
she'd be making no noise at all and have an easier time at not drawing attention to herself.
'Then again, my hair is enough to draw attention from most of these stiffs,' she bitterly
thought. It might have annoyed her less if she'd had it dyed, but the color was purely
natural.
"Yo," a voice piped up suddenly. A quick check revealed that it belonged to some old
guy who had just walked in front of her.
'Great, just what I need, perverts bothering me in the middle of the day, too,' she
thought with a sigh. Seira tossed her hair over her shoulder and set herself into a rough
stance that spoke loudly of one too many barroom brawls. "What's on your mind, Gramps?" she
asked. It wouldn't have surprised her at all for the old man to say something stupid and
like 'You.'
"I just saw another pair of wandering feet and figured I'd say hello," the man said,
and Seira was almost willing to accept the words at face value. Almost, because she'd spent
too long on the street to be so trusting right away. "These suits don't seem to be very good
company," he added.
There was certainly truth to that, the young woman saw as she looked around. Almost
every other person on the sidewalk was some sort of businessman in a nice suit walking an
entirely too rigid and precise step. "No, they aren't, are they?" Seira agreed, eyeing the
crowd warily just in case one of them ended up being her father.
"At least they aren't throwing money at me today. That's quite embarrassing,
you see," the old man continued with a chuckle. "Hopefully you never have to find that out
for yourself, though."
'Throwing money? Huh?' Seira was about to ask what the man meant by that when she
actually took a look at him and realized the answer.
The man's clothes were mismatched, wrinkled, a bit dirty, and his overall appearance
was quite unkempt. No doubt it had been some time since he was able to shave, or trim his
hair. His grin was missing a couple of teeth, and those that remained were slightly stained.
Even his shoes were dirty and mismatched, and the lenses of his glasses scratched. He was a
bit stooped, and seemed to favor one of his legs.
Seira was rendered speechless by the sight of him. It wasn't that she had never seen
someone who was obviously homeless before; living a vagrant lifestyle she saw them from time
to time. But she'd never seen someone who looked like this old man, who had probably been on
the streets for years. "I'm... I'm sorry," she said softly, "I wasn't expecting, um..."
"A homeless old man?" He laughed. "That's okay. Nobody ever is. But if I might say
so, you don't exactly seem like the typical sort of homeless person yourself."
"You have a point, old man. I'm Seira, by the way." She hesitated for a second before
extending a hand towards him. 'Baka! He's sort of dirty, not disease-ridden.'
"Kazuhiro," he said simply, accepting Seira's shake. "It's a pleasure. What brings
you by these parts? Surprised I haven't seen you around before."
'What is there to say to that? Hm... and all of these people are making me nervous.
Aw, what the hell,' the young woman's mind jumped from thought to thought. "I haven't been at
this for that long," she admitted. "Um... can we get off of this sidewalk? I'm afraid that
someone who recognizes me will see me. I'm sure you can tell, I stand out. I'll buy you
lunch if you want."
Her offer was met with a couple of blinks from Kazuhiro as he looked at Seira with as
much surprise as Seira had him a minute ago. He recovered quickly. "Lunch, hm? I'd like that.
You look like you could stand to learn something from an old man anyway."
The invitation was a bit of a surprise even to Seira. Usually the last thing she
wanted to do was talk to people. But there seemed to be something intriguing about this
Kazuhiro, like he wasn't the typical bum. Not that there wasn't the outside chance that he
was just playing her for a fool. It just seemed so unlikely. And besides, what else would she
be doing? This or the damn oak tree. Again.
***
There was a small cafe that Seira usually ate at on the occasions where she felt like
eating real food, and it was only a couple of blocks away from where she met Kazuhiro. That
made it a natural choice on the rare day it was, a day that saw her actually wanting to be
somewhere at a specific time.
At first Seira had been worried that the old man might have some belongings that he
didn't want to leave behind, but he assured her that was not the case. She didn't ask where
the rest of his stuff was, though; as much as anything else she was afraid the answer might
be that he did not have more stuff. She pretended not to care about anyone or anything at
times, but when she judged someone worthy of her time she had always been fiercely
protective.
The hostess sneered at her as Seira and Kazuhiro were seated at a table. No doubt,
the hostess thought Seira was some sort of prostitute. As a result, Seira didn't even bother
to hide her disapproval of the woman; she gave the hostess the finger while the woman was
still looking.
Kazuhiro was quite amused by the whole thing. To him, the idea that he would take
advantage of a young woman was so laughable that he just had to laugh out loud. Which he did.
Further humbling the hostess, who would never again make that same mistake. Still, despite
the miscues, as he took in the atmosphere of the place he had to admit it had some charm to
it. 'Then again,' he thought, 'I'm not really surprised that a place called Hole In The Wall
Cafe doesn't take itself too seriously.'
Everything about the design was obviously practical, with as few frills as possible,
something that both Kazuhiro and Seira could appreciate, given the way that they lived. There
was not much in the way of decoration on the walls, the tables, or the menus, but regular
customers like Seira didn't come for the looks anyway.
"Nice place you picked here," Kazuhiro remarked after the waitress - wearing a simple
blue apron over her plain clothes - dropped off a couple of clear glasses filled with ice
water, using napkins as coasters.
"I'd like to make a light fixture fall on that hostess," sneered Seira. Her ire was
more at herself for doing something that she could not explain, but the hostess took the
brunt of it nonetheless. It was a basic human instinct, to resort to humor when
uncomfortable.
"Light fixture?" the old man asked, chuckling a bit. There was a slight whistling
noise as he did so due to the gaps created by missing teeth. "There are many better ways. A
sniper rifle from a mile away, perhaps, or a mortar shell to her house. Then again, a single
grenade is a bit more subtle..."
To say that Seira was mortified would be an understatement; in that one moment after
Kazuhiro trailed off from that sentence she was convinced she had come across some sort of
crazy old serial killer and that she was his next victim. The feeling only increased when
the old man noticed her frightened expression and chuckled.
"Sorry about that, I didn't think it would scare you so bad. I guess you youngsters
these days don't hear as much about war as we did back in the day," Kazuhiro continued sadly.
"Not that this is a bad thing," he added.
"Wars?" Very quickly the mortified look was replaced by a curious one. She did not
hear much about wars, having lived in Japan in times that were mostly peaceful. "You mean
like the world wars?"
The old man winced. "One of them, anyway. You see, I was at the Battle of Midway."
Seira thought about that one for a few seconds. There was only one Midway she knew
about, and that was... "Wait a minute, you mean THE Midway?"
And Kazuhiro launched into a tale about a young man who didn't get along too great
with his parents, didn't have much of a future ahead of him, who joined the Japanese Navy in
1942, and ended up on the crew of a destroyer. That destroyer was tasked to one of the major
carriers in the Navy which just so happened to be present at Midway. The destroyer itself was
sunk in the engagement, though not before some of the crew could abandon ship - rather than
commit seppuku as called for by the honor codes. Those crewmen - Kazuhiro included - were
captured by an American ship and held until the end of the war, and, much to their surprise,
were released at the end of the war.
"And believe it or not, there is actually a moral to this story, something I wanted
to share with you because you look like someone who could benefit from it." The old man
paused for a moment to take a bite of his food that had come while he was telling the story.
Any remaining thoughts that he might be some sort of psycho vanished from the young
woman's mind as she listened to him recount his experiences in World War II. "Moral, eh? I'm
listening." And for once when it came to adults dispensing advice, she actually was.
'Probably 'cause this guy isn't holier-than-thou like the rest of them,' she thought.
"You see, my perspective on life in general changed quite a bit during that time.
Being shot at by huge ships and having shells land near you, sink other boats, it makes you
think, and having your ship sunk and being captured makes you think even more. I decided
that, as soon as I was released - they promised me I'd go home when the war was over, and I
knew after Midway it would be soon - I would go back home and make up with my parents." His
voice got a bit softer after that, something Seira did pick up on. "I did not mention this
earlier because I saved it for now. I am from Hiroshima. My parents were killed by the Bomb."
As Seira gasped, a couple of tears rolled from his eyes and were soaked into his
unruly beard.
"It's okay," he added after taking a few moments to collect himself. "I'm not bitter
about it, not anymore. But, it was too late that I realized that there may not be a tomorrow.
And none of their money was willed to me because we did not get along, so I've kind of...
been a vagrant ever since. And that is the moral. Never, ever allow yourself to think, 'Well,
there's always tomorrow,' because you never really know. There might not be a tomorrow."
If there was one thing that Kazuhiro had gotten good at over the years, it was
judging people, and he hit the nail right on the head with regard to Seira's problem.
Although he knew no particulars of the situation - in fact, he only knew that something had
Seira on the run - he managed to reach her perfectly.
Seira knew that when it came down to it, both she and her father owed one another
apologies for what they'd done the past few months. Seira to her father for practically never
being home, her father to Seira for not trying harder than he had to rein her back in, to
talk to her about what was going on. But every day she put off what she had thought was an
inevitable conversation, and now that she had heard Kazuhiro's story she was aware that it
was not necessarily inevitable. Something may happen to her, or her father, and the
conversation would never take place. She would need to fix that... as soon as she figured out
what to say.
"I think your story might have done me more good than you know," she commented in a
bit of a stunned voice after she had settled on her new objective. Then, to return a story
for a story, she explained to the old man why it was that she was living on the streets, and
how that would hopefully change now that she had some direction.
"Oh?" Kazuhiro asked, although he knew Seira was going to nod in response before she
actually did. 'So, I haven't lost my touch after all of these years! I must not be as old as
I look.'
Since he had gotten the only serious thing that he wanted to mention out of the way,
he and Seira swapped stories about their time on the streets, even some before that. This
made some of Kazuhiro's tales a bit antiquated, but they were still amusing to Seira
nonetheless. It had been some time since she had enjoyed herself so much without involving
beating up lecherous men or drinking alcohol.
Eventually it was the old who had to leave first. As it turned out, he was in Seira's
town because he had heard about a shelter for old war veterans that had been recently built.
The fiery young woman was not familiar with the place, but she admitted that she had not
exactly been looking for it recently. When they left the cafe, Seira left her home phone
number with Kazuhiro, and told him to call her once he got settled down, and they could talk
some more. He promised that he would some time.
With more insight about life than she had that morning, Morimura Seira headed off
again to the oak tree she always ended up at and began trying to figure out what she would
say to her father.
***
"SEIRA!"
She had almost made it to the oak tree, where she wanted to stop before heading off
to her house to wait and say something to her father that very evening. That was her plan,
and likely it failed simply for being a plan. The kami tend to have a very negative opinion
of plans.
The shout was in unison, she knew right away, from the two girls who had taken to
following her around from bar to bar the past couple of weeks. Why they were bugging her
when it was late afternoon, she did not know, but that didn't really matter. They only sought
her out when they were in troule. And she had to protect them, because if she didn't then
nobody else would. The instinct to protect was embedded too deep in Seira to just abandon
them, even if she had personal issues to deal with.
Seira slowed her stride and turned around to face the two troublemakers. "What's
going on, you two?" she asked, trying not to betray her irritation.
Both were panting and trying to catch their breath; they could never easily keep up
with Seira when she put her mind to running. "We heard that... that Tanaka and his goons were
going to be at that Ajisai place tonight... challenging people to pool!"
"Pool," she said with a snort. That was what they always said, a pool challenge.
Really it meant they wanted to go there to drink and they were afraid they'd run afoul
someone to whom they owed money. One of these days she would have to get them going on the
path to a less dangerous lifestyle. "Well, I can't let that Tanaka's ego get inflated, can
I? We can start out there tonight."
On a couple of previous occasions, Seira had been to that place, although not in the
prior month. But she still remembered where it was. The pool cues were unusually well made in
that place. And it wasn't too far off - not that anything was ever too far off as far as
Seira was concerned. She figured it couldn't hurt if she looked after these girls just
tonight, since she had yet to figure out something to say to her father anyway.
Ajisai was another sort of hole-in-the-wall establishment, although it did not wear
the badge proudly on its sleeve as did the Cafe that Seira had been at earlier. More people
than she would expect for early evening were in there. 'Hopefully these suckers aren't plants
sent by Tanaka,' Seira thought. 'I don't need a fight right now.' But, she knew that if a
fight came along, she'd not try too hard to run away from it. That was just how Seira was. At
just over a hundred and seventy centimeters, she was taller than most people she encountered.
It could have been worse, and Seira was well aware of that. The sods she ended up
playing pool against while she passed the time were already drunk and very easily
hustled. One game where she feigned status as a neophyte, then a double or nothing bet, and
she was rolling in the dough. The amusing yet depressing part was that she was able to pull
off the same move several times in the span of a few hours.
Tanaka and his goons never showed up, prompting Seira to mull over whether or not the
other girls had made up the threat to get her to be around for some other reason. That
distraction almost caused her to lose the last game she played of the evening. But, though
she fell behind in the game, she did pull off the winning shot right as the commotion of the
evening began.
Then the door burst open to reveal three unruly young men who obviously thought they
had grudges to settle with Seira.
"We're here to get even with you, Morimura!" one of them yelled.
"Yeah, you didn't have to beat him up like you did!" another shouted. 'Him' meant...
what was his name again? Whoever Seira had trashed the night before. Just another lowlife.
At first Seira's companions tried to restrain the fellows, but when they were allowed
through, Seira quickly dispatched them with several well-thrown pool balls and a couple of
stabs with her cue stick. Before the young men knew what hit them, they were thrown back out
the door and limping up the steps.
In the aftermath of that scene, another newcomer slipped into the room, one who was
often mistaken as nothing more than just another lecherous drunk. Yet he had an unseen
companion along with him on that trip - the hand of destiny.
"I take it you're Seira Morimura?" the man asked.
'Great, just what I need,' Seira thought as she looked the man up and down, certain
that he was leering at her. "Yeah, that's me. What do you want?" She tried to look like she
could care less that he was there, picking up the beer that she had been drinking before the
last game and taking a gulp.
"I was just thinking that I'd give you an offer for a better kind of life," the man
replied nonchalantly as he stuck his hands in his pockets and shuffled his feet.
Whatever Seira was expecting the man to say, that certainly was not it. She nearly
spit out the beer back into the can. "Oh yeah? Like what?"
The stranger thought for a couple of seconds. "You'd... have to come with me to see,"
he said finally.
'Aha! There it is. Damn lech trying to proposition me or something,' Seira thought as
she leveled a glare at the man. "Thanks but no thanks, old man. I'll be fine on my own," she
told him. With a flick of her wrist the beer can was flying through the air, eventually
landing on the stranger's head as Seira brushed past and headed outside.
Though she feigned disinterest, the stranger's words reminded her that there WAS a
better life for her to be living, at least somewhat, she just had to figure out how to get
there.
As soon as Seira and her friends got back to the street level, Seira took off
running towards the park with the oak tree, simultaneously running both towards and away from
what was to be her destiny, to find her better life by joining the Kisaragi Girls' High
School's baseball team, never to be struck by wanderlust again.
***
Notes:
(The notes contain a few minor spoilers for events beyond Seira's introduction as I explain
a couple of whys. I have done my best to keep these to a minimum.)
1. I wrestled a lot over the ending scene of this. I kept changing my mind as to where I
actually wanted it to end - my first thought was to just cut off when Kido enters the room
after the three guys get trashed, but I realized that wouldn't make sense and I could do
better. I toyed with the idea of writing a couple more scenes - Seira in the park, practicing
her running, Kido and Seira in the alley fighting off the fat guy - but I'm not really a fan
of 'novelizing' anime scenes. Plus I had no interest in transcribing all of the dialogue in
those scenes into this story. I'd have liked to have done that with the scene in Ajisai,
except silly me didn't bring that DVD to the dorm and I won't be able to do so for a couple
of weeks. I also didn't want to wait that long to finish this story, so here we are. Likely
there will be a revision once I get to do that.
2. Obviously Seira hates her mother after what she overhears, but what about her father? She
does not stay at home, so I think it likely that she simply does not want to deal with the
memories associated with home and that's why she hits the streets for months. The nosy old
neighbor lady in the third episode tells Kido that Seira "hardly ever comes home at night",
after all, which I take to be truth rather than exaggeration.
3. Yet, though it seems that some sort of reconciliation obviously must happen, this never
takes place 'on camera' - when the girls end up on Nene's parents' RV en route to the
hospital, Seira is not among those who are helping Shino (Ryo's mother) at the restaurant. In
fact, she is picked up at her house, in her old 'punk' clothing that she had not worn since
the episode she was introduced. I think the only reason she would not be helping the other
girls at the oden bar would be if there was a more prevailing commitment - perhaps that she
was meeting with Kazuhiro, or maybe spending time with her father trying to deal with the
seperation.
4. Seira in 'punk' mode is enough of a rebel that if she really didn't want to join the
baseball team, she'd have just bitched out Kido and the others and left. But I think that
the want of a more stable lifestyle - real friends, maybe - makes her stick around at first,
and I think that feeling must have been inspired by something more than just Kido helping her
fight off some gang members. Hence, Kazuhiro. I doubt Seira would have listened to any other
type of person except one already humbled by life.
5. Princess Nine and the characters, events, and places therein are the property of the
series creator, whose name escapes me right now. With creative license I have inserted a few
ideas of my own, and I'm not making any money off of this in any way. Go bug someone else,
lawyers. Like corporate criminals.
6. Reviews or e-mails would be much appreciated, although if you spoil anything from the
final volume of the series, I'll beat you silly with my trombone after I scream so loud that
I wake up my entire dorm building. The more feedback I receive, the more likely I will
probably be to write something a bit longer that centers on this show after I have actually
seen all of it.
Signing off,
Mark "Moogle" Brown
[email protected]
"May the water never boil!"
2 October 2002
Wanderlust
A Princess Nine story starring Morimura Seira
By: Mark "Moogle" Brown ([email protected])
========
"You were the one who wanted to have a child in the first place! If you hadn't made
me have Seira, we could have ended this sham of a marriage years ago!"
The words still rang in Seira's ears as though they had been spoken only the day
before, even though it had been a few months since that dreadful encounter that caused her to
strike out mostly on her own. They still stung, of course, but not as much as right after
she'd heard them. Having time to come to grips with reality certainly helped her.
For her, the hardest thing to accept had been that it was her mother who had spoken
the words. She knew that her parents fought - everyone's parents did - but she always would
have thought it would be her mother who was happy to have her there. But, no, she did not
even get that much. Perhaps the woman was overreacting when she said it, and she certainly
didn't know that Seira was on the other side of the door, but Seira was aware that she would
only be deluding herself to think that her mother cared for her after what she'd said.
Her father actually seemed like he cared in his own backwards style. Except he was
too busy having a complete emotional breakdown from the separation process with Seira's
mother, and after the first night she'd spent away from the house he had never even had the
police come looking for her.
Seira opened her eyelids and peered upwards, finally conceding that she would not be
dozing off again that morning. Almost immediately her pupils shrunk in the face of the bright
light provided by the rising sun and she squinted before turning on her side to get it out of
her face. For a brief moment as her blue eyes gazed on the street next to her she allowed
herself to think that maybe, just maybe, things could be a lot worse.
A truck driving by in the lane closest to her ran smack through a pool of sitting
water in the street, blaring its horn all the while.
She groaned a bit before clutching her head and muttering, "What a mess." Well, she
supposed that she had asked for that one when she thought that things could be worse. On top
of a hangover, now she had to deal with being soaked with no place to dry off. Maybe it would
have been a little better if she could remember where she was. But then again, she'd been in
worse spots before. She just couldn't remember any of them at the moment.
"Ungh..." Reluctantly, Seira sat up and leaned back on the bench, staring out into
the street. Though she never would have admitted it, she felt absolutely disgusting, and as
she tried to peel her matted and wet red hair from the seat of the bench, she was pretty sure
that she looked just about as disgusting. And that wasn't getting into all of the stagnant
water that had just splashed all over her face and her clothes. 'At least I'm not wearing
white,' she thought.
Despite it all, Seira could not think of anything bad to say about living life as a
vagrant, flitting from bar to bar at night time as though she had no other cares in the
world - which she almost had herself convinced was true. Being an individualist, following
only where her wanderlust took her, certainly had its strong points. Though none of them were
much consolation on the rare occasions where she felt so unpresentable that she could not
bear to be seen by anyone until she cleaned up. And cleaning up meant going home, at least
for a little while.
The young woman mentally ran through the checklist she ran through every time when
considering if she needed to go home. More than five days since last trip home? Check. Middle
of the day so father at work? Well, it looked like it was about ten in the morning, judging
from the sun. Check. Hungry? The last thing she'd eaten was bar pretzels about twelve hours
previous. Check. Feeling so disgusting as to go home even if father is there? Check. That
last one was normally not on the checklist but her mind felt it important enough to point out
to her conscious even so.
Not that any of her determination helped her when she had no clue where exactly she
was. The events leading up to her ending up on that bench were just a bit fuzzy. Probably for
the better that way, anyway. Seira had no need to remember beating up a bunch of damned
winos. She did it often enough.
Her plan of action decided upon, she needed only one final thing to be on her way.
That being to figure out where she was. Unfortunately, this involved talking to someone, as
street signs tended to be in scarce supply, especially when she needed them. But some things
were necessary in the path to food and clean clothing, and dealing with a stranger was
certainly one of them to Morimura Seira at that precise moment.
"Oi!" Some guy was riding along the sidewalk on a bicycle. Seira called out to him as
soon as she noticed him. Not getting a response right away, she again called out, "Oi!"
She watched as the young man applied the brakes, then hopped of the bike and turned
to look at her. He was a schoolboy, definitely, in some sort of middle school uniform that
she did not recognize, and wearing some sort of briefcase-backpack combo thing. Probably
about her age, in fact. "I'm sorry, were you trying to get my attention?"
Something about his attitude grated on Seira's nerves right from the get-go. Dressed
all proper, speaking like he was better than everyone, carrying himself like he was the
greatest thing since sliced bread. "Yeah, I'm kind of lost," she replied, trying to hide the
scorn from her voice. "Am I anywhere near that park with the huge oak tree?" That was Seira's
reference point. From that oak tree, she could get ANYWHERE. It was being other places that
occasionally gave her difficulty.
The young man looked back at Seira, grinning as he made a 'hmm' sound.
'Oh, please, who does this guy think he is? Casanova?' Seira thought snidely. Though
even she had to admit that if he wasn't so stuck up he might not be too bad. The guy had one
of those generic 'cute' looks about him - sandy-colored hair, brown eyes. 'Bah! I sound like
some kind of sycophant.'
"Actually," said the fellow after a few moments pause, "I just passed that park as I
was heading this way." He gestured backwards to emphasize his point. "Just keep walking that
way down this street and you'll get there."
Seira peered at him curiously for a couple of seconds, trying to sniff out any sign
of deception, but she detected none. "Thanks!" she called out over her shoulder as she turned
and ran down towards the park.
She was already gone when the young man informed the empty air next to him that it
was quite welcome. He simply stared after her for a little while.
"Now where have I seen her before?" he mumbled, sure that it had been somewhere on
TV. But that didn't make sense for someone like that to be on TV... 'Oh well,' he thought.
'I'm sure I'll figure it out later.' Then he got back on his bicycle and rode off to Kisaragi
High School.
***
Thankfully, the trip to what had long been a broken Morimura residence was an
uneventful one that did not take too long or involve running into anyone that Seira would
rather not have seen. The key to the gate to her father's property functioned; it would have
been just her luck if he'd changed the gate locks some time since she'd been gone. Not that
Seira couldn't climb the brick front easily and finesse her way through a lower floor window,
but she preferred not to have to do that regularly.
As much as she might have hated her house, going there during a weekday was really
her only sure guarantee of cleaning up. It didn't take her too long, as Seira did not care to
tempt fate and stick around for longer than absolutely necessary. A shower, a change of
outfits, and a fridge raid later, Seira was back through the gate and following where her
whims took her once more.
Seira's only problem was that for once there was nowhere that she wanted to go.
During the day, nothing interesting ever happened, and there was no way she was going to
catch more sleep with the sun as high in the sky and bright as it was. None of the usual bars
would be open so early, either. That left walking aimlessly down the street in a random
direction. It was a past-time that Seira usually could appreciate, but on that particular day
she felt as though she needed direction for the first time in months. More annoying to her
was that she did not know why she felt that way. At least the hangover was gone.
Nothing meant that she'd end up at the oak tree sooner or later, because it was the
convergence of all of the paths that Seira wandered, it seemed. She was never quite sure how
she felt about that.
The sound caused by her feet tapping against the sidewalk in a somewhat brisk cadence
relaxed her somewhat, even as she thought to herself that if she was wearing different shoes
she'd be making no noise at all and have an easier time at not drawing attention to herself.
'Then again, my hair is enough to draw attention from most of these stiffs,' she bitterly
thought. It might have annoyed her less if she'd had it dyed, but the color was purely
natural.
"Yo," a voice piped up suddenly. A quick check revealed that it belonged to some old
guy who had just walked in front of her.
'Great, just what I need, perverts bothering me in the middle of the day, too,' she
thought with a sigh. Seira tossed her hair over her shoulder and set herself into a rough
stance that spoke loudly of one too many barroom brawls. "What's on your mind, Gramps?" she
asked. It wouldn't have surprised her at all for the old man to say something stupid and
like 'You.'
"I just saw another pair of wandering feet and figured I'd say hello," the man said,
and Seira was almost willing to accept the words at face value. Almost, because she'd spent
too long on the street to be so trusting right away. "These suits don't seem to be very good
company," he added.
There was certainly truth to that, the young woman saw as she looked around. Almost
every other person on the sidewalk was some sort of businessman in a nice suit walking an
entirely too rigid and precise step. "No, they aren't, are they?" Seira agreed, eyeing the
crowd warily just in case one of them ended up being her father.
"At least they aren't throwing money at me today. That's quite embarrassing,
you see," the old man continued with a chuckle. "Hopefully you never have to find that out
for yourself, though."
'Throwing money? Huh?' Seira was about to ask what the man meant by that when she
actually took a look at him and realized the answer.
The man's clothes were mismatched, wrinkled, a bit dirty, and his overall appearance
was quite unkempt. No doubt it had been some time since he was able to shave, or trim his
hair. His grin was missing a couple of teeth, and those that remained were slightly stained.
Even his shoes were dirty and mismatched, and the lenses of his glasses scratched. He was a
bit stooped, and seemed to favor one of his legs.
Seira was rendered speechless by the sight of him. It wasn't that she had never seen
someone who was obviously homeless before; living a vagrant lifestyle she saw them from time
to time. But she'd never seen someone who looked like this old man, who had probably been on
the streets for years. "I'm... I'm sorry," she said softly, "I wasn't expecting, um..."
"A homeless old man?" He laughed. "That's okay. Nobody ever is. But if I might say
so, you don't exactly seem like the typical sort of homeless person yourself."
"You have a point, old man. I'm Seira, by the way." She hesitated for a second before
extending a hand towards him. 'Baka! He's sort of dirty, not disease-ridden.'
"Kazuhiro," he said simply, accepting Seira's shake. "It's a pleasure. What brings
you by these parts? Surprised I haven't seen you around before."
'What is there to say to that? Hm... and all of these people are making me nervous.
Aw, what the hell,' the young woman's mind jumped from thought to thought. "I haven't been at
this for that long," she admitted. "Um... can we get off of this sidewalk? I'm afraid that
someone who recognizes me will see me. I'm sure you can tell, I stand out. I'll buy you
lunch if you want."
Her offer was met with a couple of blinks from Kazuhiro as he looked at Seira with as
much surprise as Seira had him a minute ago. He recovered quickly. "Lunch, hm? I'd like that.
You look like you could stand to learn something from an old man anyway."
The invitation was a bit of a surprise even to Seira. Usually the last thing she
wanted to do was talk to people. But there seemed to be something intriguing about this
Kazuhiro, like he wasn't the typical bum. Not that there wasn't the outside chance that he
was just playing her for a fool. It just seemed so unlikely. And besides, what else would she
be doing? This or the damn oak tree. Again.
***
There was a small cafe that Seira usually ate at on the occasions where she felt like
eating real food, and it was only a couple of blocks away from where she met Kazuhiro. That
made it a natural choice on the rare day it was, a day that saw her actually wanting to be
somewhere at a specific time.
At first Seira had been worried that the old man might have some belongings that he
didn't want to leave behind, but he assured her that was not the case. She didn't ask where
the rest of his stuff was, though; as much as anything else she was afraid the answer might
be that he did not have more stuff. She pretended not to care about anyone or anything at
times, but when she judged someone worthy of her time she had always been fiercely
protective.
The hostess sneered at her as Seira and Kazuhiro were seated at a table. No doubt,
the hostess thought Seira was some sort of prostitute. As a result, Seira didn't even bother
to hide her disapproval of the woman; she gave the hostess the finger while the woman was
still looking.
Kazuhiro was quite amused by the whole thing. To him, the idea that he would take
advantage of a young woman was so laughable that he just had to laugh out loud. Which he did.
Further humbling the hostess, who would never again make that same mistake. Still, despite
the miscues, as he took in the atmosphere of the place he had to admit it had some charm to
it. 'Then again,' he thought, 'I'm not really surprised that a place called Hole In The Wall
Cafe doesn't take itself too seriously.'
Everything about the design was obviously practical, with as few frills as possible,
something that both Kazuhiro and Seira could appreciate, given the way that they lived. There
was not much in the way of decoration on the walls, the tables, or the menus, but regular
customers like Seira didn't come for the looks anyway.
"Nice place you picked here," Kazuhiro remarked after the waitress - wearing a simple
blue apron over her plain clothes - dropped off a couple of clear glasses filled with ice
water, using napkins as coasters.
"I'd like to make a light fixture fall on that hostess," sneered Seira. Her ire was
more at herself for doing something that she could not explain, but the hostess took the
brunt of it nonetheless. It was a basic human instinct, to resort to humor when
uncomfortable.
"Light fixture?" the old man asked, chuckling a bit. There was a slight whistling
noise as he did so due to the gaps created by missing teeth. "There are many better ways. A
sniper rifle from a mile away, perhaps, or a mortar shell to her house. Then again, a single
grenade is a bit more subtle..."
To say that Seira was mortified would be an understatement; in that one moment after
Kazuhiro trailed off from that sentence she was convinced she had come across some sort of
crazy old serial killer and that she was his next victim. The feeling only increased when
the old man noticed her frightened expression and chuckled.
"Sorry about that, I didn't think it would scare you so bad. I guess you youngsters
these days don't hear as much about war as we did back in the day," Kazuhiro continued sadly.
"Not that this is a bad thing," he added.
"Wars?" Very quickly the mortified look was replaced by a curious one. She did not
hear much about wars, having lived in Japan in times that were mostly peaceful. "You mean
like the world wars?"
The old man winced. "One of them, anyway. You see, I was at the Battle of Midway."
Seira thought about that one for a few seconds. There was only one Midway she knew
about, and that was... "Wait a minute, you mean THE Midway?"
And Kazuhiro launched into a tale about a young man who didn't get along too great
with his parents, didn't have much of a future ahead of him, who joined the Japanese Navy in
1942, and ended up on the crew of a destroyer. That destroyer was tasked to one of the major
carriers in the Navy which just so happened to be present at Midway. The destroyer itself was
sunk in the engagement, though not before some of the crew could abandon ship - rather than
commit seppuku as called for by the honor codes. Those crewmen - Kazuhiro included - were
captured by an American ship and held until the end of the war, and, much to their surprise,
were released at the end of the war.
"And believe it or not, there is actually a moral to this story, something I wanted
to share with you because you look like someone who could benefit from it." The old man
paused for a moment to take a bite of his food that had come while he was telling the story.
Any remaining thoughts that he might be some sort of psycho vanished from the young
woman's mind as she listened to him recount his experiences in World War II. "Moral, eh? I'm
listening." And for once when it came to adults dispensing advice, she actually was.
'Probably 'cause this guy isn't holier-than-thou like the rest of them,' she thought.
"You see, my perspective on life in general changed quite a bit during that time.
Being shot at by huge ships and having shells land near you, sink other boats, it makes you
think, and having your ship sunk and being captured makes you think even more. I decided
that, as soon as I was released - they promised me I'd go home when the war was over, and I
knew after Midway it would be soon - I would go back home and make up with my parents." His
voice got a bit softer after that, something Seira did pick up on. "I did not mention this
earlier because I saved it for now. I am from Hiroshima. My parents were killed by the Bomb."
As Seira gasped, a couple of tears rolled from his eyes and were soaked into his
unruly beard.
"It's okay," he added after taking a few moments to collect himself. "I'm not bitter
about it, not anymore. But, it was too late that I realized that there may not be a tomorrow.
And none of their money was willed to me because we did not get along, so I've kind of...
been a vagrant ever since. And that is the moral. Never, ever allow yourself to think, 'Well,
there's always tomorrow,' because you never really know. There might not be a tomorrow."
If there was one thing that Kazuhiro had gotten good at over the years, it was
judging people, and he hit the nail right on the head with regard to Seira's problem.
Although he knew no particulars of the situation - in fact, he only knew that something had
Seira on the run - he managed to reach her perfectly.
Seira knew that when it came down to it, both she and her father owed one another
apologies for what they'd done the past few months. Seira to her father for practically never
being home, her father to Seira for not trying harder than he had to rein her back in, to
talk to her about what was going on. But every day she put off what she had thought was an
inevitable conversation, and now that she had heard Kazuhiro's story she was aware that it
was not necessarily inevitable. Something may happen to her, or her father, and the
conversation would never take place. She would need to fix that... as soon as she figured out
what to say.
"I think your story might have done me more good than you know," she commented in a
bit of a stunned voice after she had settled on her new objective. Then, to return a story
for a story, she explained to the old man why it was that she was living on the streets, and
how that would hopefully change now that she had some direction.
"Oh?" Kazuhiro asked, although he knew Seira was going to nod in response before she
actually did. 'So, I haven't lost my touch after all of these years! I must not be as old as
I look.'
Since he had gotten the only serious thing that he wanted to mention out of the way,
he and Seira swapped stories about their time on the streets, even some before that. This
made some of Kazuhiro's tales a bit antiquated, but they were still amusing to Seira
nonetheless. It had been some time since she had enjoyed herself so much without involving
beating up lecherous men or drinking alcohol.
Eventually it was the old who had to leave first. As it turned out, he was in Seira's
town because he had heard about a shelter for old war veterans that had been recently built.
The fiery young woman was not familiar with the place, but she admitted that she had not
exactly been looking for it recently. When they left the cafe, Seira left her home phone
number with Kazuhiro, and told him to call her once he got settled down, and they could talk
some more. He promised that he would some time.
With more insight about life than she had that morning, Morimura Seira headed off
again to the oak tree she always ended up at and began trying to figure out what she would
say to her father.
***
"SEIRA!"
She had almost made it to the oak tree, where she wanted to stop before heading off
to her house to wait and say something to her father that very evening. That was her plan,
and likely it failed simply for being a plan. The kami tend to have a very negative opinion
of plans.
The shout was in unison, she knew right away, from the two girls who had taken to
following her around from bar to bar the past couple of weeks. Why they were bugging her
when it was late afternoon, she did not know, but that didn't really matter. They only sought
her out when they were in troule. And she had to protect them, because if she didn't then
nobody else would. The instinct to protect was embedded too deep in Seira to just abandon
them, even if she had personal issues to deal with.
Seira slowed her stride and turned around to face the two troublemakers. "What's
going on, you two?" she asked, trying not to betray her irritation.
Both were panting and trying to catch their breath; they could never easily keep up
with Seira when she put her mind to running. "We heard that... that Tanaka and his goons were
going to be at that Ajisai place tonight... challenging people to pool!"
"Pool," she said with a snort. That was what they always said, a pool challenge.
Really it meant they wanted to go there to drink and they were afraid they'd run afoul
someone to whom they owed money. One of these days she would have to get them going on the
path to a less dangerous lifestyle. "Well, I can't let that Tanaka's ego get inflated, can
I? We can start out there tonight."
On a couple of previous occasions, Seira had been to that place, although not in the
prior month. But she still remembered where it was. The pool cues were unusually well made in
that place. And it wasn't too far off - not that anything was ever too far off as far as
Seira was concerned. She figured it couldn't hurt if she looked after these girls just
tonight, since she had yet to figure out something to say to her father anyway.
Ajisai was another sort of hole-in-the-wall establishment, although it did not wear
the badge proudly on its sleeve as did the Cafe that Seira had been at earlier. More people
than she would expect for early evening were in there. 'Hopefully these suckers aren't plants
sent by Tanaka,' Seira thought. 'I don't need a fight right now.' But, she knew that if a
fight came along, she'd not try too hard to run away from it. That was just how Seira was. At
just over a hundred and seventy centimeters, she was taller than most people she encountered.
It could have been worse, and Seira was well aware of that. The sods she ended up
playing pool against while she passed the time were already drunk and very easily
hustled. One game where she feigned status as a neophyte, then a double or nothing bet, and
she was rolling in the dough. The amusing yet depressing part was that she was able to pull
off the same move several times in the span of a few hours.
Tanaka and his goons never showed up, prompting Seira to mull over whether or not the
other girls had made up the threat to get her to be around for some other reason. That
distraction almost caused her to lose the last game she played of the evening. But, though
she fell behind in the game, she did pull off the winning shot right as the commotion of the
evening began.
Then the door burst open to reveal three unruly young men who obviously thought they
had grudges to settle with Seira.
"We're here to get even with you, Morimura!" one of them yelled.
"Yeah, you didn't have to beat him up like you did!" another shouted. 'Him' meant...
what was his name again? Whoever Seira had trashed the night before. Just another lowlife.
At first Seira's companions tried to restrain the fellows, but when they were allowed
through, Seira quickly dispatched them with several well-thrown pool balls and a couple of
stabs with her cue stick. Before the young men knew what hit them, they were thrown back out
the door and limping up the steps.
In the aftermath of that scene, another newcomer slipped into the room, one who was
often mistaken as nothing more than just another lecherous drunk. Yet he had an unseen
companion along with him on that trip - the hand of destiny.
"I take it you're Seira Morimura?" the man asked.
'Great, just what I need,' Seira thought as she looked the man up and down, certain
that he was leering at her. "Yeah, that's me. What do you want?" She tried to look like she
could care less that he was there, picking up the beer that she had been drinking before the
last game and taking a gulp.
"I was just thinking that I'd give you an offer for a better kind of life," the man
replied nonchalantly as he stuck his hands in his pockets and shuffled his feet.
Whatever Seira was expecting the man to say, that certainly was not it. She nearly
spit out the beer back into the can. "Oh yeah? Like what?"
The stranger thought for a couple of seconds. "You'd... have to come with me to see,"
he said finally.
'Aha! There it is. Damn lech trying to proposition me or something,' Seira thought as
she leveled a glare at the man. "Thanks but no thanks, old man. I'll be fine on my own," she
told him. With a flick of her wrist the beer can was flying through the air, eventually
landing on the stranger's head as Seira brushed past and headed outside.
Though she feigned disinterest, the stranger's words reminded her that there WAS a
better life for her to be living, at least somewhat, she just had to figure out how to get
there.
As soon as Seira and her friends got back to the street level, Seira took off
running towards the park with the oak tree, simultaneously running both towards and away from
what was to be her destiny, to find her better life by joining the Kisaragi Girls' High
School's baseball team, never to be struck by wanderlust again.
***
Notes:
(The notes contain a few minor spoilers for events beyond Seira's introduction as I explain
a couple of whys. I have done my best to keep these to a minimum.)
1. I wrestled a lot over the ending scene of this. I kept changing my mind as to where I
actually wanted it to end - my first thought was to just cut off when Kido enters the room
after the three guys get trashed, but I realized that wouldn't make sense and I could do
better. I toyed with the idea of writing a couple more scenes - Seira in the park, practicing
her running, Kido and Seira in the alley fighting off the fat guy - but I'm not really a fan
of 'novelizing' anime scenes. Plus I had no interest in transcribing all of the dialogue in
those scenes into this story. I'd have liked to have done that with the scene in Ajisai,
except silly me didn't bring that DVD to the dorm and I won't be able to do so for a couple
of weeks. I also didn't want to wait that long to finish this story, so here we are. Likely
there will be a revision once I get to do that.
2. Obviously Seira hates her mother after what she overhears, but what about her father? She
does not stay at home, so I think it likely that she simply does not want to deal with the
memories associated with home and that's why she hits the streets for months. The nosy old
neighbor lady in the third episode tells Kido that Seira "hardly ever comes home at night",
after all, which I take to be truth rather than exaggeration.
3. Yet, though it seems that some sort of reconciliation obviously must happen, this never
takes place 'on camera' - when the girls end up on Nene's parents' RV en route to the
hospital, Seira is not among those who are helping Shino (Ryo's mother) at the restaurant. In
fact, she is picked up at her house, in her old 'punk' clothing that she had not worn since
the episode she was introduced. I think the only reason she would not be helping the other
girls at the oden bar would be if there was a more prevailing commitment - perhaps that she
was meeting with Kazuhiro, or maybe spending time with her father trying to deal with the
seperation.
4. Seira in 'punk' mode is enough of a rebel that if she really didn't want to join the
baseball team, she'd have just bitched out Kido and the others and left. But I think that
the want of a more stable lifestyle - real friends, maybe - makes her stick around at first,
and I think that feeling must have been inspired by something more than just Kido helping her
fight off some gang members. Hence, Kazuhiro. I doubt Seira would have listened to any other
type of person except one already humbled by life.
5. Princess Nine and the characters, events, and places therein are the property of the
series creator, whose name escapes me right now. With creative license I have inserted a few
ideas of my own, and I'm not making any money off of this in any way. Go bug someone else,
lawyers. Like corporate criminals.
6. Reviews or e-mails would be much appreciated, although if you spoil anything from the
final volume of the series, I'll beat you silly with my trombone after I scream so loud that
I wake up my entire dorm building. The more feedback I receive, the more likely I will
probably be to write something a bit longer that centers on this show after I have actually
seen all of it.
Signing off,
Mark "Moogle" Brown
[email protected]
"May the water never boil!"
2 October 2002