InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "you put your left foot out."

Ikeda Kiriko | 池田妃凛子 (apathyisboring) wrote in disappear_rpg,
@ 2010-01-10 17:55:00

Entry tags:

open thread, renju

Obon Obon Obon Obon Obon
WHO: Everyone
WHAT: Obon
WHERE: The Shrine
WHEN: Obon
WHY: It's Obon!

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Introspection 1

lotus_beyond
2010-01-11 01:32 am UTC (link)

So many graves, none of them hers.

Far from the bustle of the festival proper, Renju walked amidst the graves at the shrine. Unlike the many others around her, she bore no bucket and scoop for grave cleaning, no offerings of cucumber and eggplant, none of the flowers or incense whose scent filled the heavy August air. It was simply her and the sutra she repeated in a whisper--the Urabonkyo, which she'd read over and over, committed to memory while she'd made her preparations for the festival, and while she'd lit the mukaebi at the entrance to the dorm, the closest thing to a home she had these days. (Should she? She'd wondered that briefly at the time, the thought stopping her hand. If it was meant to guide them, then surely she wouldn't want to make them lose their way. Eventually, she'd decided that the symbolic value of the gesture was the most important part and carried on.)

Her family, both sides, had asked her to return to Fukuoka. It was the only time she'd heard from most of them since shortly after her parents had passed, and most of them seemed awkward on the phone, hesitant to speak to her (they'd offered their condolences after the funeral, she'd responded coldly when she'd responded at all, and they'd drifted away). It was hatsubon now, though, the first Obon since they'd died; surely she'd want to return to their graves for at least a few days to pay her respects. They'd pay her way, they'd bring her there, and it wasn't as if she had anything else occupying her time, right? (They had no way of knowing, of course. She could never tell them.)

And she'd considered it. It wasn't a matter of the effort involved. Mokuren had gone to the land of the hungry ghosts to bring food to his mother, after all; a three-day trip to Fukuoka was trivial. And Kozue had gone with her family, so it wasn't as though she had the excuse of "needing to stay around just in case", either.

No, it was neither of those things that made her politely decline each time she was asked. That emotion that should've been there when she thought of them simply wasn't.

"Mokuren daikyuu higou taikyuu." Mokuren called out and wept sorrowfully. Meanwhile, her eyes were dry, her lips moving in patterns still foreign to her.

So many graves, none of them hers.

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