Fruits Basket Fan Fiction ❯ Custody ❯ A night to remember ( Chapter 5 )

Momo pulled the collar of her coat up for the millionth time. Although the temperature outside dropped with every passing second, she refused to join everybody else at the party going on inside. This had been a very important recital in her starting career as a violinist, and she had been very excited about it for over a month now. It was supposed to be a memorable night!

 

Things, however, hadn't entirely turned out as expected. She left her home early that afternoon with her friend Heidi for some little extra practice time. They played a duet in the recital, which had been one of the main events in the presentation tonight. Her parents promised to be there on time, for they wouldn't miss her performance even if the end of the world came.

 

She practiced, got ready and waited impatiently for her turn on stage. Heidi, ever the word of reason, tried to calm her down as the night progressed and Momo's parents had still to show up. Momo had located their assigned seats before the theater filled with the public, and every time she looked, they remained empty.

 

She called home for the third time when her number was over. They weren't there. First, she was furious. `How dare they!!! They stood me up on the most important day of my life!!' Her anger turned to concern through the following hours. `What if they couldn't make it? What if the car broke down on the way there? What if...?' She decided not to think about that. They were fine. They had to be.

 

Starting to panic, her hand moved instinctively to her neck. There, hanging from a silver chain was her secret source of comfort whenever she became a nervous wreck. It was the little figure of a silver rabbit; her most prized possession because he gave it to her. Whenever she touched it, she felt the reassuring presence of her nii-chan by her side again. She wondered where he was and what had become of him. They lost contact as soon as she climbed in that taxi the day she left Japan. She wrote to him in the beginning, but she never got an answer. She refused to believe that he had forgotten about her. She would never do that. He promised to always be her onii-chan.

 

She chuckled at that. “Onii-chan”. How long had it been since she spoke a word in Japanese? As soon as they reached Germany, her father, who had been the only one at her house to ever speak the language, switched to German completely. He only called her “Momo-chan” as he had always done, but not another word had been spoken in his native tongue at home in all this time.

 

`Has it really been six years already?' -She thought.

 

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She was scared on her first day at her new school. She arrived in the middle of the school year here, so she had to merge into an already integrated group. The first year was the hardest, but once she got familiar with the language and the writing, she opened up more and made new friends. Since nobody else spoke Japanese here, she stopped speaking it. With the passing of time, she even started to forget the words (not that she really tried that hard to keep them in mind). She lost the “funny accent” soon enough, and even dropped some customs altogether, like bowing as a greeting. Her eyes were slanted just barely, so that unless you'd met her father, you could never relate that to her ancestry. She was growing to be an exact replica of her mother, her looks making her one of the most popular and chased after girls at school. Her “peculiar” name became an asset, since it drew the attention of the people onto her. When questioned about it, she just said that it was of foreign origin, but then, can you keep track of how many kids you get to meet with strange foreign names nowadays? Nobody gave it a second thought after that. She was perfectly happy in her new country. She became a German girl. Nobody could've guessed now that she had been born and raised in Japan.

 

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It was dark. It was snowing. She lost count of the number of snow flakes she'd seen fall to the ground by now. She vaguely recalled counting up to 1,568. The night was deadly silent now. The sound of her breath increased in volume every time she drew the frosted air into her lungs. It was deafening.

 

The party ended late into the night, and everybody left, not really paying attention to her. She barely acknowledged a couple of people with her trademark nervous smile. Nobody outside her family had ever figured out the meaning of that smile. Her parents knew it well, though. These people couldn't guess just how terrified she was by now. The only person left who could've known just by looking at her was currently far away, in another country. Her hand gripped her rabbit charm until it hurt.

 

She kept on standing there, waiting.

 

A hand came from behind to rest on her shoulder. Momo looked back, startled but with hopeful eyes.

 

It was Heidi.

 

-“They didn't come?” -She asked, really surprised. Momo's parents were entirely devoted to their child. It wasn't like them to miss an important event in their daughter's life such as this one. Something was wrong.

 

Momo confirmed her suspicions with a slow movement of her head.

 

-“My parents and I are leaving now. Want a ride home?” -She asked. Truth be told, she noticed Momo's absence from the party, but didn't really pay much attention. She just assumed that she was somewhere else with her other friends. By the way Momo looked; she guessed that she stood out in the snow for at least three hours. She might even get sick.

 

Momo nodded.

 

Momo remained silent on the way back home. Her hands hurt, almost frozen since she forgot her gloves at home. The fancy, high heel dress shoes she insisted on wearing that night didn't help her feet either. Her fingers felt like they would snap and fall off with the slightest movement.

 

Heidi and Momo looked out the windows for the familiar car that her parents drove.

 

Nothing. Just snow.

 

Up ahead, some red and blue lights illuminated the road.

 

As they drove by, Momo recognized the car. She recalled hearing an ambulance pass by sometime ago. Her blood froze in her veins.

 

Tonight was the end of her world. It was a night she would never forget.