Last Seen Blogs
autisticmac
denim chicken?
una-pagina-acaso
Senza titolo
spignerd
ᚴᚢᛗᚨ
jrosefinearts
Jrose Fine Arts
Text
Ao Jumonji’s Roman, pt.4
a piece of Noël nr 7
Noël works in a bar now. He's very polite and responsible. He doesn't close the bar while there're still clients, even if they're too late (and not even start to tidy up before they leave). His chief doesn't get it: why wouldn't Noël want to end his workday earlier?.. Anyway, the chief himself isn't nearly as hardworking, so Noël additionally does have to close the doors (which is usually not the barman's task, but chief just leaves before him x3) and take the keys to the chief's house and drop them to his mailbox. With a boss like that the bar isn't doing very well, as you may assume =P Noël doesn't really have any ambitions there either, but he works properly. And, like, the bar is called Rapa Bar (after an island in the Pacific), and there's of course its special drink. Which is pretty shitty actually, but Noël secretly made his own recipe of the thing, a better one. Although when it's not Noël's shift the drink is still as bad as it used to be.
That particular night Noël was getting the keys to his chief's house, as usual. When he was going back home it was nearly dawn already. Noël looked up in the grey sky and sighed, when suddenly a voice called him.
That was Kurikigawa Kakehiro, his old school friend! My, my, what a meeting! Kurikigawa was going home after he was drinking booze with some of his acquaintances, when he suddenly spotted and recognized Noël (they haven't seen each other ever since the middle school). Kurikigawa's a bit drunk and more than happy to see Noël, while Noël seems sort or indifferent (or rather not really getting wtf is going on x3). Still, he follows Kurikigawa when he invites him to have a gyudon and a chat. We learn that Kurikigawa's working somewhere already, while Noël decided to go for a university (Kurikigawa says it's no wonder, since Noël always had brilliant scores in school, but apparently Noël doesn't remember that at all).
Kurikigawa also asks how's it going with music. Noël doesn't play in a band, but Kurikigawa understands that at least he's still playing and that overfills him with joy. He also tells that Noël really shouldn't have played together with those less dedicated than himself:
"You know, <...> I wouldn't have been surprised at all if you had started a professional career by now. Or would I?.. Yeah, I guess I would, like, wow! How can that be and such. You do have a talent, I've always believed that. And I would often think: "that guy's different". I don't have a talent, you see. Okay, maybe I do, but not for music, that's for sure. But I understand. I mean... see, if even I have goosebumps when I hear it, that guy must be a genius. I dunno. But I believe so. I mean, about you. That you're a genius. Geniuses are different, you see? You probably hated playing together with us. Like, why can't we understand such simple things. That's so easy, why are they so stupid? You couldn't understand that it was beyond us, could you? Nah, I dunno, really. At least it seemed so. I thought you were a genius. Like, already back then. What about you? Haven't you thought that?"
"Not really".
"I see."
"The sound", - Noël touched his temple with a finger. "I can hear the sound. Over here. But no one else seems to hear it."
"Well, of course not if it's inside your head."
"But when I play it on instruments, they do."
"Duh."
"That's how it is."
"Nah, I don't get it."
"You don't?"
"So what? Noël, that's no game for you, is it? Like hell. Hrm, how do I put it... That comes from your heart, right? You used to take this stuff very seriously. We weren't, for us that was just a way to look cool. Like, girls like that stuff. Fashion. <...> But you weren't like that. Were you?"
"I wasn't".
<end of quote!>
When Kurikigawa gets sleepy, they go home, but Kurikigawa promises to come and visit Noël at the bar.
When Noël comes home (he's renting a small flat for his own now) he doesn't go to sleep. Instead he turns his old PC on and opens a music-making program. And remembers Kurikigawa's words. Talent, he says, huh...
9. UTSUKUSHIKIMONO
My problem with retelling this one is that it's mostly dialogues, which is fantastic, but hard to sum up x3 I'll try my best though.
Ok, so it all starts with the small Monica asking her parents whenever is she going to meet the baby. It's when the spring comes.
When comes the spring? It's when the almond tree blooms. What are almond flowers like? They're pink. What's pink? It's a color, brighter then red but not white. How's that even possible? Oh come on, Monica, you'll see it when the spring comes. When comes the spring? OH MONICA.
Monice is, like, 3 years old (or turning three soon) and she can't wait.
And one day the shit happens! Her mom suddenly feels bad (oh no!), her dad's all nervous and he says that they can only pray in the wait for the baby. Wait, is that the baby coming?.. Anyways, they do pray, and ah! Soon a servant is calling them to mom's room and there's the baby!!! OH WOW!!!
In the following episodes we watch Monica and her little brother (I saw a beautiful assumption that he should be called Rolland, and that's how I'm going to call him) grow up step by step. In the beginning he's, like, still a baby, and in the next episode he's around 3 years old, while Monica is 6 (and it will be up to Monica's 13 or 14, I believe). He's asking why is it cold when autumn comes. She answers that's because winter is real soon. Is winter even more cold than autumn? It is. What comes next? It's spring - and then summer. Is it always repeating like that? It is! Why is it? No idea. How come you don't know, Monica? I dunno D= That must be God's doing. God is cool, isn't he... He is!
Monica decides that next time she sees a priest she's going to ask how come seasons spin around and whether it's God's doing.
And one more question: why is that her brother still can't walk? D=
The next extract Monica's around seven, Rolland is about 4, I guess. She's going to school already and tells Rolland whatever they're doing there. Like, they're learning how to spell words. Rolland, do you know how to spell the word elephant? I don't, why? There's only one right way to do that, like they do in the books. Oh, I see - and what if you make a mistake? The teacher will scold you. And that's all? o.O You know how embarrassing it is to get scolded in front of your friends! No idea, it's not like I had any. How'bout me? O.o You're not my friend, you're my sister.
Then they discuss what friendship is and how it differs from family. After a while Monica just says that when Rolland is old enough to go to school, she'll carry him on her back (spoiler: no, that's not happening).
It gets nastier from the next episode on. The two are singing a funny French song, this one - https://youtu.be/aJVN8wHXz68
That's actually a song about a girl named Michele who's lost a cat. She cries and wants her cat back. And an old man Lustucru says he knows where the cat is. He asks, however, whatever his award will be. Michele promises him a kiss, but Lustucru doesn't want that and says he's sold her can to get himself a rabbit 8)
Yes. That's an existing old French song about Michele and a cat. I thought it was SO cool that Jumonji-san actually managed to find it 8D
So, as I said, the two were singing this song when suddenly Rolland started to cough. Apparently that was way too much of a stress for his lungs.
He doesn't want to keep silent though and soon he asks what size cats are (he's never seen one). Monica tells a story about seeing a giant cat in the streets. Rolland doesn't really believe her, but tells that if she manages to draw it, he will trust the image. It's decided, then: Monica's asking their dad to buy her everything necessary to draw. Aren't just pencils enough? No they are not - Monica does want to make the picture credible!!!
The next time Monica's found some new entertainment, which is a brand new (okay, not brand but rather new) instrument from Germany, a harmonica! She isn't playing too well yet, though, but Rolland is still fascinated. He also tries to play it a bit himself, but only a bit. After that he goes back to reading. He's in the middle of some new book, "Around the world in 80 days". Monica's never heard of that book, so she's asking what it’s about.
She's really surprised by the plot and by the main character who basically made a rather meaningless bet for all of his fortune and tells that people like that can only be found in the books. To that Rolland notices that for him people in the books and real people outside the house are more or less the same.
The children are growing little by little. In the next episode Monica and Rolland are discussing some of Monica's school fellows. There's that boy, Gerome, all so sassy and ready to fight. He seems clever though. Rolland says that the boy must feel lonely because no one really understands him, and even though he seems to have a lot of friends, none of them are as smart as he is, so he must feel really lonely (duh, no parallel with Noël, what are you talking about? x3). That seems right, and Monica's amazed how smart Rolland himself is. He knows so many things, and that's without really leaving home!
That's because he's reading a lot of books apparently. As if his head had wings inside and was flying around, while his body was lying home. Now that's a creepy image...
Speaking of creepy things, Monica tells that not a long ago their dad had a mysterious guest, who told his name was W. That W wanted their father to find a particular item, which is, in fact, a sculpture of the famous artist, Auguste Laurant. Funny enough, that statue, the so-called "Angel" is unknown.
W has also asked to report it, if the father comes across a person with the name M...
Remember Monica started to draw? Well, apparently that got more or less serious. She's making oil paintings, now. Her easel stands in Rolland's room, so she can draw there, while Rolland would read another book. Monica isn't completely sure though, whether she likes to draw or to play with the tools more (Auguste wouldn't have approved that for sure!). She's mostly drawing landscapes.
That summer her father decided to go on a trip to the town of Étretat (that one is real, by the way!), and he took Monica, too. She didn't feel like going for more than a day, though, because she didn't want to leave Rolland behind (although Rolland wanted her to go see the world, too!). So, Monica did travel together with her dad after all (but only for one day!). She's always taking a sketchbook with her so that she could draw whatever she likes. There, in the town which is situated by the sea, she found a spectacular place to draw the landscape. Later her father told her that the famous artist Claude Monet used the same angles to picture that place [a series of paintings, google "claude monet etretat"]. Monica had never heard about that artist before so she actually felt offended that she unconsciously copied someone else's idea.
She sighs about that even when she's sitting in front of her easel in Rolland's room, making oil-paintings out of those sketches. She says she doesn't want others' fame, she wants her own, even if it's a modest one x3 Rolland encourages her in a rather touching manner, which I'm too lazy to explain in detail.
They go on with their business - Monica's drawing, Rolland's reading, when suddenly she notices he hasn't been turning pages in a while. At first she frightens that he doesn't move at all, but then she notices he's breathing after all, but he’s fallen asleep.
She thinks about how she wants to do everything for him but how Rolland wouldn't appreciate that. She wakes him up and he wants to continue reading. He wanted to complete this book by evening. She tells him not to strain himself. He nods but goes on reading anyway.
After that his health is going even worse.
He can't sit anymore and he usually doesn't have the will to change his lying position.
As the spring approaches, he's beginning to act a bit weird. Like, when the almond tree blooms, he has a talk with Monica, and he tells her about a similar tree that grows in Japan, which is sakura.
"Japan is pretty far away" [Monica says]
"People are good at getting far away."
"You can sail very far on a ship. Papa told he's been to India!"
"Some day..."
Rolland's coughing was now really worrying Monica, and she started to caress her brother's back. He didn't like it when she was doing this. She knew that, yet she couldn't help doing it anyway.
"...some day it will become possible to fly there on a plane."
"No way."
"But that's true!"
"But why on plane and not on a flying balloon?"
"I think people will be flying on planes in USA and Japan... Some day."
"Tell whatever you like, I just can't imagine that."
"Can't you?"
"I can't."
"I wish I could fly..." <end of quote>
Seems like something's bothering Rolland a lot, and he seems very anxious, but he doesn't utter a word, he hesitates before even asking anything, and then he just asks Monica to play harmonica a bit.
At summer he sees a dream. Of a clear sky, just like it is right now. How come he knows it was a dream? That's because he was walking there.
Not really walking, because he wasn't moving his legs. More like moving along some path. Monica said that perhaps he was flying, just not very high up in the air.
Rolland asks her to play harmonica again. She doesn't want to let off his hand, because it feels like letting go a small bird that will get away immediately. But she does, anyway.
When autumn comes, they are lying together at night and watching up the starry sky. Rolland doesn't seem to like autumn, because it means that winter comes real soon.
He's also afraid to sleep. Because he's afraid he wouldn't wake up again. Monika says it will be alright and she will always be there to wake him.
"It's so silent..."
"Should I play for you?"
"But it's night"
"It's fine, I'll be quiet"
"Alright"
"Rolland.."
"What is it, Monica?"
"All of the world is yours!"
Rolland smiled, although only a bit. Monica didn't know as many words as Rolland did, and she wasn't good at composing poems, although she was trying her best. She felt she was unable to express what she meant to say.
"Really!" she added before starting to play. To that Rolland only answered: "Is it?"
In winter Monica was happy to see some first snow. But when she took a bit of it to show Rolland, he acted all indifferent. It seems like he's fighting something without showing a single sign.
But he does suffer. He also feels that he's stealing everybody's time and doesn't even want everyone to celebrate Christmas with him.
"Monica, leave me be. I'm fine!"
"But I'm not. I don't wanna stay alone."
"But I do. <...> Even without you, I know the world is full of beautiful things."
"Yeah, I don't even doubt that. You know so much."
"I close my eyes and I see beauty."
"That means you can see something I can't"
"I even like autumn!"
"Haven't you told you didn't?"
"I... don't hate it. You see, even those scarlet and golden leaves you are gathering are my treasure. I wish autumn would come again. <...>"
"It's soon. But first it will have to become warmer, the hot summer will pass, and then it will get cooler again".
"That's too long... <...> That's too long for me."
Soon after that his condition gets even worse. His lips and nails get pale and dark. His voice almost disappears and he breathes heavily. He's asked Monica to bring all of her paintings, and they're now hanged on the walls. When he can keep his eyes opened, he looks at those.
That wasn't for long though. When the almond blooms again, Rolland can't open his eyes anymore. His eyelids only tremble a bit from time to time, it feels like he's unconscious. A nurse is getting invited to the house, and that woman tells Monica that she can clearly see that her brother is delighted to hear her play harmonica. He certainly can hear it, even though he's unable to talk.
Monica chats with him a lot, imagining what he would answer to her, and from his face she seems to see whether she guessed it right or wrong.
Soon Rolland passes away. He clearly said "How beautiful" just before that.
She doesn't call him but once. Because she knows he's on his way to other horizons in his search for beautiful things. This world was way too beautiful to spend all of his time fighting. So why distracting him by calling his name?
She only kisses him silently at parting.
And that was the last long story, I guess.
a piece of Noël nr 8
Noël has successfully graduated and become a teacher. That was sort of lucky, because he's taking the place of a certain woman who suddenly took her maternity leave.
We see Noël at his first day at school, how he's being presented to the children. And my, my, that's quite something XDDD
He freezes seeing all the children faces, and an unknown melody starts to play in his head. He's delighted and he can't properly process his own thoughts at the moment.
The teacher that was accompanying him tried to present him to the class, when Noël thought he was grown-up enough to do it himself, so he put a finger upon his lips and said: "shhhh!" to the teacher x3
After that he's getting acquaintanced with the class.
"Noël... sensei?.."
"What?" Noël answered, and then he realized it wasn't supposed to be phrased that way. "What is it?"
"May I ask you something?"
"You're welcome to. You may ask whatever you want. I will answer any question I can."
"What about the questions you can't answer?"
"I won't answer them"
"Aah..." some of the pupils (three of them, to be exact) answered. <...>
"I won't be answering questions that I cannot answer. But I promise I won't tell you a single lie"
"You won't?" a girl asked seriously. She looked elder than her age, as if she was in the middle school already, and she didn't bother to stand up. Her voice sounded somewhat sassy, too (although that's no wonder if she had suffered from someone's lie).
"I won't".
"What if you do?"
"I'll entrust you my life <...> And I'm not kidding. I mean it. I won't lie to you. I'm always keeping my promises. And I never give promises I can't keep".
<end of the quote>
He's being asked about his unusual eyes and hair color, and he answers that apparently one of his parents was a foreigner (but he's still a Japanese himself). Then he wins over the class when he's starting to ask their names and gives short commentary on everyone, and promises to remember every single name.
But that's not all. After that follows another episode.
Noël is visiting a person in a hospital. His grand-mother, to be exact. One and a half year before the described events he finally met her again. Unfortunately, she wasn't in the state to speak anymore. Actually, she's almost dead. She can't eat nor breathe on her own. Her brain-waves are almost extinct. Still he comes to visit her. At first it was very hard for him to not look away in disgust, but he's now used to it. He brought some oranges and, um, tries to let her smell them, hoping that perhaps she can feel something after all.
He tells her about his job a bit. And thinks that his gran was always straining herself. Now she's locked herself away from the rest of the world and finally has the time to relax.
When at hospital, he can't hear any sounds in his head for some reason. He also wonders if his gran really wants to get distracted by his visits.
10. TASOGARE NO KENJA
A woman, Chloe, is walking around an old park. She's deep in her thoughts and not really paying attention to what she's doing. For instance, she's actually alone in a deserted park at night. That could be quite dangerous for a young woman.
Yet she doesn't seem to think about that at all. All she does is sitting down a bench near a fountain and preparing herself to cry, muttering from time to time something like "What does it matter now..."
She also seems to remember some young man, and that's where she's about to finally let her tears loose, when suddenly a voice interrupts the process: "Bonsoir, mademoiselle".
The voice belongs to some mysterious man. I don't think I need to give you the description, but it's important that these clothes of his seem odd to the young Chloe, they seem out of date. His manner of speaking is quite weird, too. But since the language he's talking isn't her mother tongue, she isn't sure whether he has an accent or what.
The man asks if he may sit with her. Uncomfortable as Chloe felt, she agreed (she always tends to do the opposite of what she's told, even if that's her voice of reason talking to her x3).
The man talks to her and she's starting to suspect he's a stalker. Yet they do speak. The man sees that something is worrying her, but she only tells that she's a foreigner. The man notices that she speaks pretty fluently. That's actually surprising because she only started to study the language at university.
Anyway, the only problem she gives away to have is that she has a hard time understanding her neighbours speaking. And feeling a bit lost in this country.
Is that really a problem worth making 11 circles around the fountain?
Apparently it is.
Then the man starts to cite the song, confusing Chloe x3
In the end she does get the formula:
0 = nobody's here
1 = the man = Chloe = him = anyone
2 = the man + Chloe = 1+1
The man also tells his name's Savant. That's not his true name though.
Well, she's Chloe. That's not her true name either, but her true name is apparently too difficult to pronounce. Then the two part.
Chloe's living in a flat, not the smallest flat possible. Apparently she's a teacher, but since a while ago she doesn't work much. But she can't do anything at her spare time. She just either sits in the sofa or lies in her bed. She can't watch TV nor read books (she doesn't remember a word of what's written afterwards). Hating herself for doing nothing, she tries to compose a letter. But that one gets a mess and she throws it away.
There are a lot of photos on the walls. Where the two are happy together...
After a week she found herself in the very same park. She meets the man again. They talk. Savant cites the song again and Chloe's getting even more confused by it x3 After he ends the strophe with that "we're locking ourselves", or whatever was the precise quote from the English translation, Chloe thinks of how complicated the links between things are. She remembers how her mother taught her how to knit. Back then she thought it was the most boring thing ever: to interweave threads by always repeating the same movements...
"Alright" Chloe nodded. "I'll try to explain".
"You have my full attention" <...>
"Here's me."
"Yes, here's you".
"Yup, right, me. And there's another person."
"Me, I assume?"
"No, not you", Chloe put her hands on her tummy. "Inside myself"
"Hrm", Savant said, twisting his mustache. "In other words, your child?"
"That's right, Savant. <...> Right. But there's no father"
"Are you virgin Mary?"
"Unfortunately not. Not that I had any issues with that. You see, the person that was supposed to become his father isn't here."
"Isn't here anymore?"
"He's gone forever"
"That's sad"
"It is. At least I'm very unhappy about that."
"To give birth to a baby and raise it all alone. Well, that happens of course, but that's still rather troublesome."
"That happens"
"I guess so"
"A lot, actually"
"Yeah, you must be right."
"I'm ill"
<end of quote>
She learned she had a disease after he was gone. And right now Chloe did burst into tears without even noticing it. Savant gives her a handkerchief and leaves.
The next scene is taking place at a doctor's consulting room. Amara, Chloe's doctor, is telling her the situation, which's pretty nasty. She has cancer, stage III. There's still hope, but she will have to do an abortion. She asks for some more time to think about it. By the way he calls her by the real surname, which is Kuroeda.
Soon after that she's having a conversation with Savant again. I don't really see the point in retelling this conversation in detail, really. I only have to mention that this reflects some motifs from Honoo (see above).
They're talking in mathematical terms again. But Chloe thinks all those formulae aren't really applicable here. After all, 1+1 doesn't necessarily equal 2. It can be 0, if both she and the child die.
But as the conversation goes on, she starts to realize that the truth is really hidden everywhere. Like, when it seemed like the time stopped in her conversation with Savant, she could still hear the fountain's sound. That means the time hasn't really stopped. The truth is, that even if the fountain steadily holds the same shape, the water is always different and the time never stops. It flows in one direction.
We will all perish. 0+0=0, there's nothing. But if you accept the night when you have to go, the child will love the life too, right?
No one else except her can give birth to this particular child, to whom she sort of addresses a monologue:
"Even though a morning has come for you, there will inevitably be a night after that. Even if you see a light like a flame and stretch your hand to get a hold of a gem. Even if a windmill goes on spinning around on the windy hill by the place where you fall to the ground. Even though there will be stardust blinking above your head. Even if you manage to see an angel's smile. There might be days when you embrace happy and beautiful dreams, and days when you will be intoxicated by wine. Wandering, you will meet a wise man like I did [!!], and he will help you getting the true meaning of the message scattered all around the world... And in the end you'll set to the journey to the horizon. You're the same".
Resolved, she stands up from the bench, she straightens her spine and goes away.
<sudden twists incoming!!>
Savant's still sitting on the bench and smiling, as if he's really-really pleased. Suddenly he can't hear the water noise anymore. That's because it's too late and the fountain got turned off. He knew and was expecting that.
What he wasn't expecting though, is that there will suddenly appear a man with folds on his forehead and say in a weird voice: "I've been searching for you, Christophe".
Yes. Christophe is M. That other man is W. They're opposite yet they're the same thing. They're like two shatters of the same poem. W has been chasing M for a long long time. W calls M 'metamorphos', in kanji - "shapeless". M calls W Wulfric, the 'wolf-ruler', and also 'the Winter one'.
W wants to kill M. M only laughs, because Wulfric's too late again, anyway. While Wulfric wants to end everything, M knows there's no such thing as an "end". Even if W kills M, it doesn't really change anything. M hopes that W will get it one day.
[The human lives]"Repeating the story, death and loss, revolving Paradise and Abyss! Boys keep on drawing romans even when they go. And that's the true essence of Roman!" [M says]
"I can't agree with you"
"Still I believe we will come to understand each other one day."
"Well, you're free to believe that" said Wulfric, putting his finger on the trigger "if you can"
<...>
A shot banged, and the world continued to be there without any changes. The night passed and a new morning began.
Morning and night continued to replace each other.
a piece of Noël nr 9
(apparently the longest one of the pieces! oh, and I'll be citing a lot!)
Noël's gran is dead and they're holding a funeral. Remember Nuiko, the woman Noël was living by when he was a child? She's also there, moreover, she was mostly in charge for arranging the funeral. Noël is sort of enraptured by how she managed to treat funeral services from the economical point of view (as if it was all about the money).
But he also thinks how kind it is of her to process all the stuff for the person who wasn't her mother. She isn't all that heartless he guesses.
Her family (i.e. Ryuuetsu and Norio, the other boy I haven't mentioned in the piece nr 3) is there too, along with her husband. That one is standing by the car, though, he isn't coming to the burial itself) and Noël are the only ones who actually made it to the cemetery. While all the others seem quite indifferent and/or bored, Noël's not:
"Noël was looking at the gravestone and speaking without a sound: That's all, granny... No, he corrected himself in a second - baba [I don't remember how it was translated by Defade. you know, baba's somewhat ruder than obaa-chan]. That's all, baba. You were put silently to sleep, getting cut off all those pipes - that's no fun, huh? Not that you were any fun at all. Had you regained consciousness, you'd think you want someone to kill you already, no doubt. Although you hadn't. That wasn't really 'life', was it? Yet you were being kept 'alive'. And I was talking to you as if you had been alive. Although I knew it was a lie. Had I had at least a shatter of kindness, I'd get you cut off the artificial breath right off. You must know, I was actually thinking about it, but not that I was considering that seriously, like, weighting pros and cons and such. And I didn't want to, to tell you the truth. I haven't done anything for you. You died all alone. I let you die all alone.
Baba.
Granny.
I'm not apologizing. But I will tell you from the bottom of my heart.
I didn't hate you. You were stiff, you lived alone and you died alone, but I don't hate you. I'm proud of you and I have respect for you. And I feel lonely because of your death." <end of quote>
Then the weather gets worse and the family decides to leave asap. They're not taking Noël though. Their ways part here.
At parting Nuiko tells though that all of the old woman's belongings are in a storage now, and Noël gotta sort them out in the upcoming three days.
Noël was rather planning to get rid of all of them, but the old man on the encounter advised him to take a look at least. And so Noël did. There weren't many things, but there were some. Some old drawer for example, but we'll come to that later.
Noël spots a bag he can remember his gran wearing back in piece nr 1, He actually tries to copy her manner to walk with that bag. And thinks how it seemed so cool and so warlike, as if she were fighting the whole world.
He thinks again that he didn't hate her. He doesn't have the right to say that he loved her, though, because he did nothing. Had he loved her, he would hug her and try to be her ally in this fight against the world.
Well then, the drawer. Some meds in the upper shelves, no papers (Nuiko must've taken those already), an old kimono with a nostalgic scent he could remember from his childhood. Then finally the bottom shelf. Some photoalbums (Noël wants to take a closer look at the old photos and decides to take those), postcards from random people - nothing special. And finally three letters all written by the same person from different places. Two are just envelopes, but the last one still has the letter inside.
Noël takes that one. Seems very old, and it's been reread so many times that it got really decrepit by the bends. It also seems as if it's been under a rain or something, the paper's all wavy.
It's hardly readable though.
Except for one last line. You know which.
Following - a passage about how shitty is the world and how so many bad things are happening, and how life is not priceless but worthless, and how there die a lot of people every second. But no one wants to notice this. Because that's tough. People aren't allowed to be kind to other people or they'll break.
"He was never creating illusions that anyone wanted his birth. He just couldn't imagine that.
Because he had had such a miserable life.
Because he was feeling lonely.
Because he was feeling sad.
Because he had pitied himself.
He wanted to hate! To hate from the bottom of his heart, to be rude, to destroy. Then he would have forgotten how miserable he was. There would be no more loneliness or sadness. But, unfortunately, he pitied himself. Perhaps he was an unwanted child, yet he valued himself. And he wanted to think that it's fine that he's allowed to live. He wanted to believe. However miserable, lonely and sad his life was, but he was also living it sort of furious and with all his strength. He was grasping and clinging onto it.
He tried to love the world.
To forgive.
And thus to deserve forgiveness.
It's fine for me to live, isn't it?
Of course it is - that's what he wanted to hear as an answer. At least little by little! Let the others acknowledge his right to live. He isn't bothering anyone. He isn't a threat to anyone. If left in peace, he never does anything bad to anyone. Isn't it fine if he just lives here?"
Noël's drinking hard. And keeps remembering those enchanted words from the letter. He thinks that his life wasn't all that bad actually. Like, there's no devastating war. And he does live in a hi-tech country and he has Internet. How amazing is that?! He can upload the pieces of music that are roaming through his head for everyone to hear. Isn't that a salvation?
He can't bear it when he's sober so he's drunk pretty constantly. He thinks that it's not like there's a door which one can only go through with a signed license from one's mother that he's allowed to live. No one will ever guess that a child is unwanted unless someone tells that.
He's trying to think that his mother didn't mean it perhaps, that it was just a figure, because she felt upset or something...
But then, when he tried to speak about that to some strangers, he got into a fight and ended up getting a little beaten and sitting in some side-street, looking at the stars with his lips bleeding. And thinking of how all the stars will vanish, and nothing can help. He can't find the meaning anymore. He thinks he needs to tell that to his pupils. And how much of a shit he was for wanting to use these children to find a meaning for himself.
It's Christmas Eve. Noël's drunk again, he's standing in the street, looking at celebrating people. He's smiling and singing Christmas carols.
Shit happened. The teacher, who had taken the maternity leave, came back to the school. Her baby didn't survive after all, and she wants to get back to work asap. Noël quits. He can't remember much after that, apparently he was drinking all along.
Already drunk, he goes to some bar. It's full packed, and Noël can sort of hear some music there, but he doesn't even seem to realize it's inside his head. There he falls asleep, having ordered a whiskey. When he wakes up he discovers his wallet is gone, so he gets beaten up again by the other customers.
He goes away after that and ends up sitting in some side-street, looking at the stars and the freezing white moon with his lips bleeding and a the feeling of deja-vu. He thinks he should just lock in himself and bear this shitty life until he's gone. Without hoping or believing. When suddenly he notices a black figure...
After the fated line, "I have heard your music", Noël freaks out and can't understand how it’s possible to establish the link between those pieces he's uploaded and himself. And how come anyone could know he'd be here (he doesn't even know where he is himself). But you know the scenario and which book he's about to receive... The last thing Revo gets to say in this chapter is "Stream your song. You can do that, and you cannot do otherwise".
11. 11-MOJI NO DENGON
Chloe-san's back! (she's named in the preface of the chapter with the list of characters, but I don't think her name is mentioned even once in the chapter itself).
She's also back to Japan, btw. She's become much skinnier now, and her disease's pretty bad. Still, having put on her jacket which is now too big for her body, and putting on sun-glasses she wanders off from the hospital. Walking through the morning streets, she remembers her messy life. How she fell in love with a foreign student when she was 20, and how mad that love was, and how they didn't want to part for even one moment.
At some point she reaches a park and there she sees a fountain with a bench not far from it. There she sits. Her thoughts are getting a bit messy, too. She can't feel much pain, though.
Perhaps they should've tried a bit harder to pursue her mother to give them her blessing, but instead they decided to go to his motherland. His adoptive parents weren't really happy to see their boy gave up on his study for some Japanese girl. Moreover, they were in the middle of getting a divorce, too, so they hadn't really helped at all.
It could still be pretty fine had she not become pregnant. After that her husband gave up on all the part-time jobs and went to some mining company. Soon enough there was rumored to have been some kind of an accident. She got reported that apparently he died, but no details had been revealed, and soon that company just disappeared in the thin air.
Then the news about her illness.
How would her life have changed if she had made other decisions? No idea, but at least there's one decision she doesn't doubt. That's giving birth to her child. She felt already pretty weak by that time and even fell unconscious soon after the birth. Well, at least she did manage to meet her mother and tell her the situation personally, and not in some messy letter (which she had sent earlier and which was just really messy). And for the first time in her life she saw her mother crying.
She can remember her husband hearing the news. When it was confirmed she's pregnant and would give birth around December, he muttered something like "Winter... or maybe Christmas" - she's remembered both names but couldn't decide for one until she's given the birth to their baby.
She would want to apologize personally when you grow up and blame her for leaving you right after you were born. What would you do then? You'd probably laugh.
"You probably can laugh by now, can you?
I wish I could hear you laugh.
See your smile.
<...>
Say, you would be getting spoiled a bit, right? And loved.
You'll come to meet different people. Some will become your friends, you'll fall in love with some others.
But it's probably not going to be always just fun. There will be hard times, too.
You would be betrayed and wounded sometimes, and you'll injure someone too, I guess. But that'll hit you as well. You'll be regretting it and think about that a lot, and you'll be failing some tasks.
Sometimes you'll be in pain. You will be for sure. But you know what?
When that pain becomes unbearable, you may just squat down. And feel like you want to run away a bit.
But if you can, I would like you to face your hardships bravely.
I think at times you really need courage to live a life.
Never give up, alright?
Whatever may be, never give up. Don't give up until your last day. Because that's a no go.
Because that's your life. <...>
Please don't ask me what kind of a life I wish you would have. Just live as you feel it.
No, really, please do! You are born already, isn't that alone great?
But I beg you.
Please do live. I want you to live. Don't forget that.
Remember.
You are born because I really wanted you to be.
I'm so glad I gave you life.
I'm so glad I gave life to you.
I miss you.
I miss you so much. I wanted to come, but apparently that's too far.
So far...
I'm sorry.
I can't really see anymore.
I guess there's almost no time left.
But I can still hear the fountain.
So dark.
You face...
Laugh!
Please.
Laugh.
I want to see you, but... I want to keep an eye on you, but... alas.
Rin to ikinasai [sry x3]
And I hope you...
b-e-c-o-m-e-h-a-..."
<end of the quote>
We see "you" from the beginning again. You turn around to see a gate, and both Violette and Hortense are standing there, not uttering a single sound. They don't tell you what to do. Yet you step forward.
a piece of Noël nr 10
Very unusual language-wise, but sorry, that's getting completely neglected x'3
We're in the beginning of a live. Noël's all excited. When will it finally begin? It's all dark, because the lights are off. Finally they go to the stage. Spectators can sort of feel and see by the little light they do have that the musicians are on the stage already, so they're getting overexcited.
Noël just can't wait. He's putting a lot of effort not to grasp the microphone yet.
And still...
When they do begin playing, Noël suddenly doesn't sing 83
The music slowly ceases. Everyone's staring at him (Ichizo's panicking in the backstage). They've been having so many rehearsals. Everything should be fine.
Yet there's something he has to do right here and right now.
Noël does take the microphone and starts to hold a speech. Translating most of it below.
"When we had just met, gurasan said something to me. That "musicians' souls are free". Musicians'. I was sitting there all down, and he suddenly called me a musician. He acknowledged me as an equal to himself.
Well yeah.
Apparently I am a musician. <...> I'm not a good talker, really, but I can tell everything I want with music. <...> Then why am I standing here and blabbering instead?
Listen.
Gurasan said that musicians' souls were free. But does that apply solely to musicians?
You know what. Freedom isn't easy. You can't gain it just like that. You can't even feel it just like that, actually.
But you know what. Just think. Close your eyes and think. Of whatever you want. Of whatever comes to your mind. Like, of your beloved being, for example. A reminiscence. Whatever.
Got it? Were you free at that moment?
The soul's freedom isn't something that only musicians have. You are all free <...>
I am a musician. Gurasan's right, damn my poor destiny. It's been following me ever since I was a kid. That's my fate. If you're a musician you can't run away from that <...>.
But even though I'm a musician, I'm also a human. Just like you guys.
Our life is much like a journey. A long or a short one, that depends on a person, but we are all wandering.
We are heading to another horizon. Some of us walk under the very same sky and see and hear the very same things. Our ways cross and part.
We're all wanderers. You and I - we're all free wanderers.
That's what I wanted to begin with. Not as a musician. That's where my free journey begins.
I'm no different from you. At all. Yes, I'm standing at this place and I do mean it. Well okay, perhaps I can see a bit better from this spot up here on the stage. I can see every one of you, every face. And you're all staring at me.
It feels so weird, you know.
Why am I standing here?
<telling short of his meeting with Revo and finding the musicians>
What about yourselves?
How come you're here?
Huh? What? Who said that? Could you please repeat, I couldn't hear.
Ah... by chance, you say? Because you were born in this country at this time? Thanks for giving me life, mother?
I see. No, really, give my shitty thanks to your mom, please.
That's how it is, isn't it?
We all get born to begin with. Someone's giving us a life. There are different circumstances, and very complicated ones, too, I can't agree more.
But we did end up getting born.
Whatever may be, we're all here right now.
We're different, yet we're the same if you think about it.
Me,
you,
us,
here and now.
And that's the point.
Have you experienced something fun lately? Or something sad perhaps? Something hard?
It wasn't in vain. It's all our roman.
What is your way like? Is it comfortable? Full of dead-ends? Do you have to reverse all the time? And then onwards, with the gas pedal down? You feel like your legs are all broken? You try your best? Ah, that one's nice. What? You can't hold anymore? Yes, that happens too.
Listen, wanderers.
Fellows.
Friends.
Like-minders.
You may as well be me.
We may be different but we have the same roots.
One day I will cross a completely different horizon. And even if we're born in the same country and in one century, we still see different landscapes and experience things differently. <...> But we're here and now.
Our horizons have linked.
Having met you guys, I acknowledge the way that led me to this meeting.
And I can't help valuing myself.
And you too, obviously.
Well then, wanderers.
Soon we will take off again, but as for now - let your wings rest a bit.
Listen to my song.
Listen to our play.
Feel it with your body.
Our roman.
Vanishing Starlight.
Yodaka no Hoshi..."
This blinking star will vanish one day, but me [ore], and me [boku] and you, and all of you, and we will continue our journey across the horizon where morning and night revolve.
Because there's roman there.
(the end.)
0 notes
Text
Ao Jumonji’s Roman, pt.3
7. YOROKOBI TO KANASHIMI NO VIN (I believe that's the longest one btw, it's almost 100 pages)
The story is told in quite an interesting way. It's mostly Lorraine-oriented, but we're hinted that she's remembering all of what's described. Like, the very beginning is something like "She especially likes to recall that October", and there are things like "She hasn't really remembered any of the following days". But other than that it's quite a simple narration, with some very elegant language (which gives a really good impression of her noble upbringing).Anyways, we start off a sunny October day, when Lorraine is about 10 years old. It's the time past vintage, wine is starting to get prepared, in particular - women are dancing upon barrels full of grapes, to extract juice out of them. Lorraine's watching the process, sitting on her grandpa's knees, her dad is also present. Her grandpa (his name's Nicolas) apparently spoils her a bit and is acting very strict with her dad (Lambert). Lambert is also very strict to his daughter and watches her behaving properly. Thus we have a conflict already from the first pages. See, Lorraine wants to participate in that grape-dance, and she begs her grandpa to allow her. Her father is against such a disgrace, while the grandfather doesn't really approve that but is about to allow the thing. Since her grandfather is the head of the family, Lorraine was about to get what she wanted, to her dad's displeasure, but suddenly another person stops her. That's Claude, a boy 4 years older than herself. He says something about that Lorraine shouldn't underestimate the importance of that work and consider it a game. "If I had been a granddaughter of His Grace the count of Saint-Laurent and the clever lady Lorraine, I would not have looked down on those women". Lorraine feels insulted and injured by these words and runs (like young ladies from count families shouldn't) away to the vineyards.There she hides, all offended at everyone, because no one understood she meant it for realz. She's hiding from the people looking for her (although she's glad she wasn't neglected and people are looking for her x3). But she can't hide from her love interest sorry I meant from Claude. He finds her and they talk a bit. Apparently, he absolutely didn't mean to offend her, but instead he knew she would be super unhappy to spoil her granddad's wine and tried to warn her. She understands that and in turn wants him to teach her about wine-making. Claude agrees and even says he could vow on that. Now that's an important point. Lorraine knows that to vow is a sin. She realizes that and assumes that Claude doesn't. But he's all so good that she feels the urge to make him commit a sin unconsciously. And she does, she makes him vow, but - he hints that he's perfectly aware of what he's doing and he means it. Lorraine thus is completely defeated.
Soon after she's turned 10, her father starts to take her to their mansion in the capital, and she has to spend the biggest part of the year there. She suffers, because she feels disgust to all the hypocrisy which is overfilling the life in the capital. Even their servants there aren't really doing their work, but instead trying to make a good impression on their masters. Had it been for Lorraine's will, she would've stayed in the village mansion all year, but she can't just leave her father alone (you see, Lambert's wife is long since dead). Instead they only go there around September and October. Well, that's still better than nothing. When Lorraine’s around fifteen and it’s right about time to go to the estate to her grandpa, they suddenly receive the news, that the said grandfather fainted and fell. They depart immediately, but alas, they come too late. Lambert is devastated, Lorraine has to deal with all the funeral business and wine-making almost alone. She is wondering about the future. Her father is quite skeptical when it comes to wine-making, after all. But after a short talk with Claude (who's become more or less a shadow of grief) she thinks that maybe one day Lambert will inherit his late father's will and make the greatest wine.
A year has passed. It was quite a dreadful year, and it brought a lot of changes. First of all, Lambert got married for the second time. His new wife's name is Cassandra (yes, it's Cassandra) and she's quite something. Look:
"Lorraine, you seem somewhat pale. Is anything the matter?"
"It is all right, mother".
"Is it? Well then please stop with this splean in your gaze. You don't want to scare away your future husband, do you?"
I think it is more of your concern, mother, Lorraine thought, but didn't put it into words. Suddenly her mother advanced her face to Lorraine and said in a manner so elegant it gave her goosebumps:
"Haven't I told you to smile? The girl doesn't listen to her mother's orders. I guess her father will have to scold her".
"I don't mind if you denounce it to him".
"I'm not 'denouncing'. Watch your manners, child. I am the spouse of count de Saint-Laurent and your mother. Mothers are supposed to teach their daughters. Aren't they? But in some special cases they do need their spouses' help".
Not willing to continue the quarrel, Lorraine stretched her lips to the extend her eyes screwed.
"Ah!" her stepmother leaned back with her beautiful face looking unpleased. "My, my, that isn't elegant at all. No, stop smiling. You are like an ugly Medusa".
As you may guess, their relationship isn't the best. In fact, if Lorraine had known about the wedding beforehand, she would have done everything to prevent it. Unfortunately, her father was quite clever with this one x'3
Cassandra's shown to us as a very spoiled and a very self-conscious woman. She's doing everything to make Lorraine obey her. She doesn't allow her to stay in the village, either. She's always visiting balls and stuff, she's ordering dresses and jewelry and such.
Among everything else she's also pretty wild. One day she slapped Lorraine, like, two or three times just because the girl hesitated to answer her question. And then she punched and kicked the servant woman that also did something to displease her. Oh, and I forgot to mention that Cassandra's the one to own THE necklace at the moment. You know which one I mean x3
Soon Lorraine learns that her father rents the vineyard to count de Dunan. That man is particularly known for making real loads of wine that's not particularly good but gets sold to a lot of houses and thus is very well-known. Lorraine was simply shocked and tried to make protest, but unfortunately she gets her father's pride injured so he just doesn't listen to her.
Without her last ray of freedom Lorraine feels that her personal space is getting really narrow. Like, she only owns as much space as her body occupies and no more.
Right after that she's thought about that, Claude (he's been serving in the mansion ever since the vineyards had been rented) comes to call her to her stepmother and they have the following talk:
"Perhaps I am permitting myself too much, but I would suggest that you change your clothes before you go to this arrangement".
"Do I look that bad?"
"I'd say you are not dressed according to mistress's taste".
"I guess <...> I really should change. Wouldn't you help me out?"
"If that's your wish".
Lorraine wanted to laugh, because he played along her joke. But then she realized he wasn't playing. He can't be serious, can he?
She looked at him closely. Claude answered to her look. Suddenly remembering her shame, Lorraine lowered her gaze. The very same instant Claude half-closed his eyes. Or maybe it only appeared so.
"Although I must confess that this work would be very unusual for me. Since one is not allowed to slip at this task, I suppose I should better call for a girl more used to it".
"Yes... If you may, please do".
"As you wish, lady Lorraine".
Claude bowed way too deeply and left the room.
<end of quote>
(Caaan you feel the tension getting high? 8D)
Apparently, Cassandra wants to take her to some nobleman party. Not that Lorraine had any choice but to go.
There she's getting acquaintanced with count de Dunan. And yes. She's supposed to marry him.
He's a very rich and a very ugly man. Not quoting the description here, but you only need to know that even Cassandra needs to hide her face behind a fan in order to hold her nose and not smell that awful odour.
Lorraine's desperate. Even as little space that she had had is getting stolen from her and there's nothing she can do about it.
She doesn't want to see her parents and stays in her room. Claude's making her some food and they have a talk.
At first one may think that Claude's all fine about the news. He even says something like "I don't happen to know his grace de Dunan and thus I can't understand why you are so horrified". However as the talk goes on, he explains himself better.
He's in fact in rage that of all men Lorraine must marry the thief that has stolen their beloved count de Saint-Laurent's vineyards. He thought he would be cool about her marriage (it's not like he could ever hope to marry her himself), but he totally isn't. Ah, that's right. He's been in love with her ever since they first met. He was thinking about keeping those feelings a secret until he dies, but he feels he needs to act now. And he proposes that they run away.
I don't think I need to explain what happened next, do I?
Valuable details that need to be added about this excerpt is that Lorraine blames herself for being so naive. She thought that Claude knew more about life, but now that she's thinking about it his world had been even more limited than hers.
Other than that - well, it was pretty basic. With all the Abyss stuff.
Soon Lorraine is returned to the mansion. She is completely broken and doesn't fight against her destiny anymore. She's become so very obeying, and her stepmother is very happy about that. No one is even scolding Lorraine for running away. It's getting prepared for the wedding. And soon enough the day comes.
Lorraine's welcoming all the guests like a doll. When suddenly one of them is mentioning the Man in the mask.
Lorraine got startled for a split second, but then she becomes indifferent again. What does it matter?..
But then she's getting re-dressed in, well, her wedding dress. Cassandra's also present, acting all mild and sweet (bitch). And then she gives Lorraine the Réine Rouge. It's just for one day, a special opportunity for the wedding.
Lorraine's staring at the red diamond and suddenly she hears its voice and understands why she is still alive. She asks to be left alone for a bit and then escapes through the window. There she finds that one guest that mentioned the Man in the mask. That's none other than Jean-Bâtist from Elysion, you may remember that guy from the manga.
Soon enough Lorraine's waiting for Abyss in a passage. She's wearing a wedding dress and a bridal veil. When the said man comes startled by, she gets a knife from under her skirts and stabs the bastard. She's dizzy, she runs away, she's spinning around herself, crying and laughing. The voice inside her head keeps telling her: Kill, kill, kill, kill (etc), and she's ready to kill her father and her stepmother. I was actually hoping she'd get that bitch at least, but nope.
Because she suddenly recalls Claude and how he said that if God is willing to blame her of any sin, he'd take it in her stead. She cries again and then throws the damned necklace away.
Thus start Lorraine's bizarre adventures. In the next scene we see a mysterious woman with golden hair (I wonder who that might be), who's, um, receiving a guest. She calls herself Isabel and she gives the guest (we'll learn later that that's none other than Jean-Bâtist again) a beautiful night. The man doesn't really understand what a woman like herself would be doing in a place like that, but it's not like he's the one to decide. He promises to come to her again, and soon after he leaves she says: "I cannot stay here any longer. Farewell, my masters".
Lorraine doesn't have a firm name or place now. She's working at brothels in miscellaneous towns and she's always so sweet to her "masters" that she soon becomes very popular among them. However, she doesn't stay long at one place. She leaves as soon as some men are willing to see her in particular. For example, Jean-Bâtist did have to chase her through several towns.
She doesn't decline anyone and tries to work for as low loan as possible. [Attention: sudden plot-twists incoming!]
One day she's having a special visitor, a man named Menteur ('liar' in French). The thing is, no other prostitute wants him, while Lorraine's okay with everyone. The man is very ugly and very rude. He strangles Lorraine and insults her, blaming her for hypocrisy (he is very well aware of his own ugliness and it's very rare that some woman doesn't show any disgust). But Lorraine (Susanne in this particular place) only hugs him and does everything possible to bring him peace. He does fall asleep in her embrace after all. And promises to come again. (side-note: he, um, wasn't really one of her men, because apparently he, er, doesn't have enough health for that)
No wonder that she flees right after those words. But Menteur is pretty persistent. He does find her again, claims a liar, and then says he's taking her away from this place, whether she likes it or not. She says that she can't love anyone, that she doesn't have such a right, because she's a sinner, but Menteur doesn't really care.
He buys her away from the brothel and takes to his place. Apparently he's actually a count, count de Mulles. He's the only son of his father, the former count. All other children that the man had had were either still-born, or still-born AND taking their mothers' lives. This only son was preserved in the castle, but the father didn't want to have him as his heir, so he ordered to go and find some peasant boy that'd resemble himself. Thus Menteur got forever locked in his room, while the peasant-boy was raised as the count's son.
But apparently the said peasant boy wasn't all that clever, so soon after his step-father's death he came to Menteur to beg for help with all the complicated noble-man business. Menteur agreed with the condition that he'd be allowed to move around freely.
He's still living in that hidden room, and almost no one in the castle knows his true identity. He's believed to be a bastard, and not that he minded in particular.
Lorraine doesn't really get why he needs her, if she can't love him, but to that he replies that no one has ever anyway, so it doesn't really matter. But for once in his life he wants to love someone himself. And make Lorraine (mind, that he doesn't call her by that name, he only calls her "you") happy. He asks if she has any particular wish. Actually she has. She wants to dance upon a grape-barrel together with other women.
Why, Menteur's family does own vineyards, so that's only a question of waiting until October.
The two start to live in the hidden room, until a better house's getting built. They talk a lot and she's showing him all signs of tenderness, even when he tries to stop that.
But alas. One day she wakes up only to discover that Menteur's dead. She caresses him and watches his face silently. For a long time. But then she thinks she needs to tell someone in order to get him a proper funeral. So she goes to the kitchen, and then she learns from an old servant-lady that apparently that was no coincidence and if Lorraine doesn't get away, she'll get assassinated too D=
Lorraine realizes that Menteur was slowly getting poisoned, and she has symptoms of intoxication too. She still wants to give him a proper funeral, but unfortunately she has to run for her life before she gets a chance to do that.
After that her mind suffers even more damage. Leaving out some details, Lorraine starts to wander around. She's just walking all the day long, like Forrest Gump was running. She doesn't eat, she only drinks water from puddles. She only sleeps when she's completely exhausted, and whenever she sees a dream, she wakes up with an outcry and keeps on going. People are thinking she's weird (well no shit..) and are trying to neglect her as much as possible.
But one day a priest starts a conversation with her. He's inviting her to visit a church so that they could pray and talk, but she says she insists she can't go into the church because she's way too sinful and has committed a murder.
Having heard that, people around her throw rocks at her until she falls unconscious (although the priest was trying to stop them).
She wakes up in a monastery, and a nun named Matilde is treating her. After some time Lorraine (she finally says her name for the first time since she killed the Man in the mask) has enough strength to actually get up. She looks at the life of the nuns and thinks it'd be nice to join them, but she isn't convinced that searching for her own comfort is a proper reason to become a nun.
But then Matilde shows her what's outside the monastery, which is a vineyard that belongs to it. Seeing the late-autumn landscapes, Lorraine feels her eyes are getting filled with tears and asks if it's okay if she stays there.
a piece of Noël nr 06
From now on these pieces of Noël are getting a bit complicated language-wise. And not just that, there also appear loads of brackets, inside which we see Noël's thoughts on the described events (more or less).
Really, these pieces get better every time...
So, Noël is a high-schooler now (was this actually “junior high“ in English? you know, years 10-12). He's about to leave the classroom, when suddenly he's stopped by a really annoying gal who wants him to come with her and her friends to karaoke. He declines, saying that he ain't got money. Basically, he just runs away.
He's on his way to a conbini store. He's having a part-time job there, helping to drag around boxes and as a cashier. It's all routine for him, but he does his work properly.
At 11 pm he's going home. He doesn't live by Nuiko's anymore. This time he's sharing his apartment with a middle-aged man, whom he calls "uncle", but I'm not sure if he's really his uncle or what. Anyway, that guy seems to hate Noël nuts. Like, see this charming dialogue:
"Uncle, I'm home" - "Like shit I care, you moron" - "Have you had your dinner?" - "Shuddup. It's none of your fucking business when I have my meal. Die" etc.
Noël has a room in this appartment, a small room with a futon and no bookshelf. He's got some books, some CDs, a recorder, an electric guitar and some note-sheets. That's pretty much all. Once he can hear his uncle's asleep, he plugs earphones to the guitar and starts to play.
8. TENSHI NO CHOUZOU
The main character in this story is no doubt Auguste Laurent. He's an artist, and a very dedicated one. You know, the type that could forget to eat when he works. The type that looks at other people like at shit if they're not true artists. The type that won't tolerate being disturbed during their inspiration moments. We'll of course learn that step by step during the story, but I think it's worth telling beforehand in my synopsis.
So, in the very beginning we see him doing his artistic work in his atelier, when suddenly a man (miller Mounier to be exact) comes in with the great news: Auguste's wife Louise has born a baby! Auguste hurries to his house (which is the next door, really) and indeed, he sees his wife holding a baby in her arms, much like the Virgin with baby Jesus ("oh what a trivial comparison!" Auguste thinks). He's of course very glad and can't find proper words. Unfortunately, this was pretty deadly for his wife. Soon after that she ceases to be. She also felt very sorry, and those were her last words .___.
The miller and his wife Tala (hey, can you remember a chick of the same name from Elysion? I have no idea, if that's really her or what) are ready to help him out, but Auguste has his own idea. Right about the next day after his wife died, he thought he'd had enough of baby screaming and crying, so he takes it and walks away to the rainy night. He's going straight to the monastery they're having nearby, and leaves the baby there in a mechanism that looks suspiciously like the modern baby-boxes. Right after that he runs away, crying and hating himself, because he realized it wasn't for the baby's sake but rather for his own. He falls to the ground and smites mud upon his face, but unfortunately the rain is heavy enough to wash all of it away. After some time Auguste thinks he just wants to go and continue his work already. And he does.
After that follows quite a long piece about Auguste's art. He can't find a proper form for his idea. He's chasing that ideal, but it always slips away. And he's, um, very emotional about that. He falls to his knees, he tears his hair and beats his forehead against the wall of the atelier and such. In search for his inspiration Auguste goes away from his workshop and lies in the grass on the hill where both his atelier and the windmill are placed. While he's lying around, the miller, Mounier, comes, worried about Auguste's state.
From their talk we learn that apparently Mounier suffered from a sort of a trauma and he had a complete amnesia. He can't remember whatever was his life before not so long ago when he was found unconscious somewhere nearby. Auguste asks him, why Mounier lives, a man without any past?
Mounier answers that he just lives since that was God's will. And suggests that Auguste would eat a bit, after all... But then Auguste just tells him to go away.
In the next scene we see Auguste working in his workshop. Then there comes a visitor, Auguste's old acquaintance, an architect named Réaumur. The man has an order for Auguste, but Auguste doesn't even want to hear anything about it. Auguste has his own art and he can't let himself get distracted by such nonsense as trying to gain fame and money. Réaumur wanted to order some sculptures for the cathedral he was projecting, but Auguste holds a speech about how insignificant that would be, and how Réaumur’s sold his artistic soul, which an artist should never do. All in all, they had such a quarrel, that Réaumur goes away and promises never to come again.
Tired after this fight, Auguste also feels somewhat uneasy in his back.
Auguste keeps on drawing drafts for his future work, for his Louise, whom he wants to revive in stone. He feels worse with time. He's going around all gloom and moody. And he starts to doubt his own ideals. He wanted to find the very ideal shape itself, but is there one? He starts to think that perhaps Réaumur had realized, that all of this "pure art" was nonsense since a long ago and tried to help him by offering that job. And he, Auguste Laurent, neglected his old friend, being all cocky and self-confident.
At some point he also ends up by the monastery walls and hears laughing children voices. That gets him. They are haunting him. He runs away, frightened, and the laughing voices keep chasing him, until he falls unconscious.
After that he falls a bit ill. Not a bit, actually, his condition is quite nasty, the miller and his wife are treating him. But when he recovers a little he's also starting to change.
Soon enough he lies alone in his bed. It's nearly dawn and he suddenly slips away from his house near the windmill and goes to the monastery on his own will. There he sits, both afraid and wanting to hear children laugh...
It all starts anew for Auguste. He's spending a lot of time sitting by the monastery walls and reflecting upon all possible things. People in the town think he's gone nuts, but he's so quiet that no one really cares. He's become polite to Mounier and overall. And he keeps making drafts, until one day he's satisfied. Then he starts to work with marble, but the problem is, he's becoming weaker and weaker every day.
He sees the ideal shape now, but he can hardly work with stone. He's trying his best though. They talk with Mounier one more time, and remembering their first talk, Auguste says: "It seems like I differ from all other people. Eating, sleeping and working isn't enough for me to live. I have a duty, and for that solely I live. <...> I think to live just for the sake of life itself is not worth it. But I'm not asking to understand me, Mounier. I have a life of my own, while you have yours".
Yet he's thankful that Mounier and Tala were keeping him alive all this time.
One day he sleeps in the atelier, and when he wakes up, he sees a mysterious and a very charming woman by the unfinished sculpture. The woman says her name is M and she wants a favour from him. She's brought a bottle of beautiful wine [from the very same monastery where Lorraine ended up] and she has a good offer if Auguste agrees to hear her out.
However, Auguste declines (in a rather impolite way even). He doesn't really want to listen to her and tells her to go away, but we do learn what she wanted. If Auguste had agreed to create an image of herself, she would've returned some spilled sand to his silver hourglass. Auguste drives her away (not by force: he has none =P), and she sighs at parting: like, that's a pity, had you agreed, you would have been able to create many other pieces of true art.
Auguste's gathering his last strength to finish the sculpture. He doesn't eat anymore, because he doesn't need that. He works in the atelier, at one point recalling his childhood. How he used to draw things on earth and get despair whenever people would stomp his earth-painings away.
He remembers Réaumur and wonders if he was as dedicated as a child.
"We have learned many new skills. We have come to express our feelings in a new, in a more complicated way. But you must not get rid of your roots. You must not forget where it all started. The beginning goes on until the very end. And exactly because it doesn't get interrupted, we can march on.
Réaumur.
My old friend.
You started to look for money and fame because you lost your joy.
At some point you lost the excitement which was boiling in us, and all the impressions, all the curiosity, the imagination, the joy - the joy that wasn't supposed to end. <...> [The joy ] That was the very ideal shape itself".
After having met the woman Auguste was as if drained of all his powers and blood. However, after Mounier has come to visit him at the atelier, Auguste did take a sip of that wonderful wine which the woman brought, and got some of his powers back.
Although he does start to see... things. He speaks to Réaumur, who comes to visit him in the atelier (and looks young because of some reason). And to his late wife who tells him to take a rest.
Some cute animals run through the atelier and butterflies are flying around...
That's where Auguste realizes it's an illusion and gets rid of it. He's left alone in the atelier with dust and his pain, but also with his sculpture.
He thinks of the essence of beauty and realizes that beauty is unique. Beauty is not to be shared with other people, because when you do express it, others can only see another beauty, not the very same one. Beauty is something that is worth dying with.
At his last moments, finishing the sculpture, he's thinking that had his wife not perished and had he not got rid of the child, he could have had a happy family life. Yet he would still die because of the illness. He would have been surrounded by his family at his dying moments, his life would have been filled with love. But he would have asked himself: "Is this fine? Are you satisfied?"
He apologizes to his wife and child. He is guilty, but because of that he was able to chase the beauty which he was dreaming of.
"We will all perish, but the world doesn't have an end.
"I have no regrets anymore".
He fell flat on his back.
Light was streaming down on him.
That wasn't an illusion this time.
You,
You, stranger with no name.
"You have finally smiled to me..."
And then he heard a voice:
It's alright now, papa.
Then he closed his eyes.
The light started to die away, and soon his breathe ceased."
0 notes
Text
Ao Jumonji’s Roman, pt.2
Upon a closer look, apparently that first post hasn’t REALLY been noticed... Oh well! At least the text will be available for everyone to see, I guess x) Let’s go on, then!
A piece of Noël nr.3
It starts off in a school (that junior school, you know, the lowest stage out of the three), where Noël is all neglected by other children, and not only because of his eyes and hair (that too, though), but also because his clothes stink. He goes home, although he isn't sure that place can be called "home" for him. He doesn't have a room of his own, so he has to sleep in the living room by the family altar.
The owner of the house is a middle-aged fat ("seal-like") woman named Nuiko. As Noël tries to sneak by, she grumbles at him, because she’s received a call from the school and she has absolutely no intention to give a shit about that (which she eventually might have to, if the teaching stuff is insisting). She also asks Noël to go to the hospital and say his grand-mother to get discharged from the hospital already.
Noël's glad he wasn't yelled at and decides to go for a walk, but at the exit there stands the elder son of the family, Ryuetsu, who wants to try a new hold (like in fights) on Noël. He does. Noël gets pissed and thinks that he isn't all that small, while Ryuetsu isn't all that big (even though he's several years older), so they really could just fight almost equally, but he's still too scared and misses the opportunity to answer the attack.
He's irritated and wants to cry at the same time, but he holds his tears and runs away, away to the north from the town. There, among bushes there are tires, piled up together. Behind those there stands an organ that Noël hid here a year ago. The thing is all corrupted because of winds and rains, but Noël still plays it. He plays it and sings, even when it gets dark.
4. HOSHIKUZU NO KAWAHIMO
Heeey, have you been missing Serge? You probably haven't, but he's back =D
He's back to his wife and they have a baby. Beau is also there, conducting Serge so that he wouldn't just stand there all amazed.
Natalie seems feeble and weak, because the birthgiving was very exhausting, yet she smiles and even gets their daughter a name, Étoile (because Serge is too amazed to think of such a trifle as a name himself x3). Unfortunately, soon Natalie feels worse, her temperature gets even higher and she loses consciousness never to get back to herself again. Oops.
The next scene is Étoile waking up and seeing her papa right next to her, and also something dim and black next to him. Is that a guest? It moves so weirdly.
Her papa says it's more like a family member, like a sister, and Étoile is all "wow, I've got a sister...". She actually wanted one forever, but she knew her parents weren't quite complete to get her one, so she was super-happy. The sister climbs up her bed and Étoile learns the sister has an extra leg (which is, according to what papa said, a tail). And so Étoile thinks of a name for the sister, which is Pleut (as her papa's forgotten about name-giving again).
After this warm scene we get to know how exactly the two have lived so far.
So, screw Rouen, the big city! The family got to a... um... more a village-like place, Monpain. Fortunately enough, the neighbour family consisting of a smith Édmond, his wife Ninon and their son Loic, has just lost their second baby, so Ninon was able (and willing) to feed the new-born orphan Étoile.
Serge is a completely new man now. He does whatever job he's asked to do, and he suddenly discovered a talent to handle animals. He's even called an "animal magician", because he's so good.
He's grieving very much about his loss, but he understands that if he dies now, he would never be able to see his daughter again, and that'd be unbearable, because he loves her oh so much.
Unfortunately, it soon becomes obvious that her eyes can't really see.
"Étoile had had a poor eyesight ever since she was born.
What is good eyesight? That question is easy to answer: to see the shape and colour of distant objects as clearly as if they had been near. Having come really close she could distinguish something, too. On the other hand, if she couldn't come close to something, she couldn't see that at all.
Say, what's "sky"? Or "clouds" that are told to float up there? Or the birds that are said to fly across it? What's Sun and Moon? Or... they say that when it gets dark, the night sky gets covered with blinking stars".
Étoile used to feel quite lonely and afraid of everything, because she had to spend a lot of time alone after madame Ninon died, but now she has a sister by her side. Before that she would only rarely go outside the house, but Pleut now seems to want to have walks. Finally, after a talk with her dad, they decide Étoile will be trying to get out.
But when she tried that for the first time, she just froze by the doors and only got a few meters away from it. It seemed like it was even darker than usual, so Étoile got scared that she was losing her eyesight even further and so she just came home.
Serge decided he'd help her a bit, so one day they try again, now all three of them. Unfortunately, the sisters have different pace, and after some time Étoile stumbles upon a hole in the ground and falls quite badly, hurting her chin and breast. She also panics because it goes all black before her eyes. ouch. She says she hates her eyes, and Serge hugs her and tells that he personally loves every bit of her. Étoile knows he would never lie to her, and she doesn't want to lie either, but she understands her true feelings would hurt him ='C
Later that night she confesses to Pleut that she hates her name, too. She sort of wants to meet her mom, though, although she doesn't miss her and doubts they would recognize each other if they met in Heaven. Pleut seems sad, and then... brings her the leash, as if wanting to go outside. Étoile snaps and throws it away and pretends to be asleep.
Beau comes to visit the family!
After Étoile falls asleep, he speaks with Serge and we learn that Serge found Pleut when he was driving wild dogs away from the village (without killing or hurting them!!). She was walking alone and came straight to Serge, waving her tail. He said her to go away, and she did, but she just sat down in the distance and looked at him. The next day she was still at the same place and Serge decided to take her home.
They speak a bit more about Beau's business and about Étoile's eyes. Beau suggests that they go to a doctor in a university, but Serge tells that she's afraid even of going out of home, spare travelling to another town. And he doesn't want to give her false hopes either.
Étoile decided she'd become more independent, never get irritated at Pleut and that she would never cry again. Her walking practice gets better with time, as she learns the ways that Pleut is telling her about all rocks and holes on the way.
Unfortunately, one day she walked so far away that she actually got lost. Fortunately, the smith's son Loic helped her out, and that's where she decided to be polite with everyone, not just Pleut.
She’s also become the apprentice of the smith's second wife, Carol. Now she's making stuff from clay, and the worse she sees, the better she gets at that.
One day Étoile goes for a walk to the village's outskirts. She wants to visit the fruit garden that was there.
The weather seems nice, but unfortunately a great windstorm flies by, tearing the leash away from Étoile's hands, but she isn't afraid, it seems like she doesn't need it anymore. And she sees, how everything dazzles around... No, she doesn't see it, she feels it.
Later that night she actually comes out again to stare at the sky. She doesn't have the least idea if there are clouds or not, but she can somehow see stars.
Unfortunately, soon enough there comes winter, and Pleut falls ill. She never cured fully, and was slowly becoming weaker and weaker, and nothing would help. One day she disappears for the whole day, and Étoile discovers she’s unable to keep her promise not to cry ='C
Soon after that there comes a super poetic description of Pleut's dream. I'm not even trying to retell that, and it's pretty close to the song anyway.
The next morning Serge wakes up in his chair (he was sitting by Pleut and Étoile, who were sleeping together on the floor) to discover that apparently Pleut is gone .__.
He wakes up his daughter, she cries, and then Serge discovers that apparently Pleut was pregnant. Was that after that one day when Pleut ran away? Most probably. Anyway, Serge explains Étoile what he sees and says he'd need to cut Pleut open. He asks Étoile to leave, but she says she'll stay anyway and Serge wonders whenever Étoile became so strong.
There was only one puppy, but it was still alive. Étoile says she can see a light inside him. She also asks if she can think of a name for him. Serge hasn't thought about that (yet again), yet since it does have life, even if it will end soon, the puppy deresves to have a name.
And so Étoile names the poor doggy... Gilles.
A piece of Noël nr. 4
Noël's sitting in his class in the middle school (or was it called junior high in English? that second stage, you know). People still get to discuss his unusual looks, but he just gives them a stare and they shut up.
He listens to the noise of the school and sort of makes it a musical composition in his head, when suddenly a tall boy with dyed orange hair (he looks like an orangutan because of that) starts to speak to him.
"Hey <...> I'm talking to you. Don't you want to answer?"
"To answer?"
"Yes. Be so kind. <...>"
"Um. Well, who're you?"
"What kind of an answer is that? You could say Hello or something. Or is it that you don't understand our language? You're not Japanese, are you? You don't look like one."
"Fuck off"
"Wha? What did you say? I couldn’t quite hear that! What language are you speaking? Is that even Japanese?"
"Get lost"
"What?"
"Don't you understand Japanese yourself? Let me repeat that at a slower pace. 'Get lost' stands for 'silence you brat'".
"You!.. <...> Your name's Noël, right?"
"So what?"
"Noël means Christmas, you know! Frankly, you're Chris Masuo! Huh! Go get your name changed, Noël! <...>"
"What's yours?"
"Huh?"
"What's your name?"
"Kurikigawa Kakehiro!"
"What a name"
"Not worse than yours!"
<end of the quote>
After that Noël finally snaps and they start a fight. Or rather Noël starts to punch the poor guy 8D He was very pissed by the noise already and Kurikigawa just really got in his way. Kurikigawa tries to apologize, but in vain - he gets beaten up and cries, covered with nose-blood.
Finally Noël stops and says:
"My hand hurts now. How did I deserve that, Kurikigawa?"
5. NOROWARESHI HOUSEKI
It's Hiver and F!Noel time!
So, we start at a goldsmith's workshop, where Hiver is arguing with the goldsmith (his master) that he wants to give up the apprenticeship. The situation is quite difficult. Because of certain reasons Hiver only started at this workshop when he was 16. The thing is, his father [a gloomy man with a round lense upon his eye... wait, was that a Savant reference? O.o yes, it was, the guy's name is Christoph] the doll-maker disappeared without a trace, leaving his two children all alone [their mom went away from home when they were small, she was an almost blind lady that still could somewhat se-... ..... Jumonji-san, are you really making Hiver and Noël Étoile and Christoph's children? 8D]. Hiver was helping him all along the way, but wasn't able to inherit his business, so at the age of 16 he discovered himself a grown up young man without a job or education. The goldsmith, Frêmon, agreed to take him as an apprentice, but Hiver has also become the oldest in the workshop and doesn't feel very confident or skillfull.
To make matters worse, his little sister is now 17 (Hiver being 20 years old), which is quite an age. There's a young man, Alban Touchard, wanting to marry her, but the guy originates from a rather well-off family of merchants. Hiver just can't let his sister get married without a dowry. What if the rich father-in-law wants a more suiting wife for his son and insists on divorce one day? Hiver also must make all the relatives-to-be accept the bride, so he needs a lot of money. Being an apprentice can't bring him that, and even if he becomes a goldsmith soon, the chance of getting rich is rather low. After some argument the goldsmith agrees and lets Hiver go. When Hiver's home, he checks the room where their father used to work. It's all just like when it used to be when the father was still around (except that his favorite tools disappeared with him). But there's also a mechanical doll. That's not their father's. Must be Noël's. Noël herself comes shortly after with her groom, Alban. Apparently, Hiver only told her about his plans this morning, so she brought Alban to talk him out of it. Unfortunately, it's all too late already x3 Here we learn that Hiver’s planned to go to work to mines. Alban says it doesn't suit him, but Hiver argues that he knows best and "there are things that only I can do, or it becomes meaningless" (he isn't talking about digging out Michele, not at all....). Noël's also trying to insist she can work, so Hiver doesn't need to go, but both Alban and Hiver disagree. The thing is, there aren't many options for a girl to work in a town. Oh, and Noël is shown very naive here ='D Apparently she doesn't even know what is, um, working at nights ("to sell spring" is the Japanese euphemism for being a prostitute, but she doesn't get it).
Soon after that Hiver leaves. Noël sleeps very soundly when there's no sunlight, and Hiver uses that to secretly sneak away without partings. Before leaving, though, he still visits his father's workshop just to throw a final look at it. He suddenly notices a box under the table and feels the urge to look inside. There he finds twin-dolls. As the father was a master of mechanic dolls Hiver was expecting to find some mechanisms on them, but he sees none, even though their members move really well. Hiver is about to put the dolls back into the box, when he felt they didn't want it, so he sets them by the window instead and asks them to help Noël out. After that he leaves and goes away from the town. It takes him 7 days to arrive to the miners' town. The town is very young and noisy. No habitant, be it men or women, is above 30 years old. That's because the town was formed around the mine and serves its purposes only. Soon enough Hiver starts working too. He pretends to be not a complete rookie to get a better loan, and he learns quickly anyway. The job isn't that complicated, although hard as hell.
He is trying to spare as much as possible. He works hard and only leaves at evenings to breathe some fresh air and have some sleep at the cheapest inn. The mine-keeper, monsieur Mayard, is giving some food to miners. Like, a bit of soup, bread and cheese mostly, sometimes ham, and that's not nearly enough for a hard-working grown-up man, but oh well, one can bear up with it without spending money on extra food. Co-workers don't really like Hiver. Like, they're all rude miners, so it's natural they're bullying the newcomer a bit, but Hiver ignores them completely. Because of that and since he does't drink wine or, um, hire women for special services, they think he's a weirdo workaholic. It's not like Hiver doesn't want warmth, but he doesn't want to sleep with a woman he doesn't love. He is also trying to spend as little money as possible, thus he needs to keep his life here ascetic.
For a while the action shifts back to Noël. She's alone in the workshop, remembering her father. How he used to work there all day long and how concentrated he was. And how she used to admire his work.
All of a sudden she notices twin dolls sitting by the window. How weird: she thought they were packed in the box under the table. Was that Hiver? Or was that a hidden mechanism?.. Comparing to the dolls she is trying to make herself these are... ok, they are simply not to compare. Her father was truly an artist. She remembers when one time she was all alone home. Suddenly there came a guest, who named himself W. That was a pale man with folds on his forehead. He asked whether her father was home, but the father had suddenly gone away just before that. The pale (and a bit frightning) man seemed to believe her and left, saying: "I'll come again, Noël". She has no idea, who that was, and she never told anyone about that man. She's missing Hiver a lot ='(
In the meanwhile Hiver's given a very nice proposal. Since he's such a hard-worker, Mayard is thinking about raising his loan. After that Hiver gets a bit crazy. He's become a complete outcast by now, he works alone and he doesn't even spend money on inns anymore, because there are free dormitories inside the mines. He also gives up on bathing and cutting his hair (Hiver?..). He doesn't really get paid better yet, but his hopes are high. One day, when the winter has come he falls a bit ill. He wakes up just to discover he can hardly move. Ok, this needs to be quoted."He frightened, but, moaning, he managed to reach the place where they were given food. The breakfast warmed him up a bit, and now he could stand on his feet. Hence he could work. When a man doesn't move his blood stagnates. To the work, then. That will make him feel better. Who said it's better to have a rest and sleep? Sleep only draws powers from the body. Isn't that a waste of time?"
Hiver had also arranged that he is allowed to stay in the mines at night. He works and works like a madman, he even laughs occasionally of his triumph and superiority over others. But at one point he stands still, suddenly aware of his own condition. What is he doing all this for? For what has he become a living skeleton? Is that in order to give his beloved precious sister to some other man? Isn't that ridiculous? But he doesn't have any other choice, really. He needs money to make her happy. Because their father, their genius skillful father, didn't care about money nor his children, and left them but a small fortune. And even as small fortune as it was, it was actually Hiver's accomplishment. He was the one to spare money, he was the one decreasing all costs. Their father never gave a damn and because Hiver had to help him he ended up without a profession after their father disappeared. "Hiver hated him with all his heart. There was no other person that he had hated as much. But his sister loved him. And admired, she admired him a lot. He abandonned them, but she still believed in him. Hiver could hardly tolerate that. But in her presence he couldn't even dare to scorn their father. It's not like she started to object, but he could see his words injure her. She was becoming sad, as if about to cry. "Noël, why can't you see it? It's all that man's fault! <...> All, all his fault! Had he been normal, he wouldn't have let this happen! If only he hadn't abandonned us!..""
After that he feels dizzy and is about to fall. Everything blurs before his eyes. When suddenly he notices his feet are surrounded by mysterious white fog. It's supposed to be dark around, but the fog somehow looks white anyway. Half-unconscious, Hiver follows its track and discovers a narrow hole. He manages to squeeze in and there...There he sees an amazing gem, glittering in the darkness. He can't remember digging it, but after some time he wakes up on the floor, embracing the stone. It has become warm of his body's warmth by now. Hiver realizes he needs to get out. He has no idea whether it's night or day - there's no one in the mines. Alas, when he gets out he stumbles upon Mayard, the mine-keeper. The man looks frightening, and if Hiver tries to escape, he'll kill him for sure. So the only choice left is to show him the gem. Mayard seems happy like a child and promises to give Hiver as much gold as he wants. Oh the joy! But ouch! Suddenly Hiver does fall. He sees Mayard licking Hiver's blood from the stone, all while saying that since he, Mayard, is but the keeper, this gem actually belongs to the owner of the mine, that being some count. But if no one ever learns about the gem, Mayard can have if for his own! Right before losing consciousness Hiver recalls something about his mother. She didn't just go away. She fell ill and died all of a sudden and was buried far away. It seemed so unreal, that in the end he made himself and his sister believe she was just gone...
Noël is sitting in the workshop again. It feels so cold.She's still waiting for Hiver. She hasn't seen Alban in a while. Last time they saw each other he said she was only talking about her brother and that's just unbearable. She wonders if he's mad at her. Not that it mattered, anyway, as she's noticed that she feels lonely with Alban, and they probably aren't really meant to be.
A chain of short excerpts begins.
Meet a new character. A jeweller named Buisson. He's had quite a dark past. He had a... um... friend and they were making a lot of illegal business, including rapes (of prostitutes apparently). Those times are long since gone, he has a jewelry shop of his own now, but that friend of his wasn't as successful and in times of need he comes to blackmail Buisson a bit.
That friend being none other than Mayard.
This time he wants Buisson to shape and polish the gem, as he is the only one he can trust such an important mission. Buisson was a bit skeptical at first, but as soon as he saw it, he agreed to pay any money to have the thing.
The money will come back anyway. Because Mayard isn't going home 8) No one's going home after he gets poisoned, huh
Then we come to meet our old friend master Frêmon. He has a certain problem. There's a jeweller who always comes when their workshop is in a terrible need for gems and no one except that bastard sells those. The bastard sells them for an unbelievable price, obviously.
That bastard being none other than Buisson, of course. He comes again, acting a bit strange this time. Buisson doesn't owe him anything at the moment, so he agrees to hear the guy out. Buisson wants him to make a dressing for a certain magnificent gem. You know which one. And as soon as Frêmon sees it, he's completely insane. He can hear the voice of the gem, as if it's lamenting or something. So after some time, Frêmon says: "I only need one thing before I start" - "Yes, of course, anything you'd..." - "It's YOU"
and he breaks Mayard's neck and kisses the precious gem, laughing 8D
Some person comes to a museum in Bareland town. It's apparently somewhere in England. There they’re walking around and finally see the infamous necklace, Reine Michele. Right next to it there stands a weird man with folds on his forehead and names himself W (or if that's inconvenient, one can call him Walter, Warren, or even White or Winter). This W has a very strange voice and tells a bit about the gem and the necklace.
Later that (?) evening W is standing in the shadow of a building not far from the museum. It's raining, but he's waiting for someone or something. Suddenly he raises a finger to his lips and says Shhhh.
Two young robbers dash by.
Without spending too many words, they rob the museum and run away with the necklace, although the alarm is set off and it might all end very nasty for them.
W has seen everything and says: "Ah... so "she" got released into the world again."
Then he looks up to the rooftop of the museum and grins: "What, have you seen it all too, doll?"
A piece of Noël nr 5
Noël (who's still in the middle school) has an electric guitar now! It's old and the strings are rusted, but he changes them and tries to play. Oh gosh, what a delight! It's just like he imagined it, but now it actually has a sound!!!
That boy from the previous piece, Kurikigawa, is also there. He's asking all sort of questions, among them - where'd Noël learn to play guitar like that.
To that Noël answers that it's the first time he's holding an actual guitar. Kurikigawa's shocked, but believes him. After that he's about to throw away a cigarette he was smoking, but Noël stops him and tells to go and throw it out properly, in a trash can.
After a short timeskip we see Noël playing in a school band along with Kurikigawa and other boys. They're in a club room, ‘cause one of the boys managed to get a permission to have rehearsals there. It's a metal band. And Noël just can't bear how bad they are, so he kicks a chair and everyone stops. Their vocalist says the band is shit and leaves. Boys are annoyed, but Noël takes the microphone and takes his place.
After the rehearsal all boys except for Noël are sitting near a convenience store, drinking coffee, or yogurt, or cola and discussing why the heck is Noël so self-confident and tells them around how to play. Except for Kurikigawa. Kurikigawa just says that the guy is obsessed with music, and it's been but a couple of months since he first tried to play guitar. The other two guys get even more annoyed (just two months!!!), and one of them throws his can away, but Kurikigawa tells to cut that and to find a proper trash can for that.
Another rehearsal. Noël is really trying his best not to snap, but at some point it’s just beyond him. He yells at the drummer, so that he yells back at Noël and hits cymbals in rage. Quote:
"So you actually can play good, when you want to! Why aren't you playing like that?"
"Cut off! Because you piss me!"
"So what? There're lot of things that piss me, too."
"Don't you understand human language?!"
Toyokado rushed to punch him, so Noël immediately hid the guitar behind himself, but he didn't even bother to move to dodge the punch. He clenched his teeth instead and let his cheek get hit, but then he pulled the drummer by his hair and, having stopped him, punched him with his knee. Toyokado bent.
"Don't use your fists, dumbass! How're you going to play if you hurt your fingers?!"
(end of the quote)
After that the drummer abandons the room immediately, and soon after that the boy that had arranged the room tells Noël to leave. And so he does, without saying much.
Soon after that Noël and Kurikigawa are sitting on a slope. Noël is playing his guitar, while Kurikigawa's humming along. He has quite a nice voice, actually. They talk a bit, then Kurikigawa smokes another cigarette. Noël asks if Kurikigawa wouldn’t give up smoking, but Kurikigawa doesn't really think he should. He tells Noël that Noël isn't going to get a band if he acts like that and that he does need a band, because people can't do much on their own.
Noël doesn't really listen and just plays on. Kurikigawa's cigarette burns out and he’s about to throw it down the slope, but he stops at the last second.
6. HONOO (beware of the shock x3)
A graveyard. There's some kind of a big funeral processing.
At the same time there's a small cart, accompanied by a single woman, who's holding a baby. When this cart reaches a grave, the woman asks the old man drawing the cart to leave her alone. The old man loads off a small coffin, makes sure she doesn't want any help and leaves her be.
She opens the lid, but there's no body. Instead there are twin dolls. Finally she lays the baby into the coffin and grieves that the coffin isn't big enough to hold her. How could some dolls replace her? She takes the baby back, because she just can't say goodbye, but suddenly a very pale man in a black cloak speaks to her in an odd voice.
They talk a bit, and in the end she asks him to help her put the coffin into the grave etc. She hammers nails herself, but he helps her fill the grave up with clay.
Along the way she confesses that her husband is at war right now and he's probably never going to learn about all this. She doesn't really understand why'd he marry her in the first place. Neither does she understand why'd she marry him either.
Then they talk in quotes from the song a bit.
The woman is left all, all alone.
She was afraid. Afraid of love, of loss, of getting burnt, of wants, of needs, of the life itself.
Finally she starts to cry and the man calms her a bit.
She asks whether they have met before. They probably have, although a long time ago.
"You resemble my father a bit. He disappeared without a trace, you know"
"No, Noël, I'm not your father".
"I guess not".
"That person isn't here I suppose..."
Having said that, the mysterious W goes away.
YANEURA NO ROMAN (yes, it's here!!)
This one starts off as a reflection of Asa to Yoru. The same you-prospective, but this time you wake up beneath a window, lit by the moon.You don't walk, you just lie there, pretty unable to move. A man comes to you. A man with a stick, a weird voice, mustache and something round and transparent upon his left eye. He has two girls with him.
Not girls, but dolls, actually.
There's an actual girl around there too, though. She's drawing, using three colors, throwing away brushes, with her fingers. Everything around here is filled with her drawings. Or rather overfilled. The paintings themselves are overfilled, too, some images just splash outside the canvas and move. She draws all possible things.
Suddenly a dark man appears and starts to strangle her. She sort of says to him, though: "You look so sad... Papa, what's wrong? That's right, I'll draw your happiness".
She touches his face with her tainted fingers, and the man's getting stroked by red paint, then he gets all screwed, he bends, he folds - and becomes a new canvas (...).
The set suddenly changes. It's a corridor, and you see a girl with lips as scarlet as the canvas in which that man from before had turned. That corridor ends in a dead end, and that's where the girl stops. Suddenly another dark man appears and starts to struggle her, too. Then he starts to pull her dead body somewhere... But then you notice that he's actually pulling himself, while the girl's watching you both.
Now you're buried. When you somehow manage to get to see some light, you notice you're on a stage, where a young woman with scarlet lips and a violet dress is singing. You were buried under 12 corpses. You're the 13th. There are so many people sitting in the hall. Some of them seem familiar. The woman sings and they all applause. She bows, then she bows to you and utters that another 11-letter message (be so kind to die).
You're back to that window from the beginning of the chapter. The lady now wants you to be born.
It turns all black, you're falling, swirling in your fall.
Suddenly the mustache man catches your hand and lifts you to some cave edge. He's talking in riddles and basically asks whether he should let you fall or get from out of there. Because that's the roman that leads to your birth.
You're about as confused as the reader is, and then the man just gets you lifted from the abyss without asking anything else.
Then the first part of Asa to Yoru repeats, almost word-to-word. The one about you walking under the torn sky. Except that you also ask who's the liar and there follows an answer:
"I am".
END OF VOLUME 1!
0 notes
Text
Ao Jumonji’s Roman, pt.1
Ah! I see, you can hear me, thank you~ Well then, here goes the synopsis along with some commentary on my part.
1. Asa to Yoru
It's a rather short excerpt that begins with the words "You wake up under a sky, torn apart into two". Yes, it's "you"-prospective. That's the line that lured me into the text once I opened it, actually.
Anyway, you wake up under a torn sky, in which one part is the morning, while the other part is the night full of stars. You walk, and walk, and walk, but nothing ever changes, except that you get hell tired. You're all alone and at some point you're starting to wonder if you've got a body at all.
Apparently you do (otherwise how would it have been possible to walk?). But when you try to check it, you only see a cloud of black dust (you're not sure if it's fine like that).
Finally you're exhausted and sit down, when suddenly there appears a man with something round and transparent on his eye, a stick and a hat (GEE, I WONDER who that might be!), who has two girls with him.
The man introduces himself as M (wtf?..), but when you go all wtf is wrong with this name, he gives you a free choice: Marcel, Martin, Matias, Michael, Michel or even Christophe. Anyway, he asks you weird questions making you wonder what are YOU. Finally he gives you the dolls, and then you suddenly realize you're not you, but me. I mean, from there on the prospective slowly starts to change, and it's not the 2nd person anymore, but the 1st. (I'll be calling the character Hiver from now on). Oh, and yes, Hiver gets the normal human-like shape as the dolls touch him. You know, from the album jacket we all know.
M makes a weird Jimang-prophecy and disappears, while Hiver is still all wtf is going on.
He slowly realizes he's neither dead nor born, he's super afraid and tries to run away, but it doesn't really help. Quoting:
"I'm not alive, hence I cannot die. How weird it is that I, the one never to have been born, would need something. I suppose that's funny even. I would've laughed if that wasn't about myself <...> So what is it that I need, that I'm looking for? Something I miss painfully? What am I missing so that I ended up here and probably got locked? What is it?
Is this the inevitability? Or maybe the circumstances? Or maybe reasons?
I guess it's all and none of those. Those are but shatters. Neither reasons, nor circumstances, nor the inevitability are quite the thing I'm looking for. Even all of them combined aren't enough.
I want to open the gates and get out of here. But I need the key for that.
"Roman".
The key.
That is the key to the gates.
"If there's a roman that leads to my birth, I want to find it"."
So, being scared of becoming black dust again, he still smiles and sends Hortense and Violette away to find him a roman. And stays alone between morning and night...
(end of chapter 1, which was actually no more than a few pages. what follows is...)
A piece of Noël nr.1
So, it all begins with a children's playing yard. There are numerous places to play on that one, but most of them are occupied by other children. The least popular on the playground are... ah... these things (sorry for the inconvenience once again, tumblr won’t post the image =\)
A boy (or should I say THE boy?) is sitting on one of those. At some point he tried to go to the slides, but the boys that are playing there won't let him into their circle.
After some time the boy starts to sing because he's so sad, and two of the boys come closer - just to drive him away from that spring-thing too D=
The only place left for the boy is under the lonely tree (at that point he thinks - “Who was that cruel person who cut down all the trees except this one? Had I been the tree, I’d rather be felled with the others”). He sits there and keeps singing. Sounds are flowing into his ears and get transformed in his head. He sings along with the world, so to say.
At evening, when all the children are gone already, he suddenly hears sharp and scary steps. That's his granny. He runs towards her, while she turns around and walks away without even waiting for him. [oh boy, I'm missing so many details...]
One more point: feeling that his granny is somewhat irritated, Noël apologizes, but she doesn't like that. So the chapter ends as follows. A car with blinding lights rides by, and the grand-mother has to pull Noël so that he doesn't get hit.
"As soon as the car rushed by, granny let his hand off and muttered something about being tired.
He would want to apologize now.
But that would only make her feel more irritated, wouldn't it?.."
2. Hiiro no Fuusha
It all starts with a rather peaceful morning. A boy (his name is Gilles [like the French name]) wakes up in a small barn where he lives together with the house's animals.
Basically, he's not quite at home in this house. His parents are dead, and the family that lives in this house, are his very distant relatives.
So, he's basically a small (13 years old) male Cinderella (or so he thinks), but he's in love with the daughter from this house, a girl of his age with the name Clarice. It seems like this is mutual, although Gilles is afraid to even think about it. He's an orphan after all, his future is just so unclear.
The daughter isn't the only child in the family. She also has an elder brother, Maxim, and a younger brother, Hector. There's a tension between Maxim and Gilles, because Maxim would sometimes come to Gilles's place at evening and say nasty things (and even kicks him one day). Gilles doesn't understand why, but oh well. He's oh so hated by everyone (except Clarice, who's like a saint to him).
So, one day they were harvesting wheat, and Clarice actually more or less confessed to him:
"Listen"
"Hm?"
"Gilles?"
"What is it, Clarice?"
"I like you so very much. Let's get married?"
"Eh?"
"Let's get married some day? Are you against it?"
"No, I'm not!"
"And it will be so much fun every day!"
But Gilles thinks that's impossible and they can never marry because he's a poor orphan. He thinks that Clarice is being naive (although she strongly hints that she understands everything very well). Yet he's happy that at least he could dream a bit about it. [by this point you might start to wonder just how will it come to that Gilles will leave her behind].
Anyway, in the evening he feels completely down and is sure that his hopes are never to come true and even wanders away from home. He's walking around and then suddenly realizes he's in the forest.
There he sees a (domestic) pig that was also wandering around instead of going home. He wants to help/force it out of the forest, when suddenly Maxim appears and warns Gilles that pigs are dangerous and can harm people.
We suddenly get to know that Maxim's actually very much like a tsundere ='D
I mean, they used to be like brothers, but then as they became older, it got impossible to always have Gilles around (you may imagine how bothersome children may get sometimes, even if you love them), so their relationship started to crumble. Gilles thought Maxim hated him, when in fact Maxim was trying to set things right again, but since Gilles was an angsting kid, it wasn't all that easy. But finally they have a proper talk in the forest and are heading home, Gilles full of hopes, when suddenly they see a glimpse of fire...
Yup, that very day knights attack the village. The family tries to escape to the church as they believe it's safe there, but it's actually not. A red-haired knight-commander is already there with his knights.
In the upcoming turmoil pretty much all of the family get slaughtered, except Gilles and Clarice that managed to sneak away. Clarice is shocked and almost paralized, while Gilles thinks about how to save their asses. It all feels so horrible that he for a moment he gets sure that he must be in hell, but then he realizes that since Clarice is here, this cannot be hell, no matter what.
So, he saw that the knights had come from the forest to the west from the village and thinks that there should be none left there. He leads Clarice there, and when they're tired, they hide themselves in a bush. They seem to have forgotten what had happened, so they actually talk about how they care for each other and almost kiss.
Unfortunately, there are also other villagers hiding in the forest, and the knights eventually come back there, too. After hearing screams, the two remember that everything's very very bad and try to keep silence.
Then they hear a weak voice. Maxim's voice, actually. Gilles was about to get away from the bush, but then the person who seemingly had the voice resembling Maxim's (that’s Gilles trying to reject reality) got murdered.
Frightened, Gilles thinks that they need to get out of there asap and as far as possible, too. But unfortunately right after they start to flee...
Clarice's hand gets grabbed. Gilles struggles to snatch her away, but the soldier that caught her punches the poor boy in the stomach and he falls. He also happened to stand on the edge of a hollow, so he stumbles down, down there, watching at how Clarice "flies up" from him. He fell very badly and was in so much pain he couldn't move a muscle (or so it feels), but he was conscious nevertheless. So he heard the soldier and his fellows rape Clarice up there. Gilles was hoping someone would finally climb down and kill him already, but unfortunately right when one of the soldiers was satisfied and was about to follow the boy he had seen, Clarice finally raises her voice, she laughs and yells that all of them are cursed and will burn in hell.
The soldiers, distracted and annoyed by that, kill her and forget about Gilles. He was still lying at the bottom of the hollow, waiting for death to come, when it gets bright again, and a new morning came to the world where Clarice was gone.
Where he let Clarice die.
Where he killed Clarice.
After that we get a time-skip. Outskirts of a town. A really stinky tavern. There appears a young man in a dirty cloak. He sits at a table next to a drunk man, presumably an ex-soldier. The two speak. The ex-soldier sees that despites his looks the young man seems to have quite some money.
Quoting:
"So what the heck are you doing here?"
"I just came to drink some water"
"Bullshit" <...>
"I've known a person of the same name as yours"
"Wha?"
"Maxim"
"Why the heck you know my name?"
"I just guessed"
"Ya think I'm gonna believe this?"
"Who knows <...> I need to talk to you, Maxim."
Gilles promises to pay if Maxim talks to him outside of the tavern. They go. Maxim feels a bit nervous because this Gilles (yes, that's him, and he's a bit insane as one can feel through the dialogue) walks way too smoothly and silently, like a cat. Quoting again:
"So, what'd you wanna ask? <...> It's cold, I don't wanna talk for too long"
"That's right, winter is coming... My first winter back then was very cold too, huh..."
"Back then?"
"That's none of your business, Maxim. Never mind. Tell about yourself".
They talk a bit, and soon enough Gilles confirmed that this Maxim was one of the soldiers that had attacked the village under the command of Damien Laurant. Gilles hadn't known that name, and he bursts into laughter and was about to go his way.
But Maxim reminded him that Gilles had promised to pay, and so (quoting again)
""Ah, that's right"
Gilles turned around and somewhat shrank. The next instant he was attacking, and not just like that! What swiftness! Gilles drew his sword so much faster than he did! The blade pierced through Maxim's belly and sticked out from his back. <...> He twisted his wrists, turning the sword, and then again, and again.
"Finally I've learned it. Damien Laurant. So that was his name. Maxim, you see, I found one more person before you, but I accidentally missed the time to ask the name. <...> I just didn't have enough patience, that wasn't on purpose, I swear. Listen, Maxim. There's one more thing I want to know, since I have the chance. How many people have you killed <...>? In that forest? Was there a girl among them? Please do tell. Answer me. Maxim, what's wrong? Maxim?.. Ah, Maxim. Have you died? What a pity. I wanted to ask so much more <...> I haven't had enough patience. It's all your fault, Maxim. I've known a person of the same name. He was... like a friend to me or even a brother. But I killed him. I left him to die. So terrible. I do deserve to go to hell. No doubt"."
So, Gilles says he cannot die just yet until he's killed Damien Laurant. And he goes off, laughing.
A piece of Noël nr.2
Noël is sitting in the room and playing on a melodica. He sees a shinig sunray through the hazed window, but he cannot express its colour by words. So instead he's trying to find the right expression through melody.
His granny's also there and she says that he should shut up and leave, because she doesn't feel well with him around.
Granny's been caughing hard and a lot lately, and she also came to neglect her looks. She doesn't dye her hair anymore, her tights have holes etc. Noël obeys and stops playing and goes to the exit.
The room is overfilled with all kinds of garbage, so there isn't much place to step, thus it takes a lot of time. Before leaving, he actually told her to stop smoking, but to no avail =P
He sits outside the apartment, in the staircase, and starts to play his melodica again, but the neighbour woman comes and tells him that her small babies are sleeping and Noël's disturbing them.
So he leaves again and wanders around. No one is asking the boy with a melodica if something's wrong. As the evening draws near, he watches some windows where light turns on, feels very bad and runs off to the riverside. There he tried to play his melodica again, but some stranger that looked closely at him scared Noël and he hid himself under a bridge.
Cars are riding above his head, wheels and tires screaming and echoing. Noël has a vision of a scary giant monster, which cannot be put in words - but can be expressed through melody. Scared, he plays the tune, he has the feeling his head is about to pop, but he goes on. The monster grabs cars and throws them around, and finally it finds Noël and bites his head, and grinds it with its teeth. Noël was gone. But not the melody. The monster was there...
3. Miezaru Ude
So, this time the main hero's name is Serge. Serge Laurant. He's a young knight. He had a hard time gaining this position, but finally he succeeded and now he's at war. He has a servant, Beau (that reads roughly as "Bo" by French rules). Serge is around 19 years old. Beau is a bit older than him, but he's very smart and knows a lot. It's evening, the army is getting to rest. There are lots of mercenaries around, that are behaving much like beasts, so Serge is being sad that the times of noble chivalry are gone.
We also learn that this is the army of general Alvarez.
So, the night has come, when suddenly Beau wakes Serge and tells that there seems to be an enemy attack. Serge is all wtf, how can it be, that's so unlike what knights are supposed to act. Still, they have to accept the fact, that yup, apparently they're being attacked.
Because of reasons Serge cannot get to his horse, but he desperately needs to go to the battle to prove himself a true knight and a good warrior. He grabs his sword and runs after the enemy, who seems to be not numerous at all. Apparently, the enemy's plan was to use the moment to kill as many mercenaries as possible, cause some chaos and then disappear.
Unfortunately, pretty much right after Serge gets into the forest, he stumbles upon a knight with red hair and a cross-like scar on his cheek and gets half of his arm cut off. [but it wasn't said directly in the text]
Oops!
The next scene is discribed in a way that one could think it's a dream. So, Serge seems to live in Rouen now, he catches wild dogs and kills them to make a living.
He doesn't particularly like his job, and he's almost constantly covered with dog blood and remains, so other citizens try to avoid him.
He lives in a very narrow house with his wife, Natalie, who always meets him, and kisses him, and washes his clothes and makes him food (despite actually being a noble lady).
Serge sees a dream that starts with him waking up after that life in Rouen and believing that it had been but a dream. In his nightmare he has both arms, but then the red-haired knight appears out of nowhere and cuts one of them off.
Serge is trying his best to defend himself, and then he wakes up in his house in Rouen, because he ended up falling from the bed. He also discovers that Natalie lies on the floor, too, because of some reason. Apparently, he hit her in his sleep...
Serge loves his wife a lot and he remembers that she comes from a good family. He wants to gain more money so that he could afford at least some luxury for her. He tries to work as a chimneysweep, but, unfortunately, he fails, as it's a tricky task for a man with only one arm.
Irritated, he goes to a tavern and gets drunk. Then he gets into a fight with some drunkard. Then he forgets himself and wakes up with his head on some woman's heap. The woman's name is Bernadette and apparently she's a whore.
Serge can't remember getting to her room, he's startled and disgusted, so he goes home right after. Natalie was waiting for him there. Soon as he returned, he got sober, and his right arm started to ache again.
Some time after that Serge is on his dog-killing duty again. He is actually obliged to get the dog corpses to a certain house to get them burnt. This time he gets triggered by the smell of burning flesh, and remembers his arm being cauterized. It aches madly, as if put in boiling oil, and to make the pain disappear he gets drunk again.
The same man as before (the one he had a fight with) insulted Serge by calling him a coward knight, and they fight again. Serge can't remember what happened after that, but he ended up falling asleep somewhere in the street, and then Bernadette finds him and gets to her room, removes his clothes, and kisses his wound... That triggers him again, but it seems that she actually provoked him on purpose so that he would hit her (apparently she’s somewhat masochistic). After that he runs back home again.
Serge is tortured by questions: why, why is all this shit happening? Well, it's quite obvious, why. Because that red-haired knight cut off his arm.
Speaking of which, that was more or less the only thing the red-haired knight managed to accomplish by his sudden attack. The next morning Alvarez rearranged the troops, and they were able to fight again. Except for Serge.
This is about time we learn a bit about Natalie and Serge's relationship. Apparently Serge is the second son in a knight family. His father had a friend, a nobleman, and (apparently) merchant. That friend was much more rich than Serge's father, but they were close, and that’s why that friend would often visit the family. One day he brought along his daughter, who behaved like a noble queen. That pissed off Serge's elder brother, so he yelled at her, but Serge defended her. That time she was very thankful and called Serge her knight. That instant it was all decided.
Serge now HAD to become a knight (as non-profitable as it seemed) to fulfill that... that kind of a promise that was made between the two by those words. They fell in love with each other. Serge doubted that his father's friend would be happy to know his daughter wanted to marry such a poor (although noble) man, but Natalie would neglect every other marriage proposal.
After a lot of hardships Serge managed to become a knight after all, and all that was left was that he had to accomplish some feat. All of what I've just written was told in the text in the form of yet another nightmare, and yes, at this point the red-haired guy appears and cuts off the arm.
Once again, Serge hits Natalie in his sleep. Serge is disgusted of himself, but Natalie tries to say that everything will get fine, they just need to overcome the hard times. She calls him her knight again, but this time it results in his rage and he actually strangles her until she's unconscious (that's what I call "triggered"!)
His alcohol problem gets worse and worse. When he feels resolved to overcome this illness, he loses his job. Desperate to get drunk, he comes to the tavern, but gets kicked out, as he has no money. Bernadette finds him again and invites him to her house so that she could give him some wine. He hates Bernadette, but the wine...
Anyway, he spends almost the whole night there. When he realized what he had done, he decides once and for all, that once he comes home, he will end this. If Natalie is waiting for him despite him being so late, he WILL start his life anew. If not, he will kill himself one way or another.
When he does come home, he sees Natalie sobbing by her bed, but she's not alone - there's also Beau.
Beau became a successful merchant after he quit the army, and APPARENTLY he was helping Serge's family all along (Serge having no idea about that).
Serge finally realizes and starts being jealous. Fortunately, Natalie slaps this shit out of him.
But when he wakes up in the morning, Natalie is gone. He thinks that must be another nightmare. It’s just that because of some reason he cannot wake up from it.
He comes to understand that he did have something to lose, and it was his beloved wife, but now she's gone. He doesn't blame her, but he can't understand, why now of all times.
Still believing it's all one big nightmare, he gets kicked out from his house and comes to Bernadette, where she gives him so much wine he cannot move for days, "as if wine was circulating in his veins instead of blood". He can't tell reality apart from the dream anymore. Lying in the bed, he sees the red-haired guy occasionally coming to the room.
Finally Beau finds him in that state and grabs away.
(here we also get to know a bit of Beau's story. he's a bastard of Laurant family, he's smarter and taller than Serge, but he hasn't inherited the famous Laurant blond hair, so he has to be Serge's servant; Serge has a complex because of that, even though he tries not to think of it)
After having a talk with Beau Serge finds out that Beau knows the identity of that red-haired guy. And so Serge makes Beau tell him this story
So, Damien Laurant was a self-proclaimed knight, not really different from a robber, and even more fierce than one. He was infamous for slaughtering whole villages instead of negotiating. Later he got kicked out from the army because of some reasons and had to become a real robber. Trying to maintain his fame, he hired way too many mercenaries, and the group ended up splitting and ceasing to exist.
Right now Damien is told to have become a merchant who sells those "weird goods of the East" in Frankfurt.
Without a further ado, Serge gets a horse from Beau (note that I haven’t used the word “asks” =‘D). rides to Frankfurt and searches for the man.
He finds him in a tavern full of weird people. There he sees that Damien only has one arm and one eye, very much like Serge himself. Still Serge is resolved to have his revenge, when suddenly a young man in a dirt cloak appears, slaughters Damien and runs off, laughing like a child.
"The young man seemed to have all his body-parts safe and sound. What had Damien Laurant taken from him? Serge would probably never know. But that man was missing something terribly important. He must have had a very good reason for the revenge. If Serge had heard his circumstances even just a bit, he would probably understand them. He didn't have the right to judge that young man. But what would that man with that laughter on the edge of craziness do from now on? And what if it would have been Serge, the one to carry out the revenge? What would he have done?"
And, well, of course the boy resembling Damien was there, too.
All in all, Serge realized that he still had a life and that he was obliged to live it.
But that's not the end of the chapter.
So, the last part is about Gilles again. He's walking through a city, when suddenly the Man in the Mask (yes, THE Man in THE Mask) catches up with him and gives some money for the service that Gilles had accomplished. Gilles's not sure, for which, as all his life has become a chain of murders. He can't even remember whom he's killing and why. He wants to kill everybody, but realizes that's no good.
So, after receiving some gold he feels really uneasy, because that gold is heavy and he doesn't need it anyway.
He drowns it into a river and then stumbles upon a beggar. The beggar's really persistent, and when Gilles reaches for a coin, that guy suddenly stabs him with a knife, takes a hammer and smashes Gilles's collarbones, elbows and knees, and jaws (ouch). Then he drags Gilles to a stall, where he tells Damien's (his father's) full story, which I'm too lazy to write down. One important thing is that Damien was on drugs when Gilles came to kill him, as he was ruining his life with that stuff. Otherwise there’d be no chance for Gilles to finish off the boy’s glorious dada.
And Pierre (the boy's name, French for “a stone” or “a jewel”) was planning the revenge ever since, and realized he wants Gilles to live as long as possible in unbearable pain.
"And you cannot escape from me. Ever".
Aaand this is about it for today, as I got a bit tired editing the stuff. However, I’ll continue soon, so stay tuned =) Please feel free to ask any questions. Upon rereading the synopsis I realized how, um, poor my narrative tools sometimes are x) See you!
0 notes
Text
Is there a Roman here?
Hi guys!
It’s sutare again, you might know me if you’ve been in the international Sound Horizon community long enough. I’m a Russian Laurant that got nearly completely away from the international grounds =‘C
That’s the second time I’m getting a blog on tumblr. I lost my first account (I can’t really remember why anymore) and I’m too lazy to do anything to get it back. But here’s the link anyway, there you can find some translation scripts for Elysion manga (2015).
This time I suddenly felt like sharing some info on Roman novel that got published around that time, too. Of course I’m not translating the thing into English, but I recently found some pretty decent re-telling of the story I once made in an exchange of mails with a friend. Basically, it’s all ready, I just need to check the text for grammar and spelling issues.
The thing is, the book is actually pretty great, I really enjoyed how it was written and done. I sincerely think it adds to the fandom and thus would love that everyone can at least get the general idea about it.
Thus, two questions before I actually do anything:
- Can anyone see this record?
- Would I be right to assume that the English translation hasn’t been done yet?
As I hinted above, I haven’t really been following tumblr nor Facebook for a while. I was trying to keep track on what the International SH community looks like, but I understand I might’ve missed a lot! What I’m trying to say is, if I see any reaction to this post, that would be an indication for me that at least one person is interested in seeing the thing published - and I will post that synopsis that I found. If not - I guess I’ll try to find some other place where there might be potential readers, but that might just take some time xDD
Anyway, nice to see you guys! Tumblr has really changed since 3 years ago, hope I don’t get lost again :’D
1 note
·
View note