Beauty in the Breakdown
Chapter 1/?
By Baine
Email: lady_baine (at) yahoo (dot) com
Written: September 18, 2006
Posted: June 30th, 2007
Happy Birthday, Usagi! The first chapter of this fic is being posted today to celebrate the birth of our favorite heroine! *hands Usagi a hunky Mamo-chan dripping in chocolate…*
*—(number) Implies that there is a Japanese cultural note regarding the topic at the end of the story.
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Beauty in the Breakdown
Chapter One: Something Just Broke
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Pale sunlight streamed through the dusty window, creating a dappled effect against the floor as it made its way through the tapestry of leaves adorning a nearby tree. It illuminated the sparse room, showcasing its emptiness and rendering the place uninhabitable. Large, hulking boxes dominated the room, creating a tense atmosphere for the seventeen-year old girl observing them with a critical eye. A sour look crossed Tsukino Usagi’s face as she flounced onto the nearby window seat, glaring at the disassembled pieces of her bed lying haphazardly underneath her other window.
She let out a huff of air and turned her head haughtily as two movers entered the room and began re-assembling her bed. She pretended to be absorbed in the view outside her new window despite the fact she couldn’t care less. One thing was for sure, though—she didn’t want any small talk. It would ruin the delightful bad mood she was currently brewing for herself.
“Usagi?”
Her lips tightened as she resolutely ignored her mother, staring intently at the tree outside her window. She absently wondered if its branches would hold her weight.
A soft hand came down upon her shoulder and she reluctantly turned from the window to stare at her mother, her eyes dull and empty. “What?”
Her mother sighed heavily. “Usa, come downstairs. Let the movers do their job.” She gave her daughter a wavering smile. “I made some cold lemonade for us. Doesn’t that sound nice?”
Usagi sighed as she took in her mother’s forlorn appearance, nodding reluctantly as she stood and brushed off her skirt, glowering at the ebony-haired mover who grinned her way at the action. She shook her head angrily and stalked out of the room, pausing at the top of the stairwell. “These steps are going to drive me crazy, Mom. They creak every time I put any weight on them.”
Her younger brother cackled as he raced past her down the stairs, causing them to crack loudly in his wake. “Maybe if you weren’t such an elephant, they’d be quieter for you!”
She stared after the sandy-haired boy with a frown as she slowly headed down the stairwell. “Could you be any more annoying, Shingo?”
“You haven’t seen anything yet, Dumbo!” He jumped onto the ground platform and turned to stick his tongue out at his sister before disappearing into the kitchen.
Ikuko sighed wearily. Couldn’t her children ever behave civilly toward one another? “Children, stop. We have guests in the house. Nobody wants to hear your bickering right now.”
Usagi turned to shoot her mother a reproachful look. “They’re movers, mother. If we’re paying them, they aren’t our guests.”
“We should still be nice to them, though. They have the power to keep our belongings intact! Besides, I love their uniforms, don’t you? Oh, and Usa, did you see the one guy with the dark hair? He’s only a few years older than you are. Isn’t he adorable?” She nudged her daughter playfully, earning herself another reproachful glare.
“I’m not looking at other boys, Mama. I have a boyfriend, remember? His name is Motoki and he’s currently halfway across the country—along with everyone else I’ve ever known.”
“I know, Usa, but it wouldn’t hurt to spread your wings a little and try something new every once in a while.”
Usagi snorted as she plopped into a chair at the kitchen table. “Please. In a year, I’m going back up north so that I can go to college with everyone else. It’ll be like this year never happened. I still can’t believe you pulled me out of school my senior year. That’s cruel and unusual punishment, you know. In fact, I should probably call Child Services on you—I’m sure this qualifies as some sort of abuse!”
“Yeah, now that you don’t have any friends, you’ll actually have time to study and do your homework, how cruel.” Shingo snorted as he blew bubbles into his lemonade.
“Why, you little—”
“Enough!” Her mother smiled through clenched teeth as she poured lemonade into two Styrofoam cups and placed one in front of her daughter. “Usagi, I know you’re upset. If I could have gotten a job closer to home, I would have. This move is just as tough on me as it is on you kids, you know?”
Usagi’s shoulders wilted as she lowered her head. “Yeah, I know.”
Her mother rubbed her shoulders affectionately. “Drink up, okay? We have a lot to do today and we’ll need all of the strength we can get.”
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That night, Usagi lay in bed staring up into the darkness. Her old room’s ceiling had the night sky painted across it and glowed in the dark. She smiled absently as she remembered painting it with her friends. They had gotten paint everywhere and her father had been furious when he came home from work, but her mother had laughed it off and gotten him to cool down.
Her face darkened as she strove to rid herself of thoughts concerning her father. She turned her attention to the hallway. She could hear her brother running up and down the steps as though he were in a marathon.
“Shingo, knock it off!” She yelled, turning over and pulling her pillow over her head. Why couldn’t she have a nice, normal brother whose entire existence didn’t revolve around annoying her? She glanced over at her alarm clock. It was almost midnight.
“Shingo, go to bed already! We start school in the morning and I need my beauty sleep!” She clutched the pillow tighter and closed her eyes, attempting to drown her brother out.
She tossed and turned throughout the night, hearing every creak and squeak as the house settled around her. When her alarm clock began ringing to signify the start of a new day, she rubbed at her bleary eyes and pulled on her old uniform, eying herself critically in the mirror.
Her former school had been known for having the cutest uniforms in all of Tokyo. She had gone to a super-rich, ultra-private high school academy where nobody accepted anything less than the very best.
She gave her skirt a tug and tucked a loose curl behind her ear. Hopefully her new uniform would be cute. She had seen some younger girls walking around town yesterday with black suspenders trailing down their white blouses and holding up their navy skirts. Their feet had been adorned with white shoes that had a vivid green stripe across the sides, completely clashing with their clothing. Her school had to have better uniforms than that. *—1
She hurried downstairs, frowning at her brother as she plopped into the seat across from him. “Did you really have to run up and down the steps for an hour last night? It took me forever to get to sleep after all the racket you made.”
Her brother shook his head quickly. “No way, you are so not blaming me for what you did!” He petulantly turned towards his mother. “Mo~om, Usagi-baka’s trying to get me in trouble again!”
“What? I am not, dork. I’m just telling you to have more respect in the middle of the night!”
“But it wasn’t me!”
“Yeah, right. Just like you didn’t make my door handle all sticky last week or rig my window the week before or—”
“It wasn’t me,” he whined as he turned toward his mother once more. “Mooo-oom, make her stop blaming me!”
Ikuko glowered at both of her children as she set bowls of cereal in front of each of them. “I really don’t care which of you was trying to annoy whom last night. All I care about is the fact that it won’t happen again. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes’m.” Both siblings cowered under their mother’s glare and slowly began to eat breakfast, casting one another hostile glances the entire time.
Ikuko set her own bowl on the table and went back to the counter to grab the milk. She blinked at the empty counter. “That’s odd, I must have put it away already.”
She went to the fridge and opened it. Her forehead crinkled as she stared at the cereal box residing where the milk should have been. She grabbed it from its spot on the shelf and returned it to its home in the cupboard, grabbing the milk out in the process.
“Guess I wasn’t paying as much attention to detail as I thought I was,” she exclaimed with a smile, ignoring the way her children were laughing at her. “Hurry up and eat. The city buses will be at the stop soon.” *—2
Usagi glowered and curled up into her chair. “I’m too old to take the bus, Mom. It’s completely uncool.”
Ikuko turned to eye her daughter skeptically. “I suppose it’s cooler to make a mad dash and be late? Do you really want to walk two miles each way, Usagi?”
“I know! You can ditch the pansy back home and get a new boyfriend with a car. Better yet, how ’bout a motorcycle? Then again, who’d wanna be that close to you?” Shingo sneered as he brought his bowl to his lips and loudly slurped the remainder of his milk.
“Mom, why didn’t we give him up for adoption when we had the chance?”
Ikuko smiled fondly at her son. “We figured we needed more entertainment in our otherwise-ordinary lives, remember?”
“Right.” Usagi eyed her brother speculatively. “Then again, he can be rather... entertaining at times. In fact, we should put him on display at the zoo for everyone to admire.” She stood dramatically. “I can see it now. Limited time only: Come see Ape Boy Live! His arms are longer than his legs and his ears are big enough to use as wings. Admission is only 100 yen!” *—3
She grinned triumphantly at her brother and was rewarded with a loud, “Mooo-ooom!”
Ikuko sighed wearily and attempted to drown her bickering children out as she cleared the table and handed them each a bento. “Go to the bus stop. It’s right at the corner. You can tease one another all you want while you wait, okay? Usa, remember that your stop is at Nakazato High School. Shingo, you’re going to get off at Kita Junior High, okay?” *—4
She kissed them both on the forehead and ushered them into the hallway, handing them their backpacks and bus cards as they slipped on their shoes and headed out the door. She waved after them cheerfully before shutting the door and leaning against it wearily. It was only 8 a.m. and her children had already worn her out for the day.
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He stared through the window in his room, brushing away the dust that had once again accumulated over the glass. He watched disdainfully as the blue-haired woman walked out of his house and got into her car, pulling out of the driveway before heading down the bend and out of sight.
He pulled back his lips with a sneer. It was only a matter of time before this new family was out of his house. After all, it was merely a weak woman, her snobby daughter, and a young boy. How hard could it be to scare them away the same as he had all of the others?
His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. They hadn’t been phased out about the racket the night before, though. In fact, they’d blamed each other for it. He threw back his head and laughed. Pitting them against one another hadn’t been in his plans, but if that was what it took, so be it.
It was time to be more obvious about his existence. He had to do more than run up and down the steps or move items to obscure locations. His eyes glowed at the thought. It was time to begin Stage Two.
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Cultural Note #1: In Japan, students either walk to school, are driven by parents, or pay to take city buses. There are no school buses here. You can pay money or use a special electronic bus card that you’ve put money onto in advance. You can also purchase bus tickets from a machine at the station. For this story, Shingo and Usagi have bus cards because that’s the most common method of payment if you use the bus on a daily basis.
Cultural Note #2: These uniforms (with suspenders) are very similar to the ones that the students wear during the warm months at the local junior high. They also have the shoes with the stripe marks. Here, however, each stripe symbolizes what grade the students are in. We have three colors: Green, blue, yellow. At the elementary schools, the students have red or blue stripes to show if they’re boys or girls. Some schools have more sophisticated shoes.
Cultural Note#3: Pretending that there is no currency exchange and that everything is exact, you could say that 100 yen is equal to $1 (£1) USD/EURO/AUD/CAD/whatever currency type you have.
Cultural Note#4: A bento is a Japanese lunchbox. You can search Google/Yahoo/etc. for images if you haven’t seen one before. They’re fairly common, so there’s a good chance you have, though, especially if you’ve watched Sailor Moon!
Well, another new fic has begun! I’m pretty far along in this one, though I’m still figuring out my middle/finale. I only have vague impressions of what I want in the end atm.
I really love the repertoire that I’ve built between Shingo, Usagi and Ikuko-mamma in this story. It feels very real to me. What do you think? Did I do a good job? It almost reminds me of the family dynamic in PGSM!
It was *so* hard for me to come up with a title for this piece. I always struggle with titles, but this one was weird because I had a name for every chapter I’d written (which I never do because it’s too hard to come up with them. They’re coming so easily for this fic, though!), but not the main chapter. I even shuffled my Zen listening to stuff to no avail. That weekend, I was watching one of my favorite movies, Garden State. The song “Let Go” by Frou Frou came on over the ending credits and a line in the song, “...beauty in the breakdown...” caught my ear. I let it fester for a couple of days, analyzed the many meanings of the phrase and how it could work in the story, and ultimately decided on it. Voila!
The title of the first chapter, “Something Just Broke,” is also from a song. It comes from a musical by the legendary Stephen Sondheim entitled Assassins. Of course, the song doesn’t match this piece at all because it’s about reaction to the assassination of JFK and this piece isn’t, but the title is perfect and wouldn’t leave my head.
As always, I’d like to thank my fabulous editor Kel for helping me tidy this piece up. ^^
Like it? Hate it? I’m the one to talk to! Hit the little review button or Email lady_baine (at) yahoo (dot) com today!
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