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 Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 4:14 am
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Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 4:17 am
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Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 7:11 pm
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Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 7:59 pm
[journal: 06]
I can't relax when she looks at me like that.
I don't feel that she's intruding -- I'm happy she's here. I'm happy to see her face, to hear her voice, to feel her presence again. I feel like, when we aren't discussing the unpleasantness the last six years have brought, things are almost as they once were between us.
But I don't like it when she looks at me like that.
I feel as though this isn't really a decision she's presented me with, even though its being treated like such. She's already made up her mind about it, after all. The only one being waited on is me...
She's not the same as I remember her. Not entirely.
Whether I find that good or bad, I'm not sure. Knowing that I'm her husband....it isn't the same sort of horrible I felt when she'd originally announced her intent to have us marry. Perhaps its because Eikou and I became so close, and she properly filled my need for family, but I no longer look at Baikou and see my big sister.
And I guess that's something.
~~ 苾畫
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Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 8:41 pm
[journal: 07]
I am thinking.
I am, at least, doing plenty of that.
And in sitting here thinking, and (partially) pretending that I'm working, it makes me think of when none of this even existed to she and I. And I wish there was a way to take one another by the hand and go back to the time that we were children and stay there. Where she and I were not yet broken by a world we still knew so little about.
I remember a week after our eighth birthday. She had been so frustrated at still being thought of as a child. She felt eight years was long enough to know all that the two of us needed to know about the world. We knew, for instance, where the best places to collect shark eggs were. We knew, also, how to make necklaces out of string and abalone shells. She was being shown how to play the flute (a habit she did not keep), and if I would humor her in learning to play the zither, we could one day perform for the most important figureheads.
She'd figured it all out for the two of us, and wondered what more, honestly, we needed to know.
She had been so confident of everything then. Such a driving force in my world. To receive a rebuke from Baikou, to me, was to be scolded by the gods themselves.
And now here we are -- older, wiser, and knowing it takes much more than abalone necklaces to make one's way in the world. And much worse for it. She is still Baikou, and yet isn't.
I wish I could take her back to that time. But that is not within my power.
There is, however, something I can do for her.
I just don't even know how to begin...
~~ 苾畫
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Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 6:31 am
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Posted: Sat May 30, 2009 6:54 pm
[journal: 08]
I have to wonder...
Did I look like that my first time shopping here?
I have had a little time to acquaint myself with what's found where at the grocer by now, so it was, at least, not the blind leading the blind. She had so many things to ask, and so much she wanted to know -- it was strange. I am more accustomed to her being the one to answer my questions...
It was uplifting, I will admit, after the last few days. Watching her flit about wanting to know what this does, what that tastes like, what these are used for....feeling her mind thrumming with excitement at so many new things. It was like she was alive again.
She used to be the same way at the festivals when we were children, wanting to see everything at once, dragging me from one place to the next, spending what pocket money she had on sweets...I remember telling her once that she reminded me of a butterfly, acting that way.
To which she had said it was better to be a butterfly than a caterpillar sitting like a bump on a branch waiting for something to happen.
.....it was nice to see the butterfly come out of her cocoon and resurface, even for a little while.
We ended up coming away with a variety of things Baikou wanted to sample, and things she felt my kitchen was lacking that might be good for me. I seem to have forgotten what, originally, I'd wanted to get there myself, but as nothing immediately jumps out at me as being missing, it must not have been anything horribly important.
She started hurting again on our walk back and is resting now. I don't know what is causing her pain, but provided I can get ahold of Lady Rika in the coming days, I will see if I can, perhaps, arrange a visit to one of Gaia's doctors for her. I know what she's been told by our own doctors, but I find it hard to believe she is simply imagining her suffering. It must be something...
In the meantime, I've, apparently, been elected to make us dinner tonight.
~~ 苾畫
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Posted: Tue Jun 02, 2009 8:25 am
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Posted: Tue Jun 02, 2009 2:49 pm
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Posted: Thu Jun 04, 2009 9:12 pm
Hitsuga and the telephone stared one another down in the vacant storefront.
In one hand, he clutched a paper on which was written several series of digits that, just fifteen minutes earlier, he had retrieved from Rika while across the street. In the other was the pamphlet he'd been given the day the phone was installed, containing within it a picture manual for how to operate it.
It occurred to him that, aside from dusting it, he had not touched it since its arrival. But having been advised it was foolish NOT to make use of it when the other option was hours of walking between different medical buildings, possibly to not even find what he was seeking, to Hitsuga it seemed that there was, indeed, no time like the present.
Leaning a bit to gaze into the living quarters of the house to ensure that Baikou was, in fact, not up and about yet to watch him possibly make a fool of himself, he focused attention squarely on the device.
So. Where to begin...?
Laying the list of phone numbers on the counter, his eye fell to the pamphlet which showed a generic humanoid shape lifting the receiver from the cradle, and placing it to its ear. Moving to replicate the motion, he winced and jerked it away as it emitted a tinny drone. Was it supposed to do that...?? gonk
....the next picture in the manual, portraying small blue lines emitting from the earpiece seemed to suggest so. The picture beside it with the same illustration sans blue lines and a red X over it also seemed to suggest the absence of the noise was a bad thing, but...
Holding the receiver a short distance from his head where the dialtone was comfortably enough not filling his head with its buzz he consulted the pamphlet again. The next picture was the receiver, being held out and away from the head, as a finger touched various buttons on its dialpad.
His eye next wandered to the list of numbers Rika had compiled for him. Were those....? Well, it was worth a try....
Leaning in to squint at the first one, and then look warily to the droning thing in his hand, he extended a forefinger to prod at the first number. 1.
Boop! He nearly dropped it, startled. And the droning had stopped...
Was it broken?
The silence from the receiver spanned as he reached out to push more numbers
3. Blip! 3. Blip! 1. Boop!
All right, maybe it was supposed to do that, then...
As he entered the last four digits, looking to the pamphlet for what should happen next, a mechanical purr sounded briefly from the receiver. Repeated by another. And then--
"Barton Medical Care, how can I direct your call?" a woman's voice filtered from within the receiver, making him reflexively bring it closer to listen.
....Well, he was afraid he didn't know. He has never used one of these before, so he will have to apologize if--
"Hello?" the voice inquired.
".....hello?" he ventured back.
"Sir? What can I help you with today?" she patiently inquired. Hitsuga supposed it should make sense that a device that made so much noise was intended only for those who spoke verbally...
"I am....hoping to ask about help for a friend." he managed, half-skeptical that the voice on the other end would even hear it.
"All right. And what's the trouble with your friend?"
"Well..." he trailed off, trying to think of how to best describe it. "She hurts. All over. She can hard-ly walk sometimes..."
"Is this something that's just happened, or an ongoing condition?"
"She said.....she said two years ago, I think."
"And are they sharp pains? Or aches? Does she feel numbness?"
"I...." he tried not to become flustered. These were things Baikou herself could better answer, but he didn't particularly want to hassle her at the moment. "Some aches, some pains." he settled for at last. "It hurts her to be touched, it hurts to move, she can't get up..."
There was a sound like a distant flurry of tapping and clicking on the other end of the connection.
"Okay, sir, if you can just stay on the line for a minute I'm going to transfer you up to a specialist so we can set a time for your friend to get looked at, all right?"
Really...? He had somehow anticipated it being more complicated than this to be seen by a doctor.
"A--" he paused to clear his throat. "All right, thank--" he didn't get a chance to finish as his ear was suddenly flooded with the symphonic trill of violins and flutes. Another first for him -- being put on hold.
Did he just wait now, or...?
"The Barton Medical Clinic would like you to know that your needs are important to us. Please continue to hold and you will be assisted shortly." a different female voice, which sounded oddly lifeless, stated carefully and then was replaced, once more, by the music.
....well, that answered that, at least. As he continued to wait, beginning to pace in short back-and-forths in front of the doorway that connected the storefront to the rest of the house, he glanced in the direction of the vacant and silent hallway.
Even if Gaia's doctors couldn't help her, perhaps, at least, what Baikou was suffering from had a name...
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Posted: Thu Jun 04, 2009 9:26 pm
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Posted: Thu Jun 04, 2009 10:08 pm
[journal: 09]
She seems better for today's outing, if only a little. I'm not sure yet, how much of it is the medication she's been given beginning to work and how much of it is simply her being sure that it will.
But she seems better, and I will not complain.
I think I behaved badly overall. Worse, I'm not sure why. I suppose no one particularly enjoys watching a dear friend being put through discomforts (especially when it seems like some of them are needless) but I had no excuse, really. It is not my place to step in on Baikou's behalf when she is more than capable of looking after herself.
She's said that she's glad I had come along or she might not have had the nerve to go through with it all. I somehow doubt that....I think she would have been fine with or without me there. It wasn't as if my being there contributed much except more stress.
I ought to apologize.
~~ 苾畫
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Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2009 2:21 pm
[journal: 10]
I am going to need to open shop very soon. There is not any room for delaying it much further. I have enough stock made for a solid start, I've settled on a shelf arrangement I like, and I believe the only loose end left is to secure myself a 'trading pass' for permission to sell within the cities. One that, from the look of it, is going to cost the remainder of the advance Lady Rika has given me after having paid the expense of Baikou's doctor visit.
I have not told her that, and don't plan to. Because I am not terribly worried about it. I have dealt with and built up from nothing before with my business, and I have, at least, confidence I will be able to do it again here.
And I have hardly started from 'nothing' this time.
I will visit some neighboring businesses tomorrow after getting the pass and see if they're receptive to exchanging advertisements. I've had more than enough time to get settled, its really time I ought to get to work and affirm for Lady Rika that her trust in me was not ill-placed. It will be a welcome distraction, if nothing else.
~~ 苾畫
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Posted: Sat Jun 06, 2009 4:56 pm
In which Hitsuga makes the acquaintance of...'Master' Shuuka
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Posted: Sat Jun 06, 2009 5:16 pm
Folded journal page PERSONAL OBLIGATIONS:
-Ice Lotus - Lady Rika-
-Summer Petals - Lady Melody-
-Stalwart Glade - Master Shuuka-
- ....?? - Scrap of paper NOTES TO SELF
- Place order for more packaging -
- Arrange future projects for custom glasswork -
- Advertising? -
- Library -
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