[Kaida Ikarashi]

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As the gong of the shrine sounded and thrummed through the ground, Kaida couldn't help but think anywhere on earth would be better than being here. It wasn't a good day, not for her, and not for most of the people that filtered through the building's gates. She would go as far as to say these people would be better off remaining at home, but right now, her opinion didn't matter.[break][break]

It's Mother's Day, and the local shrine not too far off of U.A's campus surrounded by mountainous forest is offering servitude for the living over their matriarchal deaths.[break][break]

The priests and maidens try to make it as best as they can be for the people, offering kind words and consultation to those who had lost their mothers, and could not visit their graves or such, opting to come to a place just as best as a graveyard would be, if not better. Graveyards, as Kaida had found, dampened her soul incredibly. Seeing the hundreds of rows of the fallen took a heavy toll on the mind, and at least here, you could be with people who had similar experiences and find comfort in that- at least in her opinion. But her opinion hardly mattered.[break][break]

Kaida stood off to the side with crossed arms beneath the overhang of an engawa, merely observing the crowd as they moved inside the main offering hall to place down their gifts or incense before the offering box, and saying a few words of prayer. She had done her part of helping set everything up- she would leave the words of consultation to those who were actually capable of warmth, rather than her cold and harsh honesty. Makoto, the younger shrine maiden who was about seventeen years old and one who constantly badgered Kaida over accidentally breaking cleaning supplies, had a comforting hand on an elderly woman who had a river of tears flowing down her wrinkled cheeks. She would be fine. Makoto had a way with words.[break][break]

Now, it would just be up to waiting until everything was over to help clean up again.

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Elijah

notes

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[Elijah]

Going here was not Elijah's first choice.

He preferred the solitude cemeteries provided. No one to ask him why he was there. No one for him to tell what happened to his family. No one to fear him once they realized what he'd done. Not that that bothered him, he grew accustomed to such reactions. It just seemed a waste of effort on their part to worry about things that had already happened.

His father insisted that he attended this event though. Adoptive one, not the one who's already dead. Something about needing a more positive outlook on not having a mother on Mother's Day while the opportunity to have that was there, and to be supported by people who've also lost theirs. It wasn't the same, Elijah would quip, but dad would have none of that.

The freshman sighed as he followed the congregation of people through the shrine's gates, the violin case in his hand contrasting the hoodie and ripped jeans he wore. Even now he thought that leaving a physical gift didn't feel right when its recipients were nowhere close to retrieve it, so something intangible was the next best thing.

Also, no one would dare talk to a musician in the middle of a piece.

He still needed to set up though. So Elijah peeled himself away from the crowd to position himself at the side before crouching to open the case. The violin inside didn't fit him, it was a rental from some store he'll have to remember when the time came to return it, but it didn't matter when he only needed it for the day. He picked it up and quietly plucked its strings, dissonant notes chiming in the air as he tuned the instrument to working condition.

Kaida Ikarashi

[Kaida Ikarashi]

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Eventually, Makoto comes back to Kaida's side, the younger girl looking up at the senior with some trepidation on her features. "Poor woman," she said, gaze still on the elderly lady who was now laying some offerings on the shrine. "mother died in a car crash a few years back. Would have been her hundredth birthday a couple days ago. It's too bad."[break][break]

Kaida doesn't look at Makoto, an unreadable expression on her face. She would have gladly taken that elderly lady's place, and not out of good of her heart, but rather the exact opposite. Had her own mother as well as her father hit the sack in an event as anticlimactic as that rather than Kaida taking them out herself, she would have done it. But there was also the regrettable notion of leaving them out of the pain and suffering as same as they had put her through- Kaida wasn't above admitting that she wanted them to hurt.[break][break]

"So it is," Kaida responded, eyeing the new arrival with the violin case that walked past the pair.[break][break]

"Guess you're not missing out on much, huh?" Makoto asked, a bit of solemn melancholy in her eyes.[break][break]

Kaida's expression hardened. It wasn't a secret on who her parents were and how terrible they are- if anyone paid attention to the news about the yakuza, they would know who she was, and what a shit-hole of a nightmare she crawled out from. But she wasn't asking anyone to give her grief on not having a real mother. "Not really."[break][break]

"You sure you're going to be okay-"[break][break]

"Look for someone else to pity, Makoto." Kaida gritted, strolling away, leaving the youth to sigh and find more people to ask after.[break][break]

After a bit of walking around, she found herself next to the boy with the violin, her ears perking a little as she recognised him. Didn't know him personally, just as another student at U.A, maybe a hero student. An instrument such as the violent was a bit out of place given the traditional air of the shrine, but she didn't care much- if anything she welcomed the distraction. "There's a bench by the entrance there to the hall," She advises him, flicking her chin towards that direction. "better to sit there than on the ground where no one can see you."

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Elijah

notes

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[Elijah]

Elijah assumed he wouldn't get much more than cursory glances his way as he tested the notes on his instrument. People who entered a shrine were usually there for themselves after all, or to join someone who was there for themselves. Not to say it was a bad thing, but giving yourself the chance to grieve in a place that encouraged such a thing meant you couldn't focus on much else.

Enter someone who went against his expectations, to whom he turned his head towards. He recognized the person, not from meeting her himself but from the news and subsequent rumours that were spread around the campus in regards to her reputation. "Ikarashi." He nodded at her in greeting. No words spoken behind a person's back would be enough for him to be disrespectful. He knew too well what it was like to be spoken ill of.

Elijah shrugged at the suggestion. "No one's here for me," he said simply. That was a lie. His father would've been had the student not refused his offer to join him on the venture. But seeing as he was a man who was kind and respected his adoptive son's privacy, he stayed home while Elijah went on alone. The student should be thankful for that but all he felt at the moment was indifference. Indifference to the outing. Indifference to the people around him.

Indifference to the loss.

Standing up, Elijah placed the violin on his shoulder and his chin on its chin rest. "I'm fine where I am." At the end of the day he was doing this for his mother, not for the others who had suffered losing theirs. And with his bow gliding on the strings he started to play.

Kaida Ikarashi

[Kaida Ikarashi]

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She felt a twinge of discomfort at being recognised, but didn't let it show on her face, staring down at him for a moment longer before nodding and responding. "I see." She said simply. She had only just met him, inquiring about his background and why he was here alone would have been rude. Someone might have been looking for sympathies today like that old lady Makoto had talked to, or the various others here, but neither of them. It looked like Kaida and Elijah simply just wanted to be left alone to enjoy the peace of Mother's Day.[break][break]

Kaida left him to sit on the bench she had pointed out previously, crossing her arms as the scene unfolded before her. She could almost hear the story told from the melody Elijah was playing; somber, melancholy, bittersweet, hopeful for a better future away from the sour past. It was beautiful in the most rawest sense. Would it be too straightforward to say she felt what he was feeling?[break][break]

That was the thing about music, she supposed. All of it was open to interpretation. It almost made her want to pick up the violin herself and start playing, but she would refrain from doing so for the sake of everyone's ears. [break][break]

It was incredibly peaceful. So much so she unfolded her arms from their usual defensive position to lean back against the wall of the offering hall and close them on her lap, shutting her eyelids to listen to the serene song.

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Elijah

notes

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[Elijah]

His eyes remain closed for the duration of the song, letting the melody carry his movements from one note to the next. Time and again he'd say that his skill with his instruments was fake; carried by an arm that played with mechanical precision. Yet he was here, performing a piece he heard all the time before the fire, from a woman who wanted nothing more than for him to pick up the violin as she did. Even with her gone he continued to learn, pretending his lessons were a means to keep his prosthetic calibrated.

He wondered if she would be proud of his dedication, or disappointed with how much he lied to himself.

The last note hung in the air, signalling the end of his piece. Slowly, the freshman opened his eyes, confusion distorting his face momentarily before he realized right, he played the violin while surrounded by grieving residents. His gaze would fall to Kaida who took to sitting on the bench she pointed him to earlier. Her eyes were closed. She was probably listening then.

Elijah sat down on the other side of the bench, leaving a comfortable distance between himself and the senior. He let the silence be for a moment, eyes scanning the crowd and noting their numbers. Eventually, he spoke. "Are there usually this many people every year?"

Kaida Ikarashi

[Kaida Ikarashi]

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She was thankful for the space he provided to her. Most people from U.A felt the inherent need to speak as loudly as possible or be far too close for comfort for reasons she couldn't understand, so having a likeminded person who spoke only when they felt like it was necessary, meaning hardly ever, was a breath of fresh air. Her ears swiveled in his direction, but she didn't open her eyes to look at him.[break][break]

"Yes." Kaida responded. "Death seems like a foreign concept until it happens to you. Then you realise how common it actually is. We're surrounded by it every day, and some are fortunate enough to be blessed with blissful ignorance." The dragoness opened her icy-amber eyes to look at him. "Some aren't."[break][break]

She let the silence hang for a long moment, watching the people mingle as tears were shed and Makoto gave children sweet candies. Jelly beans, peanut brittle, anything to lighten the mood to look upon their visit as a happier one rather than one hung by sadness. It makes Kaida think, if perhaps more people were burdened with melancholy feelings, they could be as kind as young people like Makoto.[break][break]

Kaida glanced at Elijah again. "It was a beautiful piece, what you played." She said. "What's it about?"

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Elijah

notes

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[Elijah]

Elijah's eyes swept over the visitors as the senior explained, sighing. So many of them, all grieving over the family they lost. He wondered how many had deaths that reached his numbers. Who among them lost more than that? When she finished, the freshman levelled her gaze with his own. "Yes. Some aren't."

He looked to the crowd again at the silence, and his attention remained there once she asked her question. "Mm, it is. The piece was originally made to portray the composer's sorrow over a celebration reaching its end. As more people discovered the song, the celebrations were soon equated to life itself." He glanced down at the instrument in his hands then. "My mother played it often. It was how she introduced me to the violin."

Another sigh. "She's no longer here, hence my attendance to this shrine." He turned to Kaida. "You?"

Kaida Ikarashi

[Kaida Ikarashi]

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when i knew the world wasn't meant for me,

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you rescued me, you rescued me

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i can offer nothing, still you won't let go

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His mother? Kaida can't help but think that there's more to Elijah's misforgivings than that. She knew that look on his face— it mirrored her own. She wouldn't pretend to know anything, but there's a certain piety between kindred spirits like them, people who had been through far too much in life before they were ever thrown a single bone. It almost saddened her— their livelihoods were over before they ever really began.[break][break]

Her? She hasn't lost anyone in her family, although for a certain few she wished she had. She almost wanted to say she had lost her own life, but mentioning something as morbid as that may have scared Elijah off with a few red flags on his tail. She shook her head. "No one. I don't have a family, as far as I'm concerned." She said.[break][break]

She doesn't say anything after that, only watching Makoto move around and hand out more candy to anyone in her path, including the adults, who look mildly confused at her actions. When Kaida had first met the teenager, her actions and words had been far too sweet for her liking, as if she were gazing upon the very embodiment of childhood wonder, the exact opposite of her bloodied self. The more she stayed around Makoto, she more she felt as if she were going to taint her presence— but over her time at the shrine, Kaida had grown used to her presence.[break][break]

Before she realised it, Makoto was standing in front of her, shadowing the sun with a small smile. Even her sunniness is shaded by today.[break][break]

"Hold up your hands," she commanded, and Kaida complied. Makoto sprinkled an item into Kaida's hands— konpeito candy. Kaida looked up at Makoto wryly. The shrinemaiden shrugged. "don't look at me like that! You're like a dark cloud that's about to rain."[break][break]

Makoto then moved to Elijah, telling him to do the same. If he complied, he would see that Makoto had given him a dozen pieces of chewy mango candy. "Today might feel a little worse than others. You're allowed to feel sad. But after tasting this candy, you'll find that the bitterness of today has a sweet aftertaste." Makoto said knowingly, before moving away to another group of people.[break][break]

Kaida let the silence lay for a few moments, raising a piece of candy to her mouth. "She's too kind for her own good sometimes." The dragoness chewed and closed her eyes once more, savouring the sweet aftertaste.

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Elijah

notes

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[Elijah]

Kaida's answer was spoken with such finality that Elijah didn't question further. It was easy to infer either way. A complex history resulted in her cutting ties with the yakuza, yet she found herself still involved in their operations if the news were anything to go by. So the freshman stayed silent instead, only nodding his acknowledgement before he turned back to watch the visitors walking by, along with a girl who was checking on each one.

Eventually the girl approached the pair, dropping something for the senior before she stood in front of him. Following her instructions, Elijah put his violin back in its case and held his hands out, peering curiously at the yellow candy place in them. "Thank you." That was all he could say to her words and the treats she gave really, before she walked away and continued her quest to make everyone's day just a bit brighter.

He sighed at Kaida's words, holding up one of the chewable stars. "There will always be people like that, no matter the hardships they face." Thoughts appeared briefly in his head of how someone could be so strong. Elijah bit into the candy. Huh. Mango. How was she able to have all his konpeito be his favourite flavour? He eyed Makoto's form in the crowd as he tried to puzzle it out, but eventually realized that unraveling that mystery didn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

So instead he simply took in the quiet of the day, finding that he didn't mind this visit after all.

Kaida Ikarashi

[Jinx]

☆ MISSION SUCCESS ☆

+50 Tokens!!

Elijah - 0 // 50 Tokens
Kaida - 14,750 // 19,750 exp

tag: Kaida Ikarashi Elijah