Description: After meeting up with her brother, Mimiru tries to find some peace of mind through constant working. In the end, Jiro had left a burning mark on her heart that kept aching and leads Mimiru back to the source of her sorrow and exile : her hometown, Southtown. She returns to the place she used to call home, hoping to meet her mother Yoko. To what end? Mimiru does not know what to expect out of this. She only hopes that this decision will make her anguish, fear and pain go away...
Things were different...
After Mimiru had left Alma at the airport and meant him, the frail balance of her life had shifted around. The past was catching up on her. Doubt, fear, saddness, guilt... Those emotions were taking turns tormenting her everytime her mind was recalling the particular scene in her life. If only she could forget it all, repress it deep down, just like the rest.
She had to stop thinking. She had to find stronger emotions, stronger feelings to rid herself of those.
Mimiru desperatedly sought to forget it all, turning toward countless delivery opportunities -- some more dangerous than the other. While she was rollerblading, while she felt her heart racing in her chest, a part of the pain left her, the thrill and adrenaline of those jobs soothed her temporarly.
But it was not enough. Never enough...
When she found herself alone at the end of the day, her mind did not leave her alone. Even those rushes of adrenaline and the exhaustation she forced herself, both of mind and body, were not enough to give her rest from all of this.
Seeing him again had left a scorching mark inside of her that wouldn't let her alone this time. This searing pain was not new, it had always been there, deep down. It was a message her soul was trying to tell her. Something Mimiru always managed to ignore.
Not this time.
Mimiru would leave Japan soon. Perhaps being in Japan caused those feelings? Who knows... In two days, she'll be gone, she had done all that she could, non-stop. More than she had ever done before... All of her muscles ached from the tension, her body exhausted from the constant rollerblading through crowded streets and the parkour like delivery she made herself do to delivery in the shortest time needed medical supplies from town to town.
In her small hotel room, Mimiru was staring blankly outside the window, headphones over her ears, listening to music to try and change her mind.
Alas, it did not work.
All that was on her mind was her brother... Jiro. And with him, all that she had left behind in her former life. Her friends in Southtown... But also her mother, the only person she had kept in touch with during her exile. Had this Jiro tried to see her? She hopes not... Mimiru would never forgive this boy if that was the case..
Just the thought angered her.
The thought of her mother makes it go away. She feels a sudden rush of nostalgia going through her. Mimiru sent her postal cards, once or twice a year but... Never a phone number, neither an address. She was always on the move and... Mimiru did not want to confront her.
What would she say to her? She didn't even know why she did all of this.
Or maybe she knew, she just didn't want to think about it or admit it. Perhaps her mother had a man in her life now? The thought makes her smile warmly. After all, Mimiru had only wanted for Jiro and her mother to be happy in life... Yet, she doubts her behaviour would have helped her with that.
Her thoughts keep on wandering, thinking of the various things that could have happened to her mother. Thinking about her appease the pain somewhat... It makes it different.
Suddenly, Mimiru rises from her bed and she puts on her rollerblade. She had been having gloomy thoughts for too long, she had to go out and skate. Skate as far as she could and just stop thinking.
But a part of her knew where she wanted to go. Back to Southtown.
Back home.
Mimiru rolls, as fast as she can, her heart taking her back there. She rolls for hour, not stopping, goggles over her eyes, following some fast lanes and holding on to some cars from time to time.
By the time she arrives in Southtown, it was dark outside. The sun had disappeared maybe an hour or so ago, covering the town in darkness. Mimiru recognizes everything -- the streets when she was younger, the houses... Her house.
It was hard to tell if things had changed, hard to tell if Yoko still lived there. Mimiru stands in front of the court, glancing up at the house, lifting her goggles up. The thought occurs to her now, her mother might not even be there... She might not even live here anyway...
It was too late to turn back now. This felt right. It felt like this is what she had to do... Mimiru approaches the house, trying to see if there's some light in, if someone's home.
The thought makes her idly wonder if there's still an hidden key under a small rock near the entrance..
It's gotten tougher, but Yoko's not one to give up easily.
She huffs quietly as she nudges closed the car door with her foot, hefting a grocery bag in each hand, and blows a stray strand of greying undyed hair away from her eyes. She feels a faint twinge in her back but, lifting with her legs, steadies herself and trudges down the darkened street at an even pace. Her expression betrays nothing of weariness or mental fatigue, the longtime police officer steely-eyed and inscrutible, a baseline expression cultivated through decades of toughing her way through difficult situations.
This one doesn't even merit notice.
Work has been especially hectic with the recent natural disasters, even if this time the higher-ups at least had a plan prepared. Thus far, they've been able to get the jump on any prospective looters or others who would take advantage of the situation, and no real chaos has erupted. But there are always shadowy figures lurking, and the so-called doomsday cult is beginning to concern her. Of course, as always, her superiors don't care about them unless they threaten someone's political prospects, but such is the way of things. As long as the city is safe, she's doing her job. And doing her job well is what she takes pride in.
It's what she can do.
Every once in a while, Jiro's old friends stop by to pay their respects. She appreciates it, and likes keeping up with them, though it can be a little difficult to soften her gruff demeanor when she spends so much time working or alone. But that's fine. She's an old woman now, or so she likes to joke to herself. As long as she doesn't get a cat, she still has her pride. Though she's not too proud for reality television.
People are so dramatic sometimes.
Yoko slows her pace for a moment as she sees a tall figure standing by her door. The unfamiliar visage immediately causes her to consider various possibilities and courses of action in response, but that instinctive process slows when she catches a glimpse of the figure's profile in the street light.
"...Hmph."
That hair suits her.
"The key's still under the rock, like always," Yoko announces in a voice that hasn't changed in years, breathing evenly as she carries the heavy bags toward the small staircase leading up to their house's front door. "Go on. My hands are full."
She looks up, her face a little more lined but otherwise as it always was.
"Open the door, Mimiru."
Her mother's voice startles her. Mimiru had not expected to hear her, nor had she noticed her mother getting closer to her. She had been lost in her memories and thoughts.
Mimiru turns around on her heels to face the woman. She stares at Yoko, befuddled. It was as if, in all of this, she didn't expect this, nor to see her mother. Nothing could have prepared her for this moment, after all.
She takes a moment to look at her mother. To see how those years have changed her. Perhaps a few wrinkles and some grey hair, but she was exactly how she remembered her.
Mimiru glances down at the rock, her lips curling into a weak smile. She wanted to say something, but she didn't know what to say. No words came to her. Fortunately, her mother seemed stronger than she was.
Mimiru snaps out of her stupefied state and she nods, "Yes, yes... Sorry," The girl reaches out for the rock, to get the key. Her rollerblade were already lying beside the door and once Mimiru opens the door, she turns to her mother and moves her hand to take one of the grocery bag, "Here, let me help you..."
Mimiru insists on giving her a hand and taking one, leading the way inside the house. She was eager and also afraid to see how it had changed and how different it was from her memories.
She opens up the lights and makes her her way toward the kitchen.
Yoko's strength was hard-earned.
"I'm not so far gone I need you to carry my burdens," she says wryly, but there's no harshness to her tone, and she relinquishes one of the bags to her daughter without any further protest. With the weight lightened, Yoko's steps are steadier as she ascends the few stairs and follows after Mimiru, flicking on the light in the hall.
It's cleaner than it used to be.
Yoko was always more of a practical than a fastidious person, and as a working mom with two children, she never had much time for housework, foisting most of it on her kids when she remembered to make them do chores. Over the past few years, it's less that Yoko has become more cleanly and more that there's been no one around to make a mess. It's something of a lonely feeling. The house was never large, but it is slightly too large for only one person.
Still, despite the tinge of melancholy, the house feels lived-in, almost defiantly so. Yoko's treated herself to a larger TV in the intervening time, probably an older model gotten on sale still better than what she had before, and the living room has become something of a cozy den. Other than that, though, she's felt the need to change very little. Needless to say, Jiro and Mimiru's rooms have been left as they were.
Yoko follows Mimiru into the kitchen and sets down her own bag upon the counter. She tucks that persistently stray bang behind her ear with her free hand, her breath not enough to tame it, and turns to regard Mimiru. Yoko looks her over once.
"Welcome home."
She stands silently for a while, before blinking once.
"Are you hungry?"
Nothing had changed. It was as if time froze in this quiet part of Southtown. Almost every part of the house was similiar to Mimiru's memories when she had left it. Things might have been more tidy, a bigger television but everything else felt the same...
Mimiru's eyes were scanning her surrounding eagerly, obviously trying to spot the differences from her memories. The sight of all those rooms and the old furniture of her youth were heart warming.
Just a few days ago, she would have never expected to see them again.
It was her home, the only place she ever felt she belonged before her brother's death.
Mimiru turns on her heels to look at her mother. The look on her mother face : Mimiru sees no anger, no saddness. As if nothing happened those past six years, as if Mimiru had never left this house. She welcomes her without asking questions. No reprimand. She asks her if she's hungry, just like she would have when she was younger...
Those few words are enough to crack Mimiru's shell. Her expression melts, her lips curling into a pout, tears welling up in the corner of her eyes. She drops the bag she's been holding and Mimiru just throws herself at Yoko, her tears flowing down her cheeks as she opens up her arms and lunges at Yoko.
"Mo.. Mom!" Mimiru stammers through loud sobs, her chest heaving. Her arms wrap up around her, holding her tight against her, clinging to her desperately.
It came out of her suddenly. Tears of the repressed saddness she bore with her for all those years, but also tears of joy for not being rejected by her mother. The joy of being accepted by her, to see her welcome her despite all she had done, with open arms, as if not a single day had gone since she had left her...
With every tears she shed, Mimiru felt her burden alleviates, the guilt slowly fading away for what she felt was the most horrible act she could have done, abandonning her mother after her brother's death.
Mimiru whimpers softly in her mother's neck, her tears wetting Yoko's skin and neck. Her words are barely audible in her cries, but Mimiru keeps repeating the same thing : "I'm sorry, forgive me,"
Mimiru had never wanted to hurt or betray her mother. She had always loved and admired her, much like Jiro had. Today, more than ever, she realizes just how strong her mother truly was, a kind of strength Mimiru couldn't even hope to have. If that was even possible, her admiration for her mother grows.
Yoko's lip quivers.
It's all she will concede, at first. Yoko knows better than anyone the importance of being the rock upon which others can rely. What long ago were scars have become a reserve of resilience which she can make of service to others. As a parent, as an adult, the least she can do is be the one who stands strong when all else has crumbled. That's her job. And she takes pride in doing her job. It's what she can do.
But that doesn't make it easy.
"Mimiru..."
And when Mimiru breaks down first and throws her arms about Yoko, embracing her tightly, Yoko's job is finished.
Tears stream from tightly-shut eyes, impossible to strain, her body trembling uncontrollably as she embraces her daughter. Yoko knows what it is to be deeply wounded and to leave all else behind, to reject the world that hurt you and seek out something altogether new. Her job wasn't just to be the stronger one. It was to learn from her own experience, and not demand more from Mimiru than Yoko asked of her younger self. It was to let Mimiru go long enough for her to return of her own will.
Job well done.
"I'm so glad you're safe."
Yoko won't complain. It no longer matters anymore how desperately lonely she was for the years immediately after Mimiru left. Right now, all she can feel is gratitude that her patience paid off. It wasn't a sure thing. It was Mimiru's choice.
"I'm so glad you've come back."
Voice cracking, Yoko allows emotions she has instinctively learned to bottle up to pour forth, before one of the few people in this world who she trusts with all her heart, her own flesh and blood.
"You did what you had to do," Yoko continues softly, "and you've come back intact. That's all that matters."
She comforts Mimiru, not even seeing herself as the one wronged.
"Not that I'm surprised," she adds, and for the first time, she smiles through her tears, eyes warming with the sardonic sense of humor that helped her survive as the mother of two crazy kids. "You're tough like me, and smarter too."
Never in the past years would have Mimiru thought this would have happened. She had struggled so hard to leave the past behind her, to build herself a new life, and here she was, back where it all began.
The anxiety and fear she felt faded away. Those tears were liberating, but more than the tears, her mother's acceptance, her mother's love for her took a part of this pain away from her.
Her voice makes her cry. She only now realizes how much she had missed her and how much leaving her mother had left a deeper wound into her than she thought, something she had been kept bottled up and repressed deep within her.
Did she have regrets? No, no more regrets about her past. Mimiru could not change the past, but she could make up for her past mistake now and try to make a brighter future for herself and those she loved the most.
Yoko's words comfort Mimiru, and when Mimiru finally lets go of her embrace, slowly pulling away, her eyes are puffy and swollen. Red from the tears. Despite her exhaustion, Mimiru felt light. This new feeling gave her wings. Her lips curl into a warm smile, "Thank you, mom..." Mimiru lowers her gaze, almost shamefully, "I'm glad you believed in me, all this time..."
Her compliments mean a lot to her and it shows. There were only two persons in Mimiru's life whom she might have truly wanted praise from. Her mother and Jiro, and coming from Yoko, it felt good.
Mimiru lifts hands up to rub her hands, to try and wipe away some tears from her face. "Let me cook something up for us, you must be tired..." Mimiru offers.
Yoko and Mimiru may have returned to where they began, but much has changed, and not for the worse. It is not easy for Yoko to speak of a past she has long since put behind her. She has little interest in bringing up events that took place when Mimiru was just an infant, traumas which sent Yoko fleeing from her hometown and to an uncertain future as a single mother with two young children. She knows what it is for a world to fall apart. She knows how the strong can be thrust into moments of weakness, and how those moments can begin a downward spiral into despair from which the kindness of others, and no further strength, is the only salvation.
"Of course I did."
So she never doubted Mimiru.
"I raised you to be someone to believe in."
Though if truth be told, which it assuredly will not, Yoko can no longer count the times she awoke in a cold sweat from a dream in which news reached her of another terrible fate.
"Hm, why don't you do that," Yoko says in an almost magnanimous tone, as though it is generous of her to allow Mimiru to cook. As a matter of fact, her hands are still trembling, though her voice is even. "I want to see whether you've improved as a cook while traveling or just eaten out all the time. You won't find many interesting ingredients, though, I'm afraid." Still, perhaps homestyle Japanese food means more to Mimiru than it does to Yoko these days.
Her mother seats herself down at the kitchen table gingerly, and for a moment, her eyes glaze over, betraying how much Mimiru's sudden arrival has impacted her. She blinks and gathers herself, snapping to another task. "I'll put the water on to boil and make some tea." She begins to fill the kettle at the sink, talking over the comforting sound of dinner preparations. "I've been looking forward to your next message," she remarks. "Where've you been recently? I'd say that I hope it's nowhere dangerous, but I expect the pay is best where the disasters have hit. The world's gone mad these days." Yoko minds her own business for the most part, but the news is impossible to ignore. "I have to wear a filtering mask on the way to work what with all the ash."
She sets the kettle on to boil.
"Speaking of which," she continues conversationally, "I planned to visit his grave tomorrow and clean it off." She doesn't need to say whose. Perhaps it's still difficult, even for Yoko, after all this time. "If I don't get around to it soon, it'll be buried in ash by the time I arrive. Why don't you come with me?"
When Yoko gives her the permission, Mimiru beams and her expression brightens up. Mimiru turns around on her heels, going back to get a hold of the grocery bag she brought to empty it, browsing through the food to get a good idea of a recipe her mother might enjoy. "Quite a lot... I've met a lot of people and learned to cook with different spice, different sort of exotic food too," Mimiru explains.
In lot of ways, Mimiru had changed but in many other ways, she was still the same -- the way she moves around the kitchen to find all the things she needs to prepare her dish, it was obvious Mimiru wanted to impress her mother, make her proud. She digilently worked on a simple dish, something she had not eaten in quite a while : curry rice.
"I try to avoid dangerous delivery," Mimiru says. It was a blatant lie. It was what she had been desperately seeking as of late, but she doesn't want to worry her mother needlessly. "I've been in Japan for a two weeks or so... Delivering medical supplies, mostly... But before that, I was in America," Mimiru explains as she goes about the kitchen.
She prepares the rice cooker. She then starts working on the second part of the dish, the most important one, the curry and meat that was into it.
"I hope things haven't been too bad here in Southtown," Mimiru says, with an hint of worry for her mother. A glance at Yoko and her worries fade away.
Mimiru lowers her gaze at her mother's offer. She seems to hesitate for a moment. "Yes, I want to come with you..." Mimiru says with a slow nod of her head. The last and only time she saw her brother's grave, she refused to believe it. It felt like it had been the first step that made Mimiru take such a drastic turn in her life.
Yoko takes the kettle off the stove as it begins to steam and before it begins to whistle with practiced timing, pouring the steaming water into the teapot she's prepared. She smiles faintly as she turns to watch her daughter busy herself in the kitchen, displaying some of the enthusiasm for which Mimiru was always known as a girl. Now that some of the overwhelming emotion has passed, Yoko feels a precious warmth take hold of her heart.
This is her daughter, now a young woman, still the girl she always knew.
"Smells good," she remarks approvingly.
Some mothers would show their love through criticism, but Yoko has never been the type to judge in areas where she considers herself nothing special. When it comes to instilling discipline, she'd always rely on the aura of intimidation she can summon at will. Besides, she never wanted her children to be the best or impress anybody. She just wanted them to--
A tremor passes through Yoko's body, which she suppresses.
Best to save that for tomorrow.
"Oh, we're muddling through somehow," Yoko remarks vaguely. She's not one to boast about her own prowess, but the thought of herself being in danger is a bit foreign. She's never thought of herself as invincible, but she's acquired something of a reputation for being impossible to put down for good. But then, Mimiru's inherited a bit of that. "It's always a mess as the station, so it's nothing new so far as I'm concerned."
She pauses for a moment at Mimiru's last reply, gazing at her daughter carefully before nodding, features revealing nothing in particular.
"Good."
For the time being, Mimiru doesn't press on the matter of Jiro's grave. Nor about the boy she had met that was like her brother. It was a turmoil inside of Mimiru's mind and heart on the matter that she still needed to straighten out, she didn't want to involve her mother on it.
All Mimiru wanted for now was to enjoy the moment. She was home, with her mother, the person that mattered the most in her life, the last person alive she can say she had truly given all her love to. Mimiru knew she wouldn't stay here for long, and she wanted to soak into this sensation, warmth.
Mimiru finishes the curry rice and shares it with Yoko. The two of them discuss about all and nothing, Mimiru sharing some of her life experience and giving more details about her life than what was in the postal cards and pictures she had sent her. Notably, that Mimiru changed her hair color about twice a year, always for a different color. All Mimiru explained to her was that it was because she felt the need for a 'change', but every time it more or less came in the same time that Mimiru left a previously life for a new one...
Alas, when their discussion moves out from the kitchen to the living room, Mimiru doesn't last long. The accumulated fatigue finally caught up to Mimiru and all of this emotional stress and strain finally left her, leaving her body free to actually fall in a deep slumber.
Before she knows it, Mimiru's heavy eyelids shut themselves and she ends up curled up on herself on the couch.
For the first time since Mimiru arrived in Japan, she was able to fall asleep with relative ease, her heart light. Probably the first true restful sleep she had in a long time.
In the end, this place she constantly ran away from ended up being the place that saved her from breakdown.
Log created on 20:24:11 09/18/2014 by Mimiru, and last modified on 00:38:16 09/19/2014.