Chapter Seven

Not All Change Is Bad

Dear Yukari,

Thanks for the email. It came at a time when I was losing all faith in mankind. No, that's not right. I never had any faith to begin with, so there was never any danger of losing it. Silly me for forgetting.

You may have noticed by the self-flagellating tone of this email, but I'm feeling a little...down. I'm not sure why. After all, I'm giving in to conformity. Isn't conformity supposed to make you happy? Aren't sheep supposed to be so busy trying to blend in with other sheep that they don't have time to feel depressed?

There I go again. Wallowing in my own self-pity. I'll be honest. The problem is...the problem is, I'm not very good at this kind of thing. I feel guilty. I feel like I'm becoming the kind of person Dr. Cowen wanted me to be. I feel like...like...

I have PMS.

And I'm becoming friends with Van.

I know what you're thinking. "That stupid fucker. Why is that piss-for-brains feeling depressed over making a friend? A hot male friend with a tight ass, to boot?" Yeah, yeah, I can hear your profanity from all the way over here. And it won't work on me, not this time. These feelings aren't going to just disappear on me. It's not that simple. I'm a piss-for-brains, remember?

Van and I never used to talk. We barely made eye contact in the hallways. Sometimes he would smile at me, then turn the colour of the fake blood in Kill Bill, and start twitching. And then he would look away, as if seeing my ugly mug was too much for him to handle. But that's all changed. Instead of awkwardly trying not to look at each other in the hallways, now we say "Hi." We say hi to each other in the hallways. And SMILE! Do you understand what this means?

It means we've moved past the stage of friendly acquaintances, and have moved on to...friends.

I am terrified.

And our conversations. Have I mentioned our conversations? It all began a couple of weeks ago when he suddenly tapped me on the shoulder at the beginning of History class and said in a voice much too loud for comfort: "So, seen any good movies lately?"

And you know what? It turns out he's seen Hedwig and the Angry Inch. HE HAS SEEN HEDWIG. A person who attends my school, who actually lives in the same town as me, has seen Hedwig.

I'm telling you, I nearly fainted when he told me!

And he wants to watch Velvet Goldmine. Van Fanel wants to watch Velvet Goldmine because it's my favourite movie of all time. Velvet Goldmine!!!!

And yes, I did tell him what it was about! (!!!)

Even insulting him doesn't put him off. For example, in one of our recent conversations, we were discussing what books we were currently reading (yes, he even reads!), and he started talking about Tolstoy's novels, in particular Anna Karenina. He got really into it, too, and started rambling on about how brilliant it was, blah blah blah. I finally got fed up with it, and said in my usual bitchy way: "Are you bragging right now?"

Van: (confused) What?

Me: Are you showing off your despicable brain power in the hopes that I'll be impressed?

Van: (twitching lips) ...Damn. I've been found out.

Me: You're friggin' transparent, you know that? It's pathetic.

Van: I thought it was rather subtle of me, actually. I mean, we were talking about books, and it's not like I was lying about loving Anna Karenina...

Me: Shut up, asshole. God, big-headed, much?

Van: (sheepish smile) Sorry.

Do you see what I mean? This is terrifying me, Yukari. I have got to put an end to it.

Maybe I should just crack one to his gut and get it over with.

Later,

'Tomi

---

Yukari Utada finished reading the email for the third time, smiled, and snapped her laptop shut. She had made the right decision by saving this particular email to her documents. She felt rather refreshed re-reading it, actually, like her goals had become firmer, somehow, during it.

She was a practical girl, attuned to practical things. She paid little to no attention to the fickle fancies of her peers, and thus had a habit of doing as she pleased. This, coupled with her often sudden spurts of heroism regarding those in the lower hierarchical ranks at school, naturally made her the perfect friend for someone like Hitomi Kanzaki. Who better than a practical person to mow through a wall?

And because of this innate practicality of her nature, Yukari was, at this point in time, sitting on a plane, headed for the lush forests of Fanelia. A bit of a surprise trip, you might say, only it wasn't a surprise. Hitomi knew she was coming, all right..She just hadn't entirely agreed to it yet. But no matter. Yukari fully intended on staying in a hotel, anyway. When Yukari Utada set her mind on something, she did it. No questions asked. Why butt your head uselessly against a wall when you can use a bulldozer?

Yukari tapped her fingers twice on her closed laptop, and glanced at the young man sitting next to her - a boy, really, not so much older than herself. He was dressed in the usual rocker-style clothes so beloved by (at least in Yukari's mind) posers everywhere, and was sporting a pair of huge, dark pair of sunglasses that hid half his face. To top it all off, a great wave of dark hair sprouted from his head at shaggy angles. What could be seen of his face could be called good-looking, if one looked closely enough at the impish creases of his mouth and the elegant arch of his nose. But Yukari was not at all interested in noticing that kind of thing. In fact, the only reason she had glanced at him at all was because he was annoying her. Just the mere presence of "posers" tended to have that effect on her.

Well, she thought to herself with a certain amount of satisfaction, at least he's not talking to me.

The Poser chose that inopportune moment to suddenly turn towards her and say in a deep yet demure voice, "I'm sorry to disturb you, but may I ask what it is that you're listening to?"

Yukari blinked, surprise and annoyance mingling to form a kind of awkward bewilderment. She had headphones firmly placed over her ears, and she was listening to a mix CD Hitomi had made for her a few months ago. Why this aggravating rocker wannabe had interrupted her downtime with such a question was beyond her.

"It's a CD my friend made for me," she replied, curt but trying to be polite.

"Yes, but what song is playing right now? It's just that it's on pretty loud, so I can hear it."

"Oh! I'm sorry, was it annoying you? I'll turn down the volume - "

"No, no, that's not it. I'm just curious about the song. It sounds pretty good."

"I see." Yukari didn't "see" at all, but one must keep up appearances. "I think it's called 'Haruhi Suzumiya' by the Dragonslayers."

"Oh, really?" The Poser seemed more interested than ever, much to her dismay. "I own all their CDs, but I haven't heard that song before. Is it new or something?"

"I'm not sure. Hitomi's the music expert, not me."

"Hitomi...Is that your friend?"

"Yes."

"Nice name. What else is on the CD, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Um...there're a couple more Dragonslayers songs, and a few songs by the Doppelgangers - have you heard of them?"

"Yes, of course."

"And...uh...oh, there're a bunch of songs by the Abaharaki on it. She's a big fan of theirs."

The Poser's lips quirked ever so slightly. "Is that a fact?"

"Yeah. She's sort of obsessed with them, actually. She has the biggest crush on the lead singer, Myles something or other. It's really sort of embarrassing."

"Why does she like Myles so much?"

"Well, I think it's because she thinks he's so hot, but she claims it's because his voice gives her the shivers."

"Is that bad?"

"Not at all, to hear her tell it. She says he's a real genius when it comes to singing, and that he'll go far. She claims that no other singer makes her feel so emotional."

"I see. Well, sorry for bothering you like this. And thank you."

With a brief nod and a curious twitching of the cheek, he turned away without another word. Yukari thought him quite rude. And just when she was getting into the conversation, too!

Ah, well. She leaned back into her seat and closed her eyes. Relaxed. The music swept through her ears, danced through her brain like electricity, high. Higher.

watashi tsuiteiku yo
donna tsurai sekai no yami no naka de sae
kitto anata wa kagayaite
koeru mirai no hate
yowasa yue ni tamashii kowasarenu you ni
my way kasanaru yo
ima futari ni God bless...

---

(Van)

February 24

7:00 p.m.

I tried to shave the Toe.

I noticed it during my shower today. I was washing my hair, and I happened to look down, and there it was - hairy, humongous, hideous. And as I looked closer, its wrinkles seemed to move and morph until they formed what resembled a face - an ugly face, all squinty-eyed and sour-lipped. And it seemed to say, through the jungle of sparsely-grown black hairs surrounding it: You're going to end up alone and bitter at forty, and it'll be all MY fault.

I thought I was going to go insane. Without even thinking about it, I grabbed my mom's razor and swiped it once across the Toe.

I think it's still bleeding a little, but I can't really tell because of the band-aid on it. I don't know what's worse - the fact that I have such a hideous Toe, or the fact that I'm so obsessed with it that now I'm even having hallucinations about it.

God save my soul.

7:41 p.m.: I think Allen must have something on his mind. Observe the email he just sent me:

Vanboy,

Do you think I should cut my hair?

Al

I wonder what happened? Allen suggesting he should cut his hair is tantamount to...to...

Oh, shit. I completely forgot. Shit.

I think I should give him a call now.

---

(Hitomi)

February 24

6:54 p.m.

Yukari arrived at my house at precisely four thirty in the afternoon.

"Hello, Hitomi!" she cried from her position in the doorway, a beam of goodwill radiating from her lips. "Surprise!"

I almost slammed the door in her face. It was only my strict upbringing in the area of unfailing courtesy that prevented it.

(Snort.)

"Aren't you going to invite me in?" she wheedled, ignoring my glacial silence.

I recovered enough to say in reply: "You're asking for a fist in your nose."

Yukari smiled, all apparent delight, and chirped, "Fuck you."

That girl really knows how to handle me.

"Wait ten minutes," I told her. "We can't talk here. I'll be out soon."

And then I slammed the door in her face.

Well, I couldn't exactly let her into the house, could I? What if Mother saw her? She'd become absolutely ecstatic with joy at the thought that I, her unfailingly anti-social daughter, had brought a friend home! I couldn't risk that kind of horror.

So I ran upstairs, threw on a coat, ran back down, and barged out the door. Yukari watched with vague curiosity as I leaned over, hands on my knees, panting from the exertion. (I really need to get into shape.) Then she grinned and said, "Where to, mon amie?"

To be honest, I had absolutely no idea as to where we should go. So we ended up walking around the neighbourhood, trying not to feel too cold, our faces buried in our collars and our feet crunching through the thin layers of snow.

"Why did you come?" That was the first question I asked. Ungracious, perhaps, but entirely justified, I think.

Yukari turned those highly unnerving eyes of hers on me, and said with every appearance of chiding kindness: "I wanted to see you. You sounded like you needed...someone."

"I don't need anyone," I snapped. And of course I immediately regretted the childish tone behind my words. There I went again, always talking before thinking things through. This is why I am such a bitch so much of the time...probably.

Yukari sighed, and lightly pushed her shoulder against mine, making me slip a little on a patch of dark ice on the sidewalk.

"Everyone needs someone every once in a while. It's nothing to be ashamed of."

There was a pause while I digested this. Then, sheepishly, feeling my ears start to warm despite the biting wind, I asked, "How long will you be staying?"

Yukari's mouth quirked. I noticed a couple of lonely freckles on her left cheek, near her eye, standing out despite the pinkish tinge of her skin. "As long as you want me to, Hitomi - well, as long as two weeks, anyway." She stopped walking, and spread her arms wide open, her eyes sparkling with mischief. "Do you want a hug?"

I scowled. "Do you want a gap between your teeth?"

Yukari lowered her arms, smirking. "Bitch."

"Dumbass."

Laughing, she linked her arm in mine. Reluctantly I let her. What was there to lose, anyway?

I feel a little better now.

---

(Van)

February 25

2:53 p.m.

Today is the anniversary of Celena's death.

I always feel a little weird on this day. A little...inadequate. I feel like I should be there for Allen and his family, that I should somehow make this day a little easier to bear for them, but...I don't know how. I can't help him at all.

I accompanied Allen to the hairdresser's this morning (we skipped school), and watched as his precious, much-loved blond locks fell all around him, a shower of snipped years. Allen was very quiet. His face was set, pale, his mouth a thin line of endurance, his eyes blazing with something I couldn't even begin to understand.

When I called him last night, and asked him why he wanted to cut his hair, all he had to say was: "I want to look good for her. I want to look...clean-cut. Well-groomed. Not like last year."

So I didn't protest. I didn't try to argue with him. I couldn't.

When the hairdresser was done, I could barely recognize the guy I'd spent my entire life hanging out with. He had insisted on a short cut, above his ears. His head was a bright sheen of gold, the bangs falling across his forehead with lush confidence. He looked...renewed. Reborn.

I couldn't recognize him.

"There," he said, with a smile that would have looked relieved, if it weren't for the tears standing in his eyes. "That's much better. Don't I look better, Van?"

His gaze shifted to mine in the mirror. I knew what he wanted me to say, but as I opened my mouth to say the words, something hard formed in my throat, pushing them down. I swallowed.

"I can't recognize you."

Allen looked at himself. He straightened his shoulders, threw back his head so that his hair caught the light, and glimmered.

"Neither can I," he said. It looked like the proudest moment of his life.

9:03 p.m.: After I got home, I rummaged through the boxes under my bed until I found it. The photo album.

I flipped through the pages slowly, lingering on the memories that floated to the surface with each photograph I saw. I was five years old in that picture, my face covered with the sticky remains of chocolate ice cream, a baseball cap hiding the god-awful bowler cut I'd gotten that year. And there, I was nine years old, clinging on to Folken's hand as the winds of the beach blew around us, throwing sand in our squinted eyes. And...there. Right there.

Thirteen years old. I was standing in my backyard with Allen and his little sister, Celena. The three of us had our arms draped across each other's shoulders, an identical smile of carefree brilliance gracing each of our faces. I stood to the side, a little apart from the siblings, who were holding on to each other with a ferocity that was almost frightening. Allen's hair was even longer than Celena's, whose silvery curls cascaded down past her shoulders. Her eyes were crinkled tight with laughter, her cheeks rosy with youth and what could be taken for happiness.

I looked at the photo a long time, not even daring to breathe too loudly out of fear that this insistent presence, this heartrending ghost that had breathed into being with the opening of this album, would shatter all around me, leaving me with nothing but fragments. This pain was good. This pain was evidence that she had, once upon a time, existed.

Sometimes, I forget what Allen has gone through.

Sometimes, I am too impatient with him, too cruel.

Sometimes, I try to pretend that none of this ever happened.

I'm sorry, Allen.

Forgive me, Celena.

---

(Hitomi)

February 26

12:11 p.m.

I wanted to skip school today, but Yukari wouldn't let me.

"I didn't come here to help you along in your delinquency, you know," she scolded, wagging her finger in my face. I seriously considered biting it just to annoy her, but decided against it. That would have been immature, and we all know how mature I am in my daily life.

...Man, I sure am witty. I could be the next Tina Fey! Or not.

Anyway. When I was getting ready for school this morning, Dad, of all people, knocked on my bedroom door and asked if he could come in. Wondering if he had suffered some kind of brain aneurysm or something, I hurriedly finished pulling my (black) shirt over my head, and told him to come on in.

Dad slinked in with his usual air of guiltiness, and sat somewhat gingerly down on the edge of my bed, his eyes darting every so often around the completely black furnishings of the room. I folded my arms across my chest, more out of feeling unnerved than anything else, and said in a voice that was much snappier than I'd intended: "What do you want?"

Dad's leg started shaking. I hate it when he does that. It's like...like he's a puppy who's too scared to take a wee on his owner's carpet, even though he has to go really, really badly.

"I...I was just wondering..." He cleared his throat and sat up a little straighter on the bed. His leg kept shaking, though.

"Wondering what?" Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm a bitch. But I wasn't feeling generous enough to be easy on him. I never feel that generous. Especially not with my family.

Dad cleared his throat again, but managed to look me straight in the face and say: "Has something...happened? To you? Lately?"

Whoa. Dad, noticing that I'm acting a little differently? The sky was falling, surely.

"Happen?" I tried for a careless laugh, and it ended up sounding rather bitter. Must work on that. "What could possibly happen to someone like me?"

Dad eyed me, hesitancy creeping into his voice. "You've been acting a little...odd."

"Dad, I always act odd. Surely you know that by now."

"But it's different this time. You're not being yourself. Even your mother has noticed."

I blinked. What was this, Shocking Parental Revelations Day? Since when did my parents notice anything about me?

Had I really been that obvious? Oh dear.

"It's nothing," I said firmly. "You don't need to...worry."

I tried not to choke on that last word, but it was very hard. I crack myself up sometimes.

"You know that you can always come to us whenever you need us, don't you?" He even managed to sound sincere as he said it. I flashed my best fake smile at him.

"Sure, Dad. Sure."

Looking convinced, he got up, mumbled something about getting ready for work, and left the room. And I reflected, as I pulled a comb through my hair, that life was always handing out surprises, whether you wanted them or not.

---

Myles Freid stood alone in the cemetery. It was a lovely day, with the bright rays of the sun making the piles of snow glitter like tiny diamonds around his booted feet. In front of him, freshly cleared and sporting lilies frozen into ice, was the tombstone of Celena Schezar.

Myles gazed down at it for a long time, ignoring the way his nose was tingling from the cold. Then he took one of his hands out of the pocket of his leather jacket. He was clutching a small white envelope between his chapped fingers. Gently, he laid it down beside the flowers, the cloud that was his breath lingering on the inscription on the tombstone:

But listen to the colour of your dreams
It is not leaving, it is not leaving

"Long time no see, kid," he whispered, his eyes shining with moisture, clear against the icy wind. "Long time no see."

---

A/N: The first set of song lyrics is from "God knows..." by Aya Hirano, from the "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" soundtrack. The last set of lyrics is from the song "Tomorrow Never Knows" by the Beatles.

Updating this story is my only sign of any form of holiday cheer whatsoever. I hope you realize that. (Yes, I am a Scrooge.) Too bad it's crap. Oh, well. Having even just a smidgen of inspiration for this story is a miracle in and of itself - especially in the midst of the horrific stress levels I've been suffering under in recent weeks. The world works in funny ways.

I don't think it's possible to ever make up for the mind-numbingly awful length of time during which there were ZERO updates for this story, but maybe this helps? A little? As always, thank you for your incredible patience and generosity. Until next time, then.