She didn't meet his eyes. "No, no. My fault." She brushed past him and as she walked, head down, she could feel his eyes digging into her back, like fires. When she turned around, unable to resist the feeling of being stared at any longer, he was gone. A sudden, unreasoning terror clamped down on her chest, and she realized that her knees were shaking. She needed...needed to sit down. Some part of her mind registered that her self-control, in the throng and the noise and the touching, was collapsing...she was letting herself become hysterical. She made her way to the outer edge of the crowd; it felt as if every eye in Kyaro was on her.

weak

"Are you all right?"

"Yes!" She jerked away from the touch before it was even offered, hunched her freakish, mangled head down deeper into her shoulders. On the edges of the crowd that had come to attend the funeral, there was a wealthy-seeming estate, bordered by a high wall, with a tree whose branches hung over it; several boys of Tomo's age had commandeered part of the wall and were perched atop it, watching the proceedings.

I want it to be still, and quiet, and dark. So many people...

Her hand found the trunk of the tree, and she pulled herself up to the first branch. She'd climbed trees outside the house in Ryube, at the top of the cleft. It had terrified her mother, seeing her so high up in the wind, but her father had laughed, and said "Girls will be girls," which was strange, in a way, but she hadn't known that when she was small. When she was small, her father would sometimes come into the branches with her, and she would nestle in his arms, high in the trees, watching, far, far below them in the valley, the doll-size trees wave in the wind.

Then, later, when her mother had taught her her letters, she'd take her journal up there and sit in the throne of the branches, and write. The swaying of the trees didn't help her writing much, but the sight did.

By then, her mother and her father had started fighting, and he didn't come up into the branches with her much anymore. Within a year or so, it had become nothing more than a fond memory of childhood, something to be cherished but never recaptured.

"Hey." Someone offered her a hand to help her, but she ignored it and drew herself up on the wall. Standing, she walked down the length of the wall and sat, far away from the boys that she wouldn't be disturbed, with a clear view of the Jowy and the funeral.

I shouldn't be here. How many of these people knew him? I didn't. This isn't my place, my business.

"I'm still pretty tired." This wasn't the sort of conversation she wanted to have. "If it's okay, I think I'll just stay here until you get back. Would that be all right?"

Jowy...poor Jowy.

Nanami frowned and chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, then reached out and placed an oddly maternal hand across Tomo's forehead. "You're still a little feverish, and you've had a bad couple of days. I should probably stay and keep an eye on you, then." worthless

Tomo felt herself blanch. "But...your friend. What about Jowy?"

"He'll understand. Grandpa Genkaku would be disappointed if I didn't do my best, eh?"

Tomo blinked. "Actually, I should be okay once I have something to drink. I'm just feeling kind of washed out...But, my clothes..." Last hope.

Nanami's brows came together; she frowned again. "Are you sure you'll be okay?" Tomo nodded. "Ummm...all right, but you have to promise to stick by me in case you start to feel bad, okay?" Tomo nodded again. "You'll probably be able to fit into my brother's good clothes...I think he's a little bit bigger than you, though." She sighed suddenly. "Oh, Makoto...I wish he was here. He'd know what to say to Jowy. What am I supposed to say, Wolf? What do you say to someone to make it better?" Nanami paused, and Tomo realized that she didn't expect an answer, that none was necessary or would suffice. Nanami was speaking mostly to herself. "I'll see if I can find something of my brother's that'd look decent and fit you, okay?"

"Now addressing the crowd is the new head of the Atreides Clan, Jowy Atreides." Tomo looked up, the sound of reality disrupting her thoughts. She watched Jowy mount to the podium.

She felt bad about sneaking away from Nanami, except that she didn't, not really. She already was wearing Nanami's brother's clothes, living a lie...what would one more hurt? And it was too late to take back the first of the lies, to slay Wolf and resurrect Tomo...she couldn't bear knowing that Nanami would know what a freak she was.

...what a failure she was.

The coffin had already been laid to rest among the sad flowers, in the dark, warm earth. She could envision the rosy wood of the coffin struggling to draw in the last rays of light it would ever know. To sleep, forever...fading away beneath the surface of the earth.

My mother will never have a coffin like that.

"Hey, are you okay?" Tomo started in surprise and jerked, almost falling. A hand reached down to steady her and she jerked away again, catching her balance before another hand could be offered. She looked up, squinting against the sunlight. Somewhere in the back of her thoughts, Jowy was speaking. A boy about her own age, brown haired and slender, stood looming above her, backlit by the sun. She felt a moment of terror rise in her and forced it to heel.

She was getting good at that.

"Sorry," the boy offered. "I didn't mean to startle you like that. You just looked pretty depressed." Without being asked, he sat down on the wall next to her; she bristled before remembering that it wasn't, after all, her wall.

"I'm okay." She glanced at him briefly before turning back to the crowd, trying to pay attention.

"Okay." There was a silence between them. He showed no sign of leaving but didn't speak, either. "So...did you know him?"

"No," she replied flatly.

cruel

Tomo flinched inwardly. "No, I didn't. I'm just staying in town with...with a friend who knew him."

"Yeah. Nanami, right? I saw you arrive with her...I guess I noticed because you're new here. Plus, Nanami's kind of cute, right?"

"I guess so."

"Yeah, well, lucky you!" The boy laughed as if he'd said something funny. "Me and my friends were always thinking maybe we'd find a way up there, since she's all alone now." He snickered again.

disgusting

filthy

"How did she wind up living there all alone?"

"What are you, stupid? I thought you said you were her friend."

Tomo shrugged. There was another silence, and the boy sighed. "Well, Genkaku - he adopted her, he died last summer, and then Makoto signed up for that Brigade...I guess he's probably dead, eh?"

"I see."

"You don't talk much, do you?"

She shrugged again. "It's my first funeral. I don't know what I should be doing." She half turned to face the boy. "Don't you feel like you're lying, just a little? Being here and not caring? Shouldn't it mean something?"

The boy shrugged back at her. "I didn't know him." He leaned back on the wall, arched his neck to take in the sunlight. "The way I see it is, you can't go through life getting upset over every little thing. If you get all obsessed then you just get unhappy. Right now, I'm here...and later on, I'll be someplace else. It doesn't really mean anything."

"Some life."

cruel

"That's what you think. What kind of life is it for you, if you get all upset because you didn't know some dead guy?"

"I never said I was upset."

The boy bit his bottom lip. "You're right." He paused. "Are you?"

"I don't know. Look, I'd really like to be alone, okay?"

Snorting in annoyance, the boy stood up. "Sure, fine, whatever. Anything's better than this."

He was gone, and it was quiet again, at least inside her head. She wondered what her mother's funeral would've been like. She could see the people, dressed in black, sad...it made her feel better, in an obscure way, and knowing that made her feel more ashamed.

Would father come? Would he want to? Would mother want him to be there?

Would I?

She sighed.

I'm sorry, mom. I tried...I tried. I wasn't enough. Not enough...

They began to toss dirt on the bloody wood of the coffin. Sunlight died, and behind it came the worms. Tomo slipped off the wall and landed lightly. She began walking away, but ended in a run, back to Nanami's dojo, where it was warm and dark and quiet. Behind her, someone started yelling; she ignored it.

worms, worms, worms

dead

Return to Tomo's chapters Return to the chapter archive Return to the Suikoden 2 RPG main page
"Tomo" and "Suikoden 2" are (C) Konami. This chapter was posted on June 23, 2000