rlm@2: By Luriko-Ysabeth
rlm@2: iac@tangle.org 
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: Frame: Pieces of Her Soul
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	There are two things I have known since before I can remember.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	Firstly, that I loved Kinomoto Sakura.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	And secondly, that she would never care for me the way I did for her.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	One can grow accustomed to anything when one is a child, I hear, no 
rlm@2: matter how odd, no matter how painful.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	And truly, it doesn't hurt that much, not now. Knowing that someday she 
rlm@2: will go to someone, probably some man, in whose arms she fits, whose 
rlm@2: house she graces, whose life she completes -- she deserves this, if it 
rlm@2: will make her happy. She deserves a wedding out of fairytales and a house 
rlm@2: out of dreams and a husband out of a maiden's longings, and a place in 
rlm@2: which her soul may fly as fast and as far as I know it can go.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	(He had best be worthy of her, he had best make her happy, or -- he 
rlm@2: shall answer to me.)
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	Maybe when my body changes and blossoms, and strange elixirs sing in my 
rlm@2: blood, it will be harder to remember this, as it was hard for my mother 
rlm@2: to understand it. 
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	Mother... you never did understand, did you? You never forgave your 
rlm@2: cousin Nadeshiko for wedding a kind man and bearing *him* two children in 
rlm@2: whom there is a perfection.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	Yes, two.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	It... fits, doesn't it, that as Sonomi loved Nadeshiko, Sonomi's child 
rlm@2: should love Nadeshiko's children?
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	Yet, even beyond their differences, my feelings for the one are nowhere 
rlm@2: near as strong as for the other; even though there are reflections, each 
rlm@2: in each, there is just no comparison.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	It is nothing to Touya's detriment. He is... earth, distilled and 
rlm@2: refined to all that earth is, a mingling of all five, protecting, 
rlm@2: guarding, warm under the sun, cool with the night, fertile ground for 
rlm@2: small lives, endlessly renewing itself even as it is endlessly worn away, 
rlm@2: enduring for long years harsh and soft by turns.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	Earth, inexorably drawn to the moon by the forces of gravity, even as 
rlm@2: the moon is drawn to it and it is drawn to the sun...
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	It is no fault of earth that I chose to look up instead of down, and 
rlm@2: gave my heart to a distant star.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the star, just by burning 
rlm@2: as brightly and as gaily as it did, called my heart out of me.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	It would have been... easier, had I wanted the earth. I might even have 
rlm@2: had it, if not all to myself.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	But Sakura-chan is -- *Sakura*. There is nothing more beautiful or 
rlm@2: interesting to me, nothing that I would rather see. For just a moment of 
rlm@2: her in motion, limbs full of their own grace as she runs towards the 
rlm@2: goal... I would sell the whole earth for that to hold in my hands and 
rlm@2: call forth those feelings from my heart each time I gazed upon her, and 
rlm@2: count it well spent in the bargain.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	And I have that, and a thousand others besides.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	I love my mother dearly, but she can act foolish beyond measure. She 
rlm@2: loved Nadeshiko, perhaps even as I love Sakura-chan, and wanted nothing 
rlm@2: more than to be with her forever.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	If Sakura-chan were to dwell in my house, eat at my board, sleep in my 
rlm@2: bed, then no one in all the world would be happier than I am.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	But even now, I am happy.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	When Nadeshiko married Kinomoto-san, my mother was hurt and jealous; I 
rlm@2: don't think she had ever thought that Nadeshiko might want someone else.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	And because she was angry, she went away and never saw her again. Where 
rlm@2: is there sense in that? Where is there reason?
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	I like o-sushi. It is good to taste and filling to eat. But just because 
rlm@2: I cannot have o-sushi, shall I refuse to eat o-musubi? Shall I turn down 
rlm@2: chazuke? They, too, are filling to eat, and their taste is not bad.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	Sakura-chan will offer the greater part of her soul into the keeping of 
rlm@2: some lucky other person, to hold and to nurture.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	But that's all right. The sun is bright. Water is wet. Rocks are hard. I 
rlm@2: love Kinomoto Sakura. She will love someone else and be happy.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	And I will be happy that she is happy.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	I don't think Mother ever quite understood that. We were vacationing 
rlm@2: once, on an island. I woke up very early one morning and went down to the 
rlm@2: beach as the sun was rising through the clouds. The water shone for a 
rlm@2: moment like silver and steel, and the clouds were all shot with pink and 
rlm@2: orange and mauve and gold, and the rocks curved down into the water as 
rlm@2: the gulls arced out beyond them and the breeze came salt-laden into my 
rlm@2: face -- that moment, just then, was perfect and eternal, and I was happy.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	(I tried to take a picture, but it couldn't hold it all and didn't come 
rlm@2: out that well anyway -- I wasn't as good then as I am now. It's all 
rlm@2: right; I can still remember most of it, and there have been other 
rlm@2: sunrises, even if they weren't the same.)
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	Much later, when my mother woke up, I told her how much I liked it 
rlm@2: there.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	She offered to buy the house and probably the island as well, so I could 
rlm@2: keep the thing that made me so happy and come there whenever I really 
rlm@2: wanted to.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	But you can't do that. You can't own a sunrise, or gulls in flight. Even 
rlm@2: if you lay claim to the place where they are. Even if you put a collar or 
rlm@2: something on the gulls -- even if you put them in a cage, you can't have 
rlm@2: the beauty of their soaring unless they give it to you (and I can't see 
rlm@2: how they could if they were in a cage, anyway).
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	So I thanked her, politely, and told her I would rather have a nicer 
rlm@2: camera and maybe some lessons in how to take better pictures.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	Many people, when they first encountered a camera, thought that it would 
rlm@2: steal someone's soul if it took a picture of them.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	You can't do that, of course. Just one photograph, one frame of film, or 
rlm@2: even the entire strip cannot be enough for all of a person, in their good 
rlm@2: times and their bad times, with all their quirks and all their 
rlm@2: inconsistencies.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	But you can, in one picture, capture a *facet* of them. Not all. Not 
rlm@2: everything. But a little piece, one solitary moment of what they are.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	The more pieces, the more you can assemble something vaguely like a 
rlm@2: picture of the person they are.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	And it isn't even stealing, any more than my blurry picture on the 
rlm@2: island stole the sun out of the sky. It's a record of a gift -- the gift 
rlm@2: that that person gave to the outside world, of what they were at that 
rlm@2: moment.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	I have a picture, of Sakura-chan running, limbs full of their own grace 
rlm@2: as she runs towards the goal. A crystallized memory of how she looked as 
rlm@2: she was doing her best, for me and for all of us and especially for 
rlm@2: herself, that I can look at even when Sakura-chan is not around.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	It's one of my favorites; I have many favorites, among all the pictures 
rlm@2: and movies I have taken of Sakura-chan.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	Someone else will be the recipient of most of her soul, and she in turn 
rlm@2: will be given that person's soul to have in her keeping.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	(I'm doing my best to help make sure that that person is someone who 
rlm@2: deserves that very great honor, and will make Sakura-chan happy.)
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	And when that happens... she won't have as much time to spend with me. I 
rlm@2: know that. I'm expecting it.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	Love is infinite.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	A soul is infinite.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	Time in a day has a limit of 8, 6400 seconds, according to my 
rlm@2: calculator. And every one of those seconds is precious, and every one is 
rlm@2: no longer than it takes to say four syllables (five if you're quick).
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	So time is something you have to divide up. If you have to give time to 
rlm@2: your family, it needs to come from somewhere else... including your 
rlm@2: friends.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	And even... even if she took the time from somewhere that wasn't me, my 
rlm@2: time with her will always be a gift, not a right. 
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	But I'm not unhappy. I'm content -- after all, how many other people are 
rlm@2: there who don't know Sakura-chan at all? How many other people are there 
rlm@2: whose closest contact with her is to see her skate by once, on her way to 
rlm@2: wherever she's going?
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	I, however... I have a treasury of every piece of her soul that she has 
rlm@2: chosen to give me. Whether she's happy, whether she's angry, whether she 
rlm@2: is overtaken by surprise or sorrow; all of them are Sakura-chan, and thus 
rlm@2: all of them are beautiful.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	And each image, a tiny facet in itself, brings back the memories and the 
rlm@2: feelings, and the way it was before and after and during -- sometimes, a 
rlm@2: moment so beautiful it hurt.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	And even that other person... they won't have all of her. They won't 
rlm@2: share in many of these, any more than I'll share in many of their images, 
rlm@2: or either of us will share in most of Touya's pieces of Sakura-chan. Even 
rlm@2: beyond that, there are parts of Kinomoto Sakura that none other than 
rlm@2: herself shall ever see.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	Any more than anyone ever saw some parts of Amamiya or Kinomoto 
rlm@2: Nadeshiko, as much as my mother wanted to. No one else can own all of a 
rlm@2: person.
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	So why should I be jealous of the person whom Sakura-chan will choose to 
rlm@2: love?
rlm@2: 
rlm@2: 	I, too, have pieces of her soul.