Part 5
When sempai-tachi were still living at the Emiya-tei, there was one part of what had become my daily routine that, one way or another, never failed to be quite... lively. As she fulfilled the roles of teacher and guardian, Fujimura-sensei was never too far away from the residence; not least when there was the prospect of food on the table.
She had been far more vocal about her feelings than I was in the run-up to the departure; and in its aftermath, the sheer bravado she made a point of presenting didn't do much to hide her true feelings. "I'm so proud that Shirou's off to study in a foreign country," she'd say; "but all of that cooking he'll do over there is going to go to waste!"
Even when she wasn't trying, she was always able to draw a smile from my face.
So, we both found that when a certain time of day came around, we would both be in the same place as always; cooking together (or rather, her watching me cook while her excitement for the coming meal built up), eating at the same table, talking about no end of little things (usually those involving her latest mishaps and misadventures), and sharing stories from the times when there were still more plates to lay upon the dinner table.
One of those stories we shared was from a day which, even still, seemed both so recent yet so long ago; when a fearless young boy drove himself, again and again, to vault himself over a high-mounted bar.
I had never forgotten that day, or that boy; and of course Fujimura-sensei laughed as she thought back at how foolishly determined sempai had been to drive himself to such injury over it.
But while, to her, it had been just one day out of many, to me it had been so much more; for it had borne the wrenching, bittersweet, longing-yet-fearful contradiction which had driven me to approach that boy, to talk to him, to try and learn as much about him as I possibly could...
...and to do everything I could to ensure that, no matter how close our relationship became, it would never go so far as to risk condemning him to a fate worse than death.
------
September 24, 2005
*knock knock*
Emiya Shirou knocked firmly, yet politely, on the door of Seonac's apartment. He wasn't quite sure if he had remembered correctly about whether or not the Irishman would be at home by this time or not, but figured he may as well try the door anyway.
After about a minute or so, in which he hadn't heard anything by way of a reply, he started to turn down the corridor when he saw someone emerge from the distant flight of steps.
"Oh, hi!" Seonac, who was carrying a pair of shopping bags, rushed over to the front door of his apartment as soon as he noticed Shirou's presence, shifting the bags to one hand as he reached for his door key with the other. "Sorry, I wasn't expecting company. I hope you haven't been waiting long."
Shirou shook his head, and reached out a hand in an offer to help with the bags. "No, I just got here. Can I help you with one of those?"
"No, no, don't worry about it," Seonac replied, as he unlocked the door and used his free forearm to push it open. "Would you like to come in? I'll need a second to put this stuff away, if that's okay."
Shirou used the hand he would have used to carry a bag to help hold the door open instead, as he followed Seonac into the apartment. "Thank you."
As Shirou closed the door behind him, he looked over to see Seonac go into the kitchen and put the bags on one of the countertops. From where he was standing, it looked like various food items, some of which he didn't recognise. "Do you mind if I see what kind of food you have there?"
"Here you go," Seonac responded as he stepped to one side, the various containers and packets now sitting on the shelf, out of the bags and ready to be stored away in their proper locations. "I wouldn't expect to see anything too appealing in there, though."
Shirou went over to the kitchen countertop, and looked down at some of the less familiar items. "Which ones are these? I haven't seen them before."
"Oh, this one," Seonac pointed to one of the rectangular boxes on one side, "is a serving of aloo matar; potatoes in a kind of Indian curry sauce."
Those boxes had been stacked atop a pile of others of the same size; Seonac spread them out to show the labels and images on each. "Generally, you go by the type of food in the pack, along with the specific sauce used. That one there is matar paneer; it has the same type of curry as the aloo matar, but uses cottage cheese instead of potatoes. This one here, with the chickpeas in the different colour sauce, is channa masala; you can get a rajma masala, the same sauce with a kind of reddish bean instead, but I'm not as big a fan of those."
"I see," Shirou noted. "So do these packets go with anything else, or do you eat them as they are?"
"Well, that depends, I guess," Seonac answered, referring now to some of the other items on the table. "I usually eat them with a serving of rice, as well as some naan; that flatbread you see in the other packet there. Though if I'm at a proper Indian restaurant, instead of being stuck in here with these, I would usually get some lentil soup with poppadoms as a starter."
Shirou had another side to that question he wanted to clarify. "But do you ever put anything else in the sauce itself; any meat, or vegetables or anything?"
"Oh, right," Seonac said, cottoning on to what Shirou had been driving at. "Well, they do make things like chicken tikka masala and so forth, and some places do like to throw in all sorts of vegetables and spices into the mix. I'd skip the first because I'm a vegetarian, but the second is more down to my, erm, less than stellar food palette. Sorry."
"No need to apologise," Shirou reassured him. The part of his mind that enjoyed to cook was already thinking of what kind of recipes he might like to try for himself at some point; though he reasoned that going to eat freshly-prepared food at a proper restaurant, rather than just relying on the kind of packs he saw before him, might give him a better opportunity to gauge the kind of meal he'd want to aim for.
He stored another useful piece of information in the back of his mind at this time, too; Seonac doesn't eat meat, and might not be great with more adventurous food. If I'm ever hosting him as a guest, I'll have to plan accordingly.
Shirou picked up one of the food packets, and turned it over to read the English instructions. As he did so, his mind turned to one of the main issues he had wanted to try and deal with that day. "You know, Seonac," he pointed out, "I seem to be finding it a lot easier to read this lately than I would have done before we first met..."
Seonac, who had been putting some milk away in the fridge, turned around and sighed. "It's interesting you mention that; since I seem to be finding your language a lot easier nowadays, too."
Shirou already had an idea about when the change had taken place, but wanted to find answers regarding the hows and whys of the matter. "Did something happen that time we ran into each other on your birthday?"
Seonac tried not to sigh again, as he started to go through his own ideas on what had happened. "I think so, but it wasn't anything deliberate on my part. You see, usually as part of my training, I try to block my mind from picking up on outside connections or stray mental broadcasts; but that day I was, well... I hadn't been as careful, or rather I hadn't reacted as well to the news Mike had given me just before then."
"Telepathy," Shirou commented. "I'm not sure that's something I'd like to deal with, myself."
Seonac nodded in agreement, and felt his spirits sag a little at the implications of where the rest of his reconstruction would go. "You're a lucky man in that regard, Shirou. But yeah, I... I think what happened was that some sort of subconscious link, or exchange, took place when our heads knocked together. Like, some sort of automatic translation matrix; porting the knowledge of one language over to another mind and vice versa."
Seonac tried to reassure his new friend as we went on. "I don't know if that was really true; it's never happened to me before, and it's certainly not a thing I would ever have chosen to do even if I had known how to do it. I can't think of another good explanation for what happened, but I don't want it to be an excuse. I'm sorry, Shirou. I really am; but for what it's worth, I don't think anything else was exchanged; I don't suddenly know your phone number or favourite colour or anything like that."
Shirou remained silent for a moment, but held no ill will over it. "If that was what happened, it's okay; I don't consider it an intrusion or an invasion of privacy. I trust that you wouldn't look into my thoughts, or anyone else's, without permission; if anything, I see this as more of a help than anything. I don't know your phone number either, but I do know a lot more about how to communicate with you, and with other people here in this country. That kind of gift is something I'm grateful for; and if it means you can handle Japanese in turn, I'm happy to help in that regard, too."
At this, Seonac breathed a sigh of relief. He had been seriously worried that if his theory was true, or even if the idea had been given voice, that it would have constituted a gross dereliction of his personal responsibility that Shirou would not have forgiven. However, since all it seemed to involve was language skills, the exchange seemed to be something else, even if Seonac had preferred it happen under more controlled - and more pre-agreed upon - circumstances. "Thank you for your understanding."
"That's no problem at all," Shirou reassured his friend once more.
"Okay," Seonac accepted.
"So, now that that's settled," Shirou went on, "would you like to go over the rest of what happened that evening?"
------
Several hours after Seonac and Shirou had been introduced on the 14th of that month, the latter had gone his own way, while the former was seated across from his soon-to-be-former-mentor, Mike Mackenzie; the two using what was likely to be their last conversation for quite some time to come as a means of setting the record straight between them.
"Seonac," Mike said simply, "this isn't about trying to get rid of you as a student, or as a friend. I know that it's not easy to accept this, but I have to make that as clear as I can."
"I..." Seonac's anger from earlier in the day had long subsided, but he still felt slow to digest what was about to happen. "I know. You're not the kind of guy to do something like this without good reason. I just... well, to be honest, I'm not too sure I'm eager to know what that reason is."
Mike wasn't finding the going much easier, himself; all the more so due to the information which, despite the level of trust the Nova Scotian placed in the Irish youth, he felt bound not to mention.
"When I went away back in 2004, Waver had wanted me to go somewhere. At the time, I was fairly set on what he had in mind; I mean, it was related to the very thing he had done which earned him my original attention in the first place, and which had... well, left David and I on the first boat out of Halifax not long before."
Seonac already knew about the split which had seen Mike and his younger brother, David Mackenzie, leave their home town, carrying their side of a family feud across continents... and away from the rest of their clan. "That thing involving your distant relatives?"
"The very same," Mike nodded. He had explained how Waver Velvet had used his thaumaturgic trickery to make a temporary home for himself in Japan with Glen and Martha Mackenzie, part of a distant and non-magical branch of Mike's extended family. He had also noted how Mike's own father, one of the ranking Association in the annex run underneath Halifax's Town Clock, had "suggested" Waver contact the elder couple, without running it past them first; an act which had infuriated the brothers both from its callousness in exploiting their distant kin, and for its dangerousness in terms of risking the lives of two innocent lives for no good reason. This split had seen Mike come to London, where he ironically found himself working alongside the newly-minted Lord El-Melloi II (but not before making his displeasure over the Glen and Martha business quite clear); while David had signed up with the Canadian Forces and been deployed to Afghanistan as part of Canada's ongoing military commitment in that country.
What Mike had not explained, however, was why Waver had gone to Japan in the first place.
"But when I got to the airport, I found that by the time I had stopped to notice, the flight I had booked was taking me somewhere else instead." The plane Mike had boarded would take him nowhere near Japan, but would prove no less fateful for that. "I can't go into details right now, but to make a long story short... I have to go back. And this time, I can't leave again until things are settled, one way or another."
"And you can't tell me where this is because..." Seonac knew that even if Mike did tell him, the end result would be the same.
"Because you need to be here," Mike stated flatly. "You are still only beginning to walk your own path, and there is still-"
"-still the fact that I can't do anything, or that I'd probably get myself killed if I tried to follow you, you mean? That sort of reason?" There was more bitterness in those words than he had hoped to give them, but he couldn't deny the anger, and guilt, he felt towards his own limitations.
Mike took a deep breath as he closed his eyes, his left hand pressed to his eyelids. It was getting harder to push through this. "One day, lad, you'll be ready to step out that door, and to make the kind of life for yourself that I know you are capable of living. But it cannot be today."
Seonac had no answer to that.
"Here's what I can promise to you," Mike said, after a deep pause. "When this is all over, and if I am still alive at the end of it, I'll come back and tell you all of the things that you deserve to know, but what you don't need to know right now. But in return, you have to promise me that by the time that conversation happens, you'll be more than just my former student; that you'll be ready to shake my hand as a friend, and to greet me on level terms.
"Can you do that for me, Seonac?"
It wasn't a lot, but as the offer sank in, it proved to be enough.
"Yes."
------
"So you still don't know what was going on?" Shirou and Seonac had moved to the living room, and were seated across from each other not far from where Seonac and Mike had been sitting ten days earlier.
"If I were to hazard a guess," Seonac reasoned, "he's off hunting down some rogue teep or something. He had been sent to various parts of the world to investigate newly-emergent telepaths; I wouldn't think all of them would settle down amicably."
Something about that idea didn't sit right for Shirou with that idea. "If that were true, why would he not simply tell you? If you already know what kind of work he was involved in, would it be that much more of a deal to trust that you'd understand the problem without rushing off after him?"
Seonac had thought of that, too. "I suppose... but if there was something about one of those cases, something he had dealt with before, that had been more important, or perhaps more personal, than he was comfortable talking about, maybe that would explain why he wasn't ready to talk about it?"
"To be honest," Seonac admitted, "I can't help but think the real reason he's gone is to do with a former student of his, or something like that. I don't know how many other lost young mind-readers he had tried to help before he met me; what if one of those attempts to help had backfired on him?"
"That would explain why he'd be reluctant to talk about it with you," Shirou thought. "It's not always easy for someone who felt like they failed others in the past to feel comfortable admitting it to those they try to protect later on."
All Shirou had to do was to close his eyes and think of the words of Emiya Kiritsugu, the man who had done so much to save him, while bearing the burden of those for whom he could not do the same, to recognise that.
That legacy had done so much to shape the young adopted orphan's mind; to set him on the path of what he felt was the realization of a beautiful ideal, one he might have continued forever had the series of events which had now led him in this new direction not taken place.
But that was a discussion for another time.
"Well, I suppose I'll find out one day, assuming we're not both dead by then," Seonac concluded. "In the meantime, I might as well try to figure out how not to be so useless, hm?"
"Ha ha," Shirou laughed. He was in no such hurry to rush to such judgement. "You'll be fine, and you know what? When it comes to matters of magic and sorcery, there might be only one thing I can do well; but for what it's worth, if there's anything I can help with, I'll be more than happy to do so. And that's my promise!"
Seonac was about to reply, when a fresh voice carried across the room. "Although I should warn you; he's useful to have around in a fight, but in most cases Emiya-kun can be quite the idiot."
By the time the speaker had finished, several moments in Seonac’s mind had passed in rapid succession.
In the first, he had been startled to register a third voice in the room; he hadn’t been aware of the door opening and closing, let alone any footsteps indicating the distance the person must have taken to get to where she now stood; just behind Shirou’s seat. (Who is she, and how did she get in?)
In the second, he picked up on the voice; a woman’s, speaking Japanese, with the kind of tone and diction that seemed in itself to carry an innumerable degree of nuances about the personality of the speaker, clear in its expectation that he as a foreigner would understand completely. (Did she know about what had happened with Shirou?)
In the third, he stood up almost instinctively, his gaze lifting to gaze upon… the most striking, playful, powerful, vivid, incredible opal eyes he had ever seen; the kind he hadn’t imagined to actually exist before that very instant. (My God, she’s incredible…)
And in the fourth, as he glanced down to note the exquisite hand she had placed upon Shirou’s shoulder, the ease in which it found such rest, despite the latter’s own surprise at her sudden arrival, the moment of Planck time it took for the meaning to register in Seonac’s mind drove a stake through a heart that had barely just registered bursting. (…and I will never be good enough for her.)
Shirou, if you truly are my friend, he almost-but-not-quite managed to say aloud, then kill me now.
“You shouldn’t just barge in to the home of someone you don’t know like that, Tohsaka!” Shirou said, upset at his significant other’s lack of good manners.
“Fine then,” the young woman shrugged, before bowing to her new Irish guest. “Hello, we haven’t met. My name is Tohsaka Rin; it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Seonac blinked, did his best to bury the exceedingly unfortunate discovery he had just made prior to her greeting, and bowed in reply. “Seonac Ó’Conaill; welcome to my home.”
“Oh, also,” Rin added, offering her hand. “Shaking hands might be the done thing in this part of the world when meeting new acquaintances, yes?”
“S-sure…” Seonac was surprised at her forthrightness, but offered his own hand in return almost by default. Her touch almost crackled in his hand.
As they each drew their hands back to themselves, Rin smiled, and sent a triumphant look down Shirou’s way. “See, we’re not strangers now, so what was it you were concerned about again?”
“Never mind…” Shirou surrendered, once again bowing to her indomitable will.
And as Rin’s laughter echoed around his living room, Seonac knew that, somehow, he was going to have to find a way to exorcise that indescribable feeling this woman had unleashed, with the fury of a supernova, within the depths of his soul; and hope that the nebula of lingering emotion this shockwave left behind wouldn’t end up haunting him for the rest of his life.
It was going to take one hell of an effort.
2011-08-31, 15:22
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