Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ My Shinigami, My Hamburger ❯ Mythos ( Chapter 27 )

Chapter 27

"Mythos"

With the Thirteenth Son of Shinigami’s wings in the wretched state they were the modes of transportation were limited to by way of cloud. And with that expression on his face, his mother didn’t trust him to take the walk from realm to realm without either breaking down where he stood or turning tail and running back to his heartless Teishu to beg hopelessly for acceptance, for forgiveness for no real crime he had committed. And that was exactly what Iria didn’t want him to do—crawl on his knees back to a mortal who would only degrade him, one who wouldn’t accept him as he was, imperfections and all. He would go back, she knew, given the choice, if only to lessen the pained throb of his heart enough so that it didn’t consume him. But he couldn’t. She was trying to show him that no mortal man, no matter how unmistakably beautiful or charming, no matter how absorbing or distinguished, was worth it if he wouldn’t give her son the undivided and unconditional love and care he very well deserved. No matter how much he cried over his loss, no matter how many days he would spend pouting and staring at the skies with longing, no matter how frightfully he fought it, Iria wouldn’t allow it.

No matter how long it took him to move on, even. That was what was bothering the Goddess of Love as she watched her most beloved son sit on the back of their transporting cloud, his feet hanging over the side, staring dejectedly at his toes as he swung his legs quietly. Whatever mood took Shini, it never took long for that face to shift back into his usual warm and affectionate smile, for his wandering eye to come across something new to investigate and his mischief to wreck its usual havoc. Since they had left the mortal’s house in Tokyo, he had barely moved his mouth but to answer his mother’s direct questions with a meek, "Yes," or "No." It was quite frankly beginning to unnerve her.

Around them, the cloud-dotted heavens were slowly turning violet and in the distance Iria could see the familiar pink skies of Valentine. It may have been the longest way to transition from the realms, but it was the safest, considering her son’s emotional state. Shini wouldn’t be doing any flying for at least a few more days, and she’d be sure to see to that.

But for now, he sat silently at the back of the spacious cloud, wings tenderly curled up, robes billowing softly as he hung his legs over the side, his long hair brought over his shoulder serving as a source of comfort. He held onto it as if he would break if he let go and stared out into the endless blue surrounding them. It was obvious that he was not going to make a peep, and Iria decided this was a good of time as ever to speak up of what lay ahead of them. Though she never would’ve revealed this to anyone, the Arrogant Mortal had put them in more of a difficult way than they had been before—now she would have to report into Hades again with an unqualified caretaker, and his patience was all but spent.

"We’ll probably be heading off to Hell tomorrow, so I want you to stay out of trouble in Valentine, alright? Just for a day—you can play with Nadette if you like. I’m the one who signs her checks, remember, if she doesn’t want to," the Goddess of Love rattled off, standing at the other end of the cloud, in her bathrobe still. She absently examined her nails as she continued. "And after that, we can start looking for somewhere new to stay. I’m going to try to see if they’ll let you stay in one of the higher circles of Hell—everyone’s pretty nice up there. You won’t have to deal with any more of those self-important, boorish mortals again. Won’t that be nice, Shini?"

He only vaguely grunted a response, too preoccupied with his own thoughts to really hear anything she said. It seemed to just fade away into the noise of the wind to him and he blinked slowly at the whimsical white clouds they passed as the one they rode bustled along of its own supernatural energy. He realized that his mother was talking, but he paid it no attention.

While staring blankly at the skies, he suddenly had an idea, and cautiously opened up the palms of his hands in front of him. He kept them close to his body in secrecy as a little, faint orb of darkness formed between them. Without glancing over his shoulder to see if his mother was watching, he squinted a little, trying to bend the shadow to conform to his will as his fingertips turned cold. With so much sunshine, it was much harder to find shadow to pull from the air. With the changing of night to day, the levels of shadow and light shifted, but were always balanced. He bit at his lip in concentration, finding it difficult in his sick state to perform the trick with the same ease he had before. He hoped it would pass, and finally a tiny black daisy-shape hovered between his fingertips.

Shini’s tongue peeked out as he concentrated heavily on the shadow flower to make it tangible. He felt his skin flushing with the effort and his fingertips stinging coldly—it’d never been this difficult before. Finally, he could reach up and grab it. It was ice cold, but he hardly noticed it, with that same Darkness pulsing in his fingertips, which helped him sculpt the ethereal thing into reality. Smiling weakly to himself at the accomplishment, he picked up the flower. Around it glowed a thin layer of pure light from where the shadow had been drawn.

Shini looked down at the purely black daisy he’d created and lifted the other hand to pick off the first petal. It came off in his fingertips, but as soon as he tossed it into air it dissipated back into the air. He was told that once he was fully matured, he’d be able to actually keep shadow figures solid and do much more than he could even imagine, but it seemed so far off. How long had he before he was fully-grown? How much longer would he be the weakest of the Shinigami, how long would he have to worry about his safety in the presence of demons?

It seemed like forever, but for now he occupied his worry in the form of the little black flower.

"He means it, he means it not…" he uttered under his breath as he pulled the petals one by one and threw them into the wind. Behind the traveling cloud there could be seen a trail of tiny black petals, ones that dissolved in midair, leaving a little hazy trail that also soon disappeared.

Iria stood at the other end, still rattling on about the atrocious wrong exacted on Shini and how she was going to make sure he never had to fall into the hands of a caretaker—she was going to be damned if she wasn’t going to get him back into Hell, where he belonged. No more of this foolish mortal business. She glanced over her shoulder, currently in the middle of explaining that humans had been made short-lived and foolish for a reason and that was to stress the superiority and wisdom of divinity, to see that Shini was mumbling to himself and he was tossing something off the cloud. She stalked over to stare over his shoulder and gaped as she realized what he was doing.

"He means it… he means it not… he means it—"

"Shinigami!" she snapped at him. Before he even knew it, she had reached down and taken the precious, half-naked flower from him. It crumbled like sand in her hand and she opened her fingers for the wind to take it, a severe expression coming across her face. "Young man, you know that you can’t be playing games. Not in the state you’re in—it’s out of the question! That’s just wasting the energy you need to get well. Do you want to get the Drains again? Don’t remember what that felt like?"

A little wounded, he only stared down at his toes again and nodded obediently. After that, he remained silent.

"You have to understand, Shini. I don’t want to you to go back to such a jerk. You can depend on him to never change, that’s for sure. He doesn’t deserve you," she said firmly, stubbornly keeping her face stern. Frustrated, but still pitying of her unfortunate, heart-broken son, she turned back to her post at the other side of the spacious cloud, watching the features of Valentine draw closer.

Meanwhile, her son brooded quietly. The last petal’s meaning remained heavy on his mind and he wondered hopelessly what would have been the final prediction. But he kept his head hung and fiddled silently with his fingers while his wings went through the slow and uncomfortable process of re-growing feathers. With a sigh, the Thirteenth Son of Shinigami curled his toes in the air and was uncharacteristically quiet all the way into the warm pinks and reds of his mother’s realm of business with a million thoughts coursing his mind.

Once inside the office, Shinigami found himself sitting obediently in the stiff waiting chair while his mother went insider her room—once again clean and free of broken furniture—and with little more to do but to either continue his cheerless staring or fiddle with his fingers in his lap. He felt stiffly self-conscious all of a sudden, always watching what he was doing, dimly wondering if Heero would scowl at him for it, what he would think of him now. He’d never been so sensitive to the slightest move before, fumbling to ignore when he knew he was probably acting impatient, being immature, looking downcast. He also knew when the secretary’s eyes landed on him and he tensed up not to make a stupid move under her gaze.

Nadette sat innocently at the desk just outside Iria’s desk, calmly filing and organizing the drawers, but she stopped every now and again in her work to look up to the God of Death who sat against the wall in an uncomfortable chair. His mother had ordered him to remain there, not making a move towards the door or anywhere vaguely in the direction of Tokyo, and then sequestered herself in her office to make the unpleasant call to Hades breaking the news of the loss of their most-promising candidate for caretaker.

He would not be happy at all, and his reaction would shape her son’s future; whether he lived an eternally lonesome life in Limbo, or returned to his former home in Hell all depended on his ruling. He had been the one to banish her son from Hell in the first place and condemn them to searching for a suitable mortal home that would only last for a matter of years before they were forced into searching again. There was little chance that their struggle would end happily. She knew that the odds of Shini even seeing Hell again were slim, but she was going to damn well fight for it.

The secretary watched Shini remain motionless for a second, then sighed, straightened up the pile of papers in her hands and looked away. He would do nothing but stare at his toes and nervously toy with his fingers and he had barely spoken a word since he had stepped foot inside the door, except to say, "Yes, Okasan," when she asked him if he’d be able to sit still while she was working. To see that vibrant face without even a trace of a smile was very sad, indeed, and the more she looked at him, the more she was reminded of the way he had looked at the mortal when he had eased his fears just before heading to the underground market.

The more she realized just how attached he was to him, and from her superior’s sullen glare and Shini’s passionless face, the more she felt sympathy, but was too shy to express it outright. She decided that it was the best she could do to give him his space and she kept on unobtrusively with her work. She bent down in her chair to picked up the manila folder that she had dropped on the floor next to her desk one moment, with the Shinigami sitting silently in the chair across the room, and when she had sat back up, straightening up the file papers, he was simply not there anymore.

She’d seen this situation before, and Nadette stood up abruptly from her seat, again almost knocking her chair down behind her. Out of her throat came a strangled sound of surprise, but as soon as she had moved, she saw something dark out of the corner of her eye tense up at her start. She turned her head and saw the Shinigami standing timidly before the bookcase in the corner, his hand drawing away from the book he had been reaching for.

She blinked sheepishly, blushing a little that she’d been so jumpy. "Oh, there you are," she said quietly, smoothing out her skirt as she sat back down. "I thought—no, never mind. I’m sorry to have startled you."

"No, it’s alright," Shini answered in the same quiet, humble tone. He stood there, motionless, until she turned back around, still straightening out her hair and blouse, to reach up again. He then quickly pulled one from the shelf, one of the few books with Japanese hiragana running down the spine among the other languages. But this was the Goddess of Love’s office. No one had touched those books for centuries on end and sudden movement the Angel of Death caused disturbed the massive amount of dust that had built up over those years.

A cloud promptly fell upon him and he fell back a step, opening his mouth and letting out a loud, arresting sneeze that made a few more books slide and fall and made Nadette jump in her seat again, though this time she managed to remain in it. "Oh," she said breathlessly, holding one hand over her chest where it felt her heart had tried to shoot out of her throat. He was about to open his mouth to apologize again, she could tell, and instead just said, "It’s alright. Please, just sit down."

Shini nodded, burning with the self-conscious shame that came along with his downtrodden mood, and picked up the books. He couldn’t actually read much more than Japanese, so the Italian and German and French titles that had fallen bewildered him as to where they belonged. So he glanced over his shoulder, saw that the blonde secretary had fortunately turned around, and just shoved them back in a random order. But one remained tucked under his arm when he went back to the chair. Nadette, who was quite aware that he had taken one, peered up from her work to see what it was. She knew he probably would hide it if he knew she looked—he was in a rather tender mood, after all.

But to read? And to read a Japanese guide to English? But he already knew how to speak the language well enough, she supposed. She was curious, and she watched the Shinigami tilt his head and make slight faces at some of the kanji he didn’t recognize, but she re-immersed herself in her work quickly. She kept wondering, however, and thought reading an English book was one of the oddest ways of coping with the loss of a loved one. Not that she would speak up, though.

In another world, Heero Yuy was waking up to the obnoxious combination of sunlight scolding his eyes and an unanswered and impatient phone scolding his ears for not immediately attending to it. In return, he dragged himself from the couch to get up, traveled to the kitchen where the phone hung on the wall, shrilling at him, and yanked out the cord. It died in mid-ring. Determined not to be disturbed by any outside force and still a little riled up from the events of last night, he walked back to the couch in the living room. He flopped back down to fall back to sleep—he’d already set it in his mind that he was not going to go to work today, to hell with all consequences. The idea of quitting the job had already come to mind, but he would have time to think about that later.

Laying on his side and shoving his arm under the pillow, Heero closed his eyes again but they opened only a minute later. He took in a deep breath and his scowl returned. He finally realized that it smelt of the Shinigami, of that odd cinnamon scent and taste he had, and that fully discontinued any desire to go back to sleep on the couch. It only reminded him of the last few days, reminded him of how much his world had been turned on its ear. Hell, before last week, Heero had been skeptical of the existence of ghosts and days later he was coming out of a failed marriage to a god. The issue of divine existence was something human beings had grappled with for all of eternity, and the battle between which religion was the correct one had caused more conflict and wars than was countable. And here was a twenty-five year old boy who just had the answer to all those struggle thrown at him, and he hadn’t even been looking for it! It was too much to try and just accept, and Heero would rather have nothing to do with it. He’d been fine, no matter what anyone told him, before all this and he was intent on returning to his previous, level headed life.

With a sigh, he stood up and went meandering for the stairwell. He might as well take a shower and get cleaned up if he wasn’t going to be able to get back to sleep. No sense just lying there, going over something that was done and over with in his head again and again.

He pushed the door open to his room, his mind solely on getting clean clothes, and he stopped, instead looking at the rumpled pile of blankets lying on his bed. Only a little while ago, his godly husband would have been sleeping there, curled up in the jumbled sheets and comforter, snoring soundly. He probably would have found a way to grab the pillow and hold it against his chest as he lay on his belly, hair spilling over the side and no doubt knotted and double knotted. There would be a little trail of drool running from his lip, as he always seemed to sleep with his mouth open and let out little snoring sounds.

Heero shook his head, and it cleared his mind of the memory. Also determined not to be bothered by the past, he went to his dresser to get clean clothes. But as soon as he opened a drawer, he knew that he would only be reminded of the Shinigami again if he walked into the bathroom and his face tightened up again. He sighed and shoved the drawer shut, walking back out into the hallway empty-handed. It was then he decided that now as a good of time as any to go out riding, even though in the back corner of his mind, he knew that there were memories of the Shinigami sitting out on Youkai’s back—hell, he had given the motorcycle its name!

But Heero was getting sick of his husband’s—well, more accurately, his ex-husband—ghost waiting for him at every turn he tried to take and he went out to the parked motorcycle, shoved the helmet over his rumpled bed-head, and revved the engine in defiance of the image of the Shinigami his mind recalled, sitting at the back, simply smiling at him, mouthing the words, "Silly mortal." He knew it wasn’t really him, and he was going to get away from every memory of him in that house and he was going to stay away as long as his gas tank allowed him. As the sun was beginning another daily climb into the center of the sky, Heero Yuy was pulling out the driveway and speeding out of the neighborhood, incidentally waking the old man in the house across the street.

"Quit?" came the boss’s cautious and honestly surprised response in his nasal Japanese. Skeptical and bespeckled, he squinted down at the camera that had been set on his desk and then up to his employee. "This is not like you, Yuy-san."

Heero’s face, which would have normally given off a telltale twitch at such a comment, only looked dully back into his. "Yes, sir," he answered. "But I’m sure of this." In fact, to prove his earnestness he began to dig through his front pocket while he still stood in front of the desk and brought out his key to the building and tossed it down beside the camera. The metal winked in the light as it slid toward Takamura, hanging on a bare ring. Again that aged face turned a skeptical look toward him, every wrinkle filling with suspicion. He left the key untouched; a sign of his refusal to believe what he was hearing and seeing.

"And where is this attitude of respect I’m hearing coming from, Yuy-san? I’ve come to expect a certain amount of hostility toward me—I may begin to miss it with my other, more soft-willed employees," he said. "I’m not sure that you are yourself today."

Again, in his mind Heero resented the comment, wondered with a little offense why everybody seemed to be an expert on him lately and more than willing to assert that strange fact. He might have made a scowl, and that would have been more normal behavior, but he just couldn’t find the rage in him to even think about it. He felt exhausted and ready to fall asleep at the drop of a hat, and it was already near noon. He hadn’t had breakfast and had no hunger or even an urge to eat. It just wouldn’t seem appetizing today. But he knew he wasn’t not acting like himself—everyone was just too damn nosy.

"Whomever I might be, sir, this is my decision," he answered briefly. He hoped that it would be enough to communicate it through his superior’s skull that he was final with his choice.

Those old, calculating eyes watched him, magnified by the glasses he wore, previously in the middle of reading a document before Heero had walked into his office, many hours late, and had randomly dropped his camera—Takamura’s camera—on his desk with an announcement of his resignation.

"You know, Yuy-san," he began, folding his hands on the table in solemnity, "I’m very disappointed. You held a lot of promise in your art and you were dedicated to your work. To see you leave and give up on a great talent is a shame. But, I’m not going to order you to work for me, it’s your right to quit." With one more displeased, wrinkled frown, his boss reached forward and slid the key across the desk to him, accepting Heero’s proposal reluctantly.

"No, no way!"

"Shinigami, young man, you stop right there!"

Before the resisting party could manage to stomp away from his mother, she had flung out a hand into his trailing, unbound hair and gotten a good, controlling grip. Keeping the other hand close to her chest to keep her kimono closed while the dress sprite tried to get it properly adjusted, she yanked her son, currently dressed only in pressed black, pleated, loose-fitting trousers portion of his haori-hakama , the traditional male kimono, and his timid dress sprite hovered a few cautious feet away. His leash quickly ran out and he twirled around to face his mother, who had a face that was just as sour for him.

"Knock it off, Okasan!" Shini snapped at her, reaching out to snatch back his hair. He managed this, but ended up inevitably yanking at his own scalp in the process, intensifying the disgruntled look. "Why don’t you just stop? You’ve said it all before, alright!"

"I’m not asking you to keep track, Shini, I’m asking you to pay attention to what I tell you the first time I tell you!" she asserted, her scowl worsening the more she had to snatch back at her son, making sure he was facing her and giving her his full attention. He escaped her next lunge, but sourly relented and reluctantly paid attention, rolling his eyes at certain intervals all the while. "Now, young man, you’re going to stand there and listen and you’re going to get dressed! This is not a game—we will be standing before Hades himself and he’s going to decide your fate, so you damn well better not look like you just rolled out of bed!"

She jabbed a finger at the ground to drive her very crucial point home, while the timid sprite worked hard looping her waist to try and finish adjusting her white kimono while she barked at her son. "And for the last time, Shinigami," she ground out firmly, "I do not want to see you pouting any more over that sad, arrogant excuse for a mortal. I gave him a chance to prove himself and he threw it away. He threw you away and you should find someone who can really respect you and make you happy, Shinigami."

He just stood silently, with a face as defiant as that that had faced her the night before, declaring himself completely detached from her son. The sprite hovered back, feeling the animosity coming off him in little thin waves of heat, and crept back, feeling something coming on. Shini stared back his mother and opened his mouth sharply, offended but keeping his voice low, "Then you don’t know how he made me feel."

Iria blinked silently for a minute, her face not appearing to really take the full blunt of his emotional words, then squinted at him. "What did you just say?" she asked flatly.

"N-nothing," Shini denied, quickly taking on a flush and shifting to stare out at the expanse of blue clouds as they made their trip to the underworld where the Angel of Death had been raised. He bit at his lip and tried desperately to keep the color in his face from growing, knowing he had been caught and afraid to find out what reaction his mother would have to it. Considering the one he had received for simply picking the petals off a flower, it was not going to be pleasant. He tried to look innocent—honestly, he had never had to work so hard for it—and felt a stare running up his neck from his mother’s sharp blue eyes, shadowed in bright red, nonetheless.

"Shinigami, I want you to turn around right now." Her voice was as calm as it could be, when she had caught wind of something. When Shini tried to casually look over his shoulder, she zeroed in on that thought and a crafty, vigilant expression crossed her face. "And show me your tail."

At the strange request, he tilted his head. "My tail?" he asked, and Iria’s eyes flashed victoriously, the same expression of a predator spotting weakling prey stumbling through the grass.

"Ah-ha!"

A sudden, supernatural wind came whipping up from Shini’s feet and caused his demonic tail to reveal itself, wrapped twice around a little hardback book taken from the dusty shelf in her office. Iria lunged forward so that she could snatch the hidden prize away from him before he had the time to react and flinch backward, his secret revealed. But his mother came away with the book and Shini’s tail snapped loudly as it was pulled forcibly from around the book and he pulled back, nursing his poor appendage which was still sore from catching on fire from the Shrinks. The color he had been holding back flooded up into his face with indignant speed as his mother examined the book’s spine.

"Ah, the Japanese Guide to Simple English, eh?" she purred dangerously, lifting an eyebrow at Shini. "Just some light reading?"

He knew she was inviting him to admit it himself, and that smug and underlying disappointed look pushed him just an inch or two too far, not to mention he could just see her thoughts, scowling at the memory of the Arrogant Mortal. So, he decided to fight it. "I can read what I want!" he declared loudly.

"And use whatever pronoun you please?" She shook her head, amused at his naivete. But she shook the book at him the next second, frowning at him. "I’ve told you a thousand times, Shini! You deserve so much better than him! He didn’t respect you, didn’t listen to you, didn’t love you! And how could he—he’s just a young, arrogant mortal boy. And now you think that just because you’ve worked on your English that he’s going to welcome you back with open arms?"

"No," Shini said doggedly, scowling back at his mother.

She sighed dramatically and rolled her eyes, slapping the book into her palm. "Open your eyes, Shini! You shouldn’t have to go changing for that ungrateful bastard—you’re more than worthy of love just the way you are," she told him, becoming almost imploring, trying to convince her son that there would be better fish in the sea, that Heero Yuy wasn’t the end-all of his romantic life. And as she looked into those violet eyes, into the face of the child she had raised through hellfire and torment, she saw only defiance, and it was very familiar to her.

"I want to change," Shini said fixedly. And with that, he turned around to face the blue skies while standing on the cloud, arms folded. The dress sprite had to get back to work, still clutching the silk half-coat to go with his traditionally patterned kimono, and Iria huffed and simply threw her arms in the air, declaring that she no longer cared in her usual exasperated tone.

"Fine, I don’t care! Degrade yourself for someone who you’re never going to see again anyway for all I care, Shini. It’s your choice! Just get dressed already! We’re so close I can already smell that corpse’s rotten breath," she grumbled, folding her own arms, imagining their upcoming encounter with the Lord of the Underworld and coming up with a picture that was none too pleasant. She had a gut feeling that it was just not going to go well. She wondered why she couldn’t have had that sensation before she chose the Arrogant Mortal and skipped this ordeal altogether and sighed as the sprite started tightening the sash.

A/N: Oh my, the last chapter is in sight! (for this arc, anyway...) Man, it feels good to finish something! But I'm not really able to enjoy it now because I've got to start up right away on two contest entries and get going on 12 again. I probably won't get around to writing the next chapter for that until I finish the last chapter of MSMH (of this arc), so be patient. I can only do so much in a day, but I'm looking into selling my soul for a few more hours. ^_^. And before I go, another little bit of playlist. Ciao!

"Change Would Do You Good" by Sheryl Crow

"Always" & "I Miss You" by Blink-182

"Macy's Day Parade" by Green Day

"Better Now" by Collective Soul

"Possession" by Sarah McLachlin