August 3rd: Still Feel

August 3rd: Still Feel
Date of Cutscene:	03 August 2024
Location:	Outside Tokyo
Synopsis:	Mamoru visits his parents for the first time in years on his birthday, the anniversary of their death.
Cast of Characters:	Mamoru Chiba

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"I know, right? All that time I took teaching myself to miss you, and then I missed three years in a row," says Mamoru, crouching down in front of the memorial stone to arrange and light the incense he brought.

Next year he might take a motorcycle, or at least get rideshare for the last leg. This year, as before, it was the train and then a bus and then a hell of a walk, with lunch and snacks and a filter bottle of water in his backpack.

When he was much smaller, someone from the orphanage took him every year. When he hit eleven, he asked to go himself -- and since he had apparently been behaving himself impeccably since the only time he actually got caught fighting, and he was so serious, he was told he could go by himself the next year. So twelve and thirteen, he made the pilgrimage on his own.

Then he went missing.

"I'm so sorry I forgot you," he says as he produces a rose from nowhere, then stabs it into a smooth white round rock from the memorial garden's paths, breaking it and pulling the magic out. He repeats the process, then pours some water from his filter bottle into the little holder next to the incense, and carefully places his roses in it.

Finally, he sits crosslegged in front of the stone. Chiba Hinata and Chiba Chiyoko, it says, 3 August 2013. Eleven years ago, his sixth birthday. He runs his fingers over their names.

"Someday I'll remember what you were really like. You took good enough care of me that I made it out of those places with something of myself still intact, in spite of everything.

"Taka-kun even still remembers I was kind to the littler ones, made sure they had enough to eat even if the bigger kids stole their food and I couldn't stop them in time. He said so. He brought it up last year. He still thinks I'm a soft touch.

"But it was you, wasn't it? You who made sure of it? I still wonder what your tastes were, your senses of humor, whether you told me stories, whether you taught me how to shield myself, whether I had magic back then... it's not fair, but that's an old ache."

Mamoru takes a long drink from his water, then starts unwrapping his sandwich-- but pauses to put the offerings he brought on the little dishes in front of the stone. A little bit of this, a little bit of that, cookies from Makoto -- things that either rain will take care of or that it won't badly inconvenience the caretakers to remove later.

He's silent as he eats his sandwich, and he takes his glasses off so the private tears can come without them getting salty.

He never used to cry, but then he met Usagi, who calls herself the biggest crybaby, and she peeled away his armor-- this past month it almost feels like he hasn't stopped.

When the sandwich is done, he takes out three cans of coffee and puts two of them down in front of the stone. Those he leaves unopened, two beliefs rolled into one -- the belief that his parents get something out of it, and the belief that the caretaker likes coffee. He has equal evidence for both.

With his own can of coffee open and sipped, he smushes the back of his wrist into one eye, then the other, rubbing away the salt without the roughness of the hem of his t-shirt. "So much has happened in the last three years. The best parts were finding my Shitennou, moving into the dorms at my new school, and meeting Usagi, then starting to make friends with other people. Real friends who have my back and I have theirs."

He looks away, turning the coffee can around and around in his hands, silent for a moment longer. Then, "The worst parts... I don't know if I should tell you. I finally found people who love me that I could tell who were able to do something about it, so I don't need to make you upset with the details. The important part is that things are looking up, and there are ways to deal with what the worst parts did to me, and I'm seeking them out. Counseling, sleep aids, leaning on friends but not too much... things like that."

Finally there's a smile. "I'm going to move out of the dorms, though. I've had a great roommate for the past two years, but I need space that's mine, that I can invite others into if I want, but I can have it to myself if I want, too. Your photo will, of course, have pride of place. I'll set up a little shrine so I don't have to make the trek out here whenever I want to say hello."

Mamoru finishes his coffee, rinses the can out with more water, then puts the can back in his backpack. He hesitates for a moment, then digs his fingers through the pebbles to touch the ground and dig into that a little with his fingernails, and he looks with his other senses -- looks for the hollow where a small metal box holds two containers.

Still there.

He withdraws his hand and brushes the dirt off on his jeans, then leans forward with his elbows on his knees and tells them the rest -- all about Usagi and her family, about Kazuo and his mother-- then about Tamaki and Zoi and Neph, about Naru and Koji and Chiyo and Bow, and Adrien and Chrono and Rashmi. He sidetracks into an abbreviated recap of the fights in the catacombs, in Paris proper.

He tells them about Hinoiri and what she did and the fact that she's a unicorn, and he tells them about what's happened with Takashi -- the brother he'd told them about when he was smaller, visiting like this; he tells them about Makoto and how she found him again.

He tells them about Wako and Sugata, about Kyouka and Fuyuko, about Amy and Sayaka and the other Puellae and their horrible secret, about Setsuna and Haruka and Ami and the Senshi-- about Ami and Usagi, and he's grinning and it's a little rueful.

He tells them about Pretty Cures and about Charas, about Coco and mermaids, and Molly and Katsuko and Hannah, about basically everyone he's met in the past year -- and some of the people he met before that, which he still likes.

He even tells his parents about the stuffed toys other people have gotten him -- he doesn't remember any of the ones they got for him.

He doesn't say much about Beryl, but he tells them about some of the things he did in Obsidian because they're still funny.

He tells them about the Golden Kingdom, about his memories as Endymion. (He apologizes for remembering that but not them.)

And he tells them, eventually, about what it feels like to be alive in the year 2024...

...and that he might bring some other visitors for Obon after all.