Description: After Frei encounters Kimi in his own way, he runs into Mizuki at the YFCC, still thinking about her mysterious mirror image...
For the past couple of weeks, Mizuki has been in something of a daze. Sure, she's been going to school, and she's been attending the YFCC classes she teaches and also helping out... but everyone who knows her, knows that something seems wrong. It's as if there's just something that's been occupying her mind. She hasn't even been doing much in the way of Neo League battling or Saturday Night Fights--and she used to be a regular participant.
This Sunday afternoon finds her sitting at the front desk of the YFCC. Not manning it, just sitting back there, slouching back in a chair, her hands wrapped around a bottle of water, her gaze unfocused. Occasionally she lifts her bottle of water and takes a sip... but really, that's about it.
It's a little known fact that the YFCC's kitchen is open to employee use. Why is that fact little known? Well, consider the center's staff... it's almost certain that only Hotaru and Mizuki both enjoy and are good at cooking, as somewhat traditionally-minded Japanese women. Plus the center's cafeteria has, you know... cooks for that sort of thing. On the weekends, however, the served hot lunch is more of a brunch and over by midday, leaving the kitchen open to experimentation.
Frei has apparently been on a kick to rediscover his Japanese heritage, if only to confuse people who see his almost-entirely British/Irish appearance and marvel that he has Japanese blood in the first place. Upon finding that a children's festival was about to be celebrated in the city's Shinto shrines, the monk determinedly set to. In fact, he arrived at 8am this very morning with a pair of shopping bags. One is sitting under the very desk Mizuki sits at, tucked away. The other... well...
"Oh, Mizuki... you're just in time," comes Frei's voice from across the room as he sees his fellow Glory Hound and heads to the desk. Perhaps two things are weird about this situation. The first is that he's carrying a silver tray of chitoseame -- rock candy sticks in red and white. The second is that he's wearing a green kimono with gold trim. The cut, thankfully, is a men's cut... but the colors are all wrong. They do, however, serve to highlight his red hair and somewhat freckled face. In deference to matching, his headband is also green with gold embroidery.
Coming to a stop at the desk, he beams and offers the tray to Mizuki. "I just made some... I've been at this all morning. I *think* I got it right this time." Of course, chitoseame are supposed to be perfect sticks... these are maybe not so much perfect. But they are red and white! And they're not melting through the serving tray. A good sign, right?
Mizuki would never think to comment on a friend and teammate's appearance in a negative way. Otherwise she would've said something the moment he came around the corner wearing a miniature Mobile Suit. However, Frei's voice does shake her out of her reverie, somewhat. She startles a little, blinking her eyes and letting those blue orbs focus as she looks around.
"Wh...? What? Oh... Frei-san. What do you have there? Chitoseame? I haven't seen that in a while." She smiles, a wee bit wistfully, as she inspects the not-quite-perfect snacks.
"That's a lovely kimono you have on," she adds, idly, as she takes another sip of water. Perfectly normal conversation... except it's all delivered in a distracted, halting manner that is quite unlike her normally.
Naturally the YFCC front desk is pretty big, built for two and then some, so the monk doesn't hesitate to set the tray down on it and then step around Mizuki's chair to sit down next to her. Perhaps somewhat unexpectedly for the young miko might be that Frei then reaches under the desk and rummages around until he produces the second shopping bag, which he places on the desk in front of him and then starts withdrawing items from. What's inside?
Calligraphy materials.
"This old thing? Pshaw, you'll turn my head." There is definitely is: a few brushes, a few pots of ink, and a couple notebooks' worth of vellum paper to try out on. Not bank-breaking, but he clearly went out of his way to get good stuff instead of some random set from S-Mart (shop smart). He starts inspecting the brushes, speaking to Mizuki without turning toward her. "So what's up? Young kid like you shouldn't be blowing your Sunday watching dust settle on our front door."
A faint smile. "Oh? What should I be doing? Should I be out shopping with my friends? On a date to see the movies? Doing homework?" She sounds just the slightest bit bitter--another abnormal tone to her voice. Something she regrets and she apologizes for immediately.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't--I'm just... worried. I guess I should be trying to take my mind off of things but I haven't been very successful."
Cue wan smile.
"Though I guess that's pretty obvious, huh... so, ah... why the candy and the calligraphy, Frei-san?"
He had initially mistaken Mizuki's preoccupation for a regular old bad mood, or boredom, or something... things that happen to people from time to time. But it's clear to Frei after *that* comment that something is seriously not quite right with his teammate, and he carefully stops, setting down the brushes on top of the closed sketchbook and then slowly turning his chair to face Mizuki's.
All is silent for a long moment, as the monk wears a surprisingly serious expression. It's grim. Has the priestess at last offended the unoffendable man?!
"Dork." Frei reaches out and pokes Mizuki in the forehead with his index finger.
Turning back to the stuff he brought with him, he unpacks the brushes and starts shaking one of the ink bottles, then hands the extras to Mizuki, placing one of the sketchbooks in front of her, as well as a spare brush and ink. "You probably should, yes. I might go with that movie date option, it sounds pretty promising. And it's better than moping around here dwelling on it. But since we're both here, why not do some calligraphy with me instead?"
Biting his lip, Frei dips his brush into the ink and carefully -- and somewhat exactingly, a highly uncharacteristic show of precision and slow work from him -- draws the character for 'water' on the sheet of paper before picking it up and holding the book up to Mizuki. "This is the problem..." He brings the brush up with one hand and draws the extra stroke that changes 'water' into 'ice'. "Right?"?
Mizuki's eyes cross as her forehead is poked. "Wh--" She sits up, shaking her head to try and clear her muzziness. Looks like she barely noticed him facing her... of course the poke is guaranteed to get attention. Automatically she reaches up to rub her forehead, silent as Frei draws the kanji. Her eyes flick to his, then back down to the kanji... then back up.
And she nods. "Of course it is. I haven't really been able to think about anything -else-... I don't know when or where I'll see her again, or what'll happen if I do. My elders... they... they'll tell me to eliminate her." She laughs, short and mocking.
"Eliminate. Like I could..."
Breathing out slowly, Frei turns his chair back forward and lays the sketchbook down on the table, then sets the brush back on the cap for the ink so it doesn't leak all over the place and drive the regular secretaries nuts. 'Water' turned into 'ice'... it only takes one single stroke and there you go. Japanese is a wacky written language that way. "Is that a 'I don't think I have the skill to do it' statement or a 'I don't want to kill another human being for a stupid reason like tradition' statement?" He turns back to Mizuki and clears his throat. "Don't answer that."
There's a pause for a moment, then Frei turns back and opens to a fresh page and starts drawing the character for 'sword' absently, the long lines of each stroke taking forever to do with Frei's... alarmingly painstaking way of doing it. "I suppose I should tell you, I ran into her. She, uh..." He pauses, bringing up his free hand to scratch his nose for a moment, almost sounding embarrassed. "Well, to be honest she was looking for the successor to the Musou Tenkei-ryuu style of swordsmanship and *assumed* it would be me because I'm the firstborn son." Frei turns to Mizuki again with a goofy grin on his face. "You can imagine how disappointed she was to learn that the Tsukitomi clan gave up the whole assassination-for-justice thing a hundred years ago, huh..."
Turning back to the page, he pauses, then finishes the character he was drawing for the heck of it. And then, completely on a whim, he draws a circle around it, and then a slash through the circle. And then a smiley face and a flower, possibly some sort of daisy. "But... she didn't conform to my expectation of what she'd be like at all from how you described the situation, I have to admit."
"Both. She's stronger than I am. Stronger, more skilled, and more ruthless. I can tell." Too late to not answer that question. "And I don't--I don't want to kill anyone. That isn't what I learned--am learning--the martial arts for. She is... she's different, that's for sure. I feel like we could be friends..."
She glances at the kanji, then takes a brush and begins writing kanji of her own. She takes the classical position for such, holding an imaginary sleeve out of the way, her strokes quick, precise, and gentle. She, after all, -was- trained in this. She just writes...
'Honor.'
'Compassion.'
'Life'.
She holds the sheet up, wordless, for a moment. "This... this is what I was raised to believe in."
Setting the paper down, she takes another sheet, and writes, large. 'Duty.'
The monk actually gives a slow nod to that. Her answer is about what he expected, and it does make sense... though interestingly, there's the ghost of a smile when she says 'I feel like we could be friends', since... at the end of his fight with Kimi, he felt the same, curiously enough. That there was something about her that didn't sit right with the concept of 'evil darkness family out for human blood to bathe in'. Honor, compassion, life... while they're not expressly concepts Frei calls claim to -- if there's anything he calls claim to at all -- they're things he can support.
'Duty', however...
Sighing quietly, he sets his own brush down again and reaches across to the tray of chitoseame, snapping one of the crooked pieces of rock candy and experimentally popping it into his mouth. There's a moment where says nothing, eyes closed... and the suddenly he opens them again, blinking in surprise. "Hey, these came out good! Not at all like those first fifteen batches." FIFTEEN, he says. "Go on, try one." Should she bother, Mizuki would actually find they were made... pretty much as one might expect. They look awful, but they taste pretty good, if rock candy's your thing.
Sucking experimentally on the end of the candy stick for a second, Frei turns back to Mizuki. "Having fought you both, I think you're overstating when you say she's stronger than you. Of course, I'm not the world's best martial artist, but..." He shrugs. "You know, at first I think she was even hitting on me? It was kinda funny. Anyhow. I'm not like Alma. He's a good guy to go to if you want to know what's 'right' and 'wrong'. In terms of popular morals, he's pretty handy that way. But that's not how I operate, which you probably know by now. All I give people is questions, but I think if you listen to them, you'll find they're *useful* questions." He pauses, as if evaluating his own statement, and then nods before continuing. "Duty's all well and good, Mizuki, but duty *to who*?"
Rock candy isn't bad. Mizuki rather automatically pops a piece into her mouth, letting the sugar melt, the flavors spreading across her tongue. It -is- good, and the sweet flavor does help brighten her mood. A little. She lets the candy melt for a little while, during which she is considering her answer.
"I know you don't feel the same sense of duty towards your family and their traditions that I do. And I understand why. But I -do- feel that duty... I knew this might've come up, but I honestly never expected it to. A Kurogami hasn't fought a Kamigawa in... in ages."
"I don't even know if Alma would know what to do. I'm afraid that she's got the same idea as my elders, and that this is going to escalate really badly... I can't let that happen. I don't want the same thing to happen as happened in the Dante incident..."
"So in the end, I guess, you could say it is as much a duty to my family as it is to my friends."
There's a moment while Frei digests that. He certainly has his own memories of the Dante problem, and his brief role in it... about Jiro's willingness to die to prove that he'd moved beyond something that everyone around him knew he had from the start. From a single individual's burning need to prove something beyond all else, beyond even death. Frei, who is at heart something of a materialist for someone with such a spiritual bent, found that sort of thinking mystifying.
Chewing on the remaining candy with a loud crunching sound, Frei gives this some more thought, then frowns a little and knits his brow. "You know, though," he finally says, swallowing and turning back to Mizuki. "I know what you mean about not wanting your friends to suffer. But... I don't think Kimi would hurt us." He pauses, then knits his brow, flashing back to his fight with the Kurogami scion. How her loss to him had been rationalized, carefully filed away... and how she had so totally lost control of her power in anger and frustration at losing. That wasn't a killer... it was someone looking to find answers. That's his view.
"I don't think she's a killer, not any more than you are. In fact, she struck me as a very vulnerable person... that there's some impossible standard she's supposed to be living up to and can't. I beat her in a fight and... well, she sorta flipped out. I could tell how frustrated she was, you know? But she lined up all the reasons why a weak guy like me might have beaten her and then ran off. I dunno about that last bit, but..." And here, the monk turns to Mizuki with a faint smile, green eyes glittering. "Does the rest of that sound familiar at all?"
"Maybe.. maybe not. But if the stories I know about the techniques the Kurogami use are true... that may not remain true. I never thought that just learning to use chi could be... evil. But these techniques... they're -evil-. They corrupt. Maybe it isn't as blatant as all that, but it feels like it. I... I don't know what she'll be like if she continues down that path."
At Frei's suggestion of similarity, Mizuki turns a carefully blank look on him. "It sounds like a lot of people... but I don't consider the standards I'm trying to live up to, to be impossible... would you?" After she asks, she pops another piece of candy in her mouth, pressing it between upper palate and tongue, letting it melt.
Blinking, Frei's face suddenly adopts an expression of... if not shock, then at least surprise. Then he opens his mouth to say something, pauses, then shuts it again. Now is the time for more candy, and he does indeed indulge a second time, sucking thoughtfully on the sweet treat and not saying anything further. It's obvious to anyone observing that he has something he WANTS to say, but that he's finding something for his body to do while he tries to think of a way to say it.
A long moment does indeed pass during this process.
Eventually, Frei bites down, crunching through another piece, and then shakes his head. "Knowledge isn't evil. It's no more evil than a hammer is evil. And I know what you're thinking: 'what about a gun? A gun only exists to shoot and kill things', right? Well, maybe... but there's no use of it that's *inherently* bad. The gun that kills the man about to strangle you is the same one that accidentally fires and kills a young boy... Mizuki, I don't believe in absolutes. There's no good so sanctified it's infalliable, and there's no evil so dark it's irredeemable. So yeah, I think one of those standards IS impossible. Killing the Kurogami, erasing the knowledge... it's not going to make the past change, and when the sun rises the next day people will still use forbidden arts for nefarious ends."
"I believe the same thing, Frei-san. Knowledge, in and of itself, isn't evil. But..." Mizuki shakes her head, lost for a moment.
"Maybe you're right. Maybe that knowledge isn't evil in and of itself. But it -has- been used for evil purposes and I can't allow that to stand. I don't want to kill her--I want to save her. But I don't know if that's possible."
"I'll do my best to see that it happens, though. I need to talk to the elders... I need to talk to Alma-kun, too. And perhaps... then... I need to find her and talk to her. Whether it means a fight, or not."
Somewhat invigorated, although still worried, Mizuki rises. "Thank you, Frei-san, for the candy... and the talk. I hope someday I can help you with any problems you may have..."
Laughing helplessly, Frei puts a hand to his forehead and just grins, eyes closed. "Oh man. Alma's a -kun but I'm a -san... the end is nigh." Hopefully Mizuki knows he's teasing... but perhaps if the monk thought it over he wouldn't have joked at the end of this conversation. Regardless, once he's cracked wise he brushes his hands through his hair and then lowers his head back to standard height, nodding at Mizuki. "It's my pleasure. And I think talking to her is a good start."
There's a pause, and then Frei scratches the side of his head, looking off to the side. "Mizuki... I know the stuff I say might sound stupid and cruel sometimes. But the important thing to remember is that this all your decision, nobody else's." Turning his smile back to the miko, Frei points his index finger at his cheek. "And because I'm your friend, I'll support whatever decision you make, because I trust you. I'm sure the same goes for Alma, Acacia, Jiro, Hotaru... anybody else on that list I might be forgetting..." Shrugging, he makes to go back to his calligraphy. "The point being, we're behind you, so relax and do what comes natural."
Log created on 14:36:54 11/11/2007 by Mizuki, and last modified on 20:28:13 11/14/2007.