This… this wasn’t what I had expected. This wasn’t what I had
wanted. I just… wanted her to help Flandre… I hadn’t wanted this. Never. If this was the price to pay for capturing Kay… I didn’t know if it was even worth it anymore.
I’d seen a lot of different Sakuyas over the past months. The confident, expert multi-tasker. The caring, submissive servant. The scatterbrained, overworked housemaid. The timid, insecure young woman. They were all her, just as I was equal parts brave, curious, foolish, and shy. I accepted it; I
welcomed it. Everybody should have different emotions in them, shouldn’t they? But there was a limit… a horrible, disparaging limit, when I wished hidden feelings could just stay hidden forever, and never hurt anyone. Sakuya had just hit that limit like a ton of bricks, and for the longest time I didn’t know what to do. Despair… sorrow… anguish…
“…Why?” I finally brought myself to ask timidly, dropping down to my knees and leaning closer to the distraught maid. “S-Sakuya, what’s… what’s wrong? Why do… you need to be perfect? Why would you ever worry about somethin’ like, like that?”
She shook her head back and forth, looking back at her rumpled white apron again. “I… I have to. It’s my, my purpose, m-my reason to keep l-l-living here… It’s all that keeps me from… from…” She trailed off, leaving me with heaven only knows how many possible conclusions to that sentence.
Dare I come closer and touch her? It might have done as much harm as good at that point; I resisted. “But, you… Sakuya,
no one’s perfect, it’s… it’s impossible! Even with all the time in the world! We’re just… we’re not
made to be perfect, aren’t we?”
“That… that doesn’t mean I can’t try… to get close.”
“But, whaah, why… what’s the point? Sakuya, you’re amazing
already! We little kids can’t do much of anything at all; you keep this mansion clean all by yourself, and you
still have time to be a good waitress, a good cook, a good babysister… a good friend! You’ve… you’ve got everything, Sakuya; why do you want more?”
“No… no I’m not. I… I’m not a good anything. Anyone can do a good job if they have enough time… and I, I still make mistakes. I forget… I spend so much time alone, I forget why I’m alone in the first place. When you’re important, even… little mistakes can be big… I can’t let Remilia down.”
The more she talked, the less she sounded like she was genuinely distraught, and the more it sounded like she was
forcing herself to say what she was saying. Or perhaps,
being forced… But it couldn’t be, no, I wouldn’t
let it be that! I bundled up my courage and rested my hand on her thigh, trying to “act my age” yet again.
“Sakuya… is Remilia making you do all this? Come on, it’s okay… if you’re in trouble, you know there’s people here to help you.”
She shook her head purposefully this time, raising it so if I hunched down I could just make out her eyes. “N-No, no, it’s… not like that, Fran. Please don’t… just, don’t. I, I can handle it, it’s not your problem.”
That still stunk of conspiracy. But I couldn’t just barge into her heart… anyone could tell it was weak enough already. “I… I don’t want to tell you what’s best for you, Sakuya… I probably don’t even know what’s best for me to begin with. I… I just want you to be happy.”
“I, I… I’m happy, Fran. I’m happy with… this. R-Remi, she… she just wants me to be happy too, you know.” She softly took my hand between hers, dusty and dirty and sore as they were, and smiled weakly just below her tatty hair.
I had a nigh-impossible time smiling back, and never did manage to do it in the end. “Then… why would she force you to be perfect? You said it yourself… it’s impossible, it always was. You… can’t be happy trying to do the impossible. You’ll just get sad, and frustrated, and… miserable. I… that’s not happy.”
Her eyes drifted to the side as she sighed, feeling like she was looking back into the past… or the future. “It’s not her… I’m, I’m forcing
myself, Fran. Remi just… makes sure to remind me of it. A little too hard sometimes, but… it’s, it’s okay. I probably deserve it.”
“You’re… Sakuya, that doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t.”
“You… don’t know the story.” She flopped her head over to the other side, still avoiding eye contact as she worriedly massaged my hand to pass the time. “Awwwhh, I’m, I’m no good at telling it… sometimes I even wonder if I remember It right. Ask… Ask Mei. She was there. Probably, she’ll say it’s not her business… heh, just like her, so polite. But if… you tell her Sakuya wants you to know about The Sixteen Nights… she’ll tell you.” She finally took a deep breath and looked at me properly, smile lethargic and eye-sockets dark and baggy. What was this…? What story?
“Francesca, I… I was a bad person, once. I, don’t… think, that there’s a worse person living in the mansion… not even Lady Flan. I was… younger. Wilder. Life was sweet, and fun, and pleasurable… and pointless. Remi… Remi saved me before I destroyed myself… she was like, like the mother I never had. And she, she taught me how to live a better life, for… for other people. Being perfect, that’s… that’s, just… It, gives me something to do with my life. I, can’t grow up… so at least I can grow out.” She struggled for more words, but finding them nowhere she ceased to look and exhaled another bedraggled sigh. “Mei… Mei knows the rest. Well, so does Remi, I guess… if she’d tell you.”
I sat there, in that unbecoming hallway, Kay and Flandre and Monica left forgotten in the basement. Sakuya… just who
were you? Where had you gone? What had you done? What had you wanted, and what had Remilia given you? You said you were fine… You said you were happy… then why did you look so sad, so tired? Why couldn’t you just take a break? Why couldn’t you just rest? China knew… Remilia knew… did
I want to know? Or would it just make me as inwardly dreary as her?
After neither of us spoke for some time, she eventually let my hand slip away and stood up. “I’m… I’m sorry. You must have your own problems… there I go making you worry about mine, when they aren’t even problems. Life is harsh, sometimes… but that’s life, isn’t it? If you don’t know the bad times, how will you know the good times…?”
I got to my feet as well, realizing suddenly how wobbly and uncoordinated I felt after my soul had been cemented to the floor for what felt like ages. “That’s… that’s right, Sakuya. I, I forgive you; don’t worry about it. It’s bad to worry.”
She nodded, and then paused for an eternity. “Yes……… I, think I’m ready to look for that girl again.”
My brain skipped a few seconds.
”What?” “I, I want to look for her again.”
All the progress my heart had made from the lowest point of Sakuya’s condition upwards suddenly crumbled as I began to panic. No no no, this was the wrong direction! “N-No, no, you don’t have to do that anymore Sakuya! Forget Kay; you were right, she probably ran away. It doesn’t matter… she’ll come back one day. We can, we can catch her later. I, I just want you to take a break.”
She sighed for about the tenth time in as many minutes, but the sigh felt like it had some life in it again. “Well… I just did. I sat down, I sorted out my thoughts, I talked to a friend… I can live with that.”
I bit my lip; don’t… don’t force it… can’t force it. "I... I can't make you do anything you don't want to, Sakuya. And I'm not trying to hurt you or make you feel bad. We're... friends, right?"
She patted me on the head. “We’re friends. But… we’re Flandre’s friend too, aren’t we? And… I know. And
you know. We know what it’d mean to her, don’t we?”
“You… you don’t have to do this… you tried really hard already.”
“No, no, I guess I don’t have to… but I
want to. It’s a… challenge, for me. And if you don’t even challenge yourself to be your best… how can you challenge yourself to be perfect?”
As I listened to her words, words that had started to come from the soul once more, I felt like maybe I’d fit one puzzle piece next to another. A challenge… a challenge to be the very best… to be
perfect… Was it just a race? An endless race with no finish line and no winners? Because after all… even if you can’t win, it doesn’t mean running won’t make you stronger. And… if you never run, then you’ve already lost.
“Just… one more time, then?” I asked her politely, resolve returning to my heart. “I won't be angry or disappointed in you if we can't find her. But if you want to… then I don't want us to give up before we've tried everything!"
She nodded resolutely. “This time… I’m going to do my
best. Now, I need you to tell me everything you know about how Kay hides, and about
where she hides.”
We were back on the clock; I had to talk fast and forward. As briefly as I could I gave to her whatever I could think of. She was a trickster… she liked games… she liked interesting people… she hid in plain sight but she wasn’t stupid… she used your own brain against you… silver-mint hair and a boring black hat… Eventually my information slowed to a trickle, and Sakuya thanked me for giving her a direction.
“Oh, one more thing,” she added, scribbling notes furiously on a pad of paper. “You said we wanted to try
everything. So I just want to know… how far do you think she could have gotten from the time you left to now?”
At first, I began to count the minutes that had passed on my fingers before realizing what she was
really asking. And I suddenly felt very, very nervous. “S-Sakuya, you’re not… you’re not thinking about s-searching…
everywhere, are you?!”
“It’s been about twenty minutes, Fran,” she remarked, checking her pocketwatch. “Do you know how fast she can move?”
“I, I, I don’t know. She was just bobbing around in the air sometimes…”
“Well, we’re going to have to estimate high, then. We don’t know what she is, but if she’s a mind-reader I wouldn’t
think she can move as fast as a fairy. Sixty miles per hour, max? No, no, estimate high… hundred miles per. Twenty minutes, so, thirty-three miles. Estimate high… forty. Forty miles.”
She placed a firm and unshaking hand on my shoulder. “Francesca, Kay exists. You, and Monica, and Flandre saw her here, in the mansion, twenty minutes ago. That means she is
somewhere within a forty mile radius. And I am going to find her… no matter how long it takes.”
I was speechless. Forty miles.
Forty miles. And Kay was invisible. Even if Sakuya stopped her from moving… this was impossible! No one person could do it; Sakuya didn't even know what she was looking for! If only there was some way for both of us to look at once...!
"Sakuya, could you... take pictures of the room instead of searching by hand? I mean, then maybe, I could help look, or maybe Kay can’t hide from a picture!”
She shook her head sadly. “Too risky. It’s easy enough for me to move around by myself, or even pick up things, but a camera… There’s light particles bouncing around and affecting things, and every little thing is one more thing I have to concentrate on… I’ve told you before, time magic isn’t magic. There’s fussy little rules, and electronics are fussy little things. Took me long enough to make the PDA work in there. No, no, it’ll need to be with old-fashioned elbow grease, Fran.”
“But, if you could just, uhh, unfreeze for a teeny tiny second, maybe?”
“And risk Kay getting wise and jumping into a spot I’ve already checked? I know you want to help, Francine, I really do, but when you’re trying to defy Old Father Time at his own game, I’ve learned that it’s all or nothing. Trust me… this isn’t the hardest thing I’ve had to look for.”
I reluctantly had to concede; she had a point. If we wanted to find a brain-girl, the simpler the plan was the better. I couldn’t help asking in jest though, “What was the hardest?”
“Well, there’s been a few, I guess, but the one that comes to mind…” She smirked and held out one finger for every condition she listed. “Needle-In-A-Haystack. Five clues. Prize goes down with every hint. Boundaries: North America.” Shrugging, she added. “Remilia was seriously worried that I’d suffered permanent brain damage from it afterwards. But the prize was
well worth it.
AND, I only used three.”
I didn’t want to even
attempt to comprehend the scope of that search. To this day I
still don’t. “Woah… I’m sorry I asked. I, uhh, guess you’d better get going, or something?”
Reluctantly she nodded, cracking her knuckles. “Yeah, guess I’d better… Unngh, it’s been a while; sure hope I’m up to it.”
“So, uhhmm, should I be worried if you don’t come back or something…?”
“Oh, no no no; life on this side of time is too important for me to kill myself over on the other side. Sorry, uhh, if that joke’s in bad taste. Can’t say I haven’t thought about it before, though.”
“O… kay, Sakuya, that’s a little creepy.”
“Well…” she winked coyly at me, “I’ve never
officially been to a psychiatrist this century. So who knows? Ahh, and one more thing—“
She kneeled down in front of me and suddenly gave me a long, warm embrace, burying her face in the fields of my grassy hair. Unexpected… awkward… confusing… but, still… nice.
“It gets pretty lonely out there; it’s nice to feel someone who’s alive before I go away~”
I blushed, rapidly. “S-Sakuya, that’s… that’s… I, don’t know what to say…”
She drew back and tussled my hair, even going so far as to give me a little kiss on the forehead! “Just say that I’ll find her, Francesca.”
“Sakuya… you’ll find her. I, I believe in you; you’ll find her!”
I noticed a little blush in her cheeks as well, but it was nothing compared to the beet red of mine. She’d… kissed me?! Yes, yes, I know, it was just a peck on the head, but still… was that something?
“All right, then, Fran,” she instructed me kindly, myself kindly obeying back. “I want you to sit down against the wall, soft and comfy, and close your eyes. There you go, there you go. Eyes tight shut? All right, now I want you to count to five, nice and slow, and by the time you get there, everything’s going to be all right. I
promise you. Go ahead… you can start.”
Why was my heart beating so fast? I wasn’t the one who was about to embark on an epic quest, was I? All I had to do was count to five…
“All right, Sakuya. Here I go. Ooooonnnne…”
It’s gonna work, Fran. You did it, you beat Kay! “Twwooooo…”
Wait, this isn’t Kay, is it? Am I me? I’d better be me! Go away not me if you’re not there! “Thhhhrrreeeeee…”
What are we supposed to do after this, anyways? “Fffoooouurrrr…”
Here we go, fasten those seat belts and table trays, I suppose… “FIVE!”
+ + + + + + + + + +
Post-it notes.
I was covered… in post-it notes.
I’d barely even felt the time-jump on the “FIVE!” was out of my mouth. Had she stopped time yet? Nothing felt different. Except for the fact that I, and a fair part of the walls, was filled with all the post-it colors of the rainbow.
And every single one of them had the exact same message on it:
I DID IT! A smile as stupid and large as one of Flandre’s split across my face. She’d done it. She, had,
done it! I could have cared less that I looked like a cheap cartoon puppet that crinkled when she walked—let Sakuya fool around all she wanted to after that!—because just like she had said, everything was going to be all right now.
Stuck to my right hand was a slightly larger post-it with a slightly-more-useful message on it:
I DID IT I DID IT I DID IT!!!
Found her floating in the sky sixty feet up, just outside the gate. Facing the mansion, though; not sure if she was running away or not. Anyways, duct-taped her up REAL good and brought her back to Flandre’s room; guess I’ll have to explain myself to them, won’t I? Why don’t you come down and say hello, maybe she’ll find you a little less boring now!
Hugs and kisses~
-Sakuya I saw no reason why not; not to be haughty, but I dare say I’d earned just a little bragging rights! Arms trailing joyfully out behind me, I ran down the halls towards the basement, ironically realizing that all these post-its were going to have to get cleaned up by Sakuya, wouldn’t they?
“SAAKUUYAAAAAAAAA!!! WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!?!?!”
Oh. Yeah. Remilia. I had to hand it to her, her voice carried quite well; I was already almost into the basement and I could still hear her clear as a bell from the dining room!
[ ] Maybe… I should clear things up with the Mistress first? As carefree as it was for me, I didn’t exactly think it was Remilia’s brand of humor. (Also remove, or do not remove Post-its?)
[ ] Remilia could wait; a little playful humor would be good for her! We’d be coming back up to show her the rat we’d caught anyways!
--( ) There was no need to dally; I wanted to catch the looks on everyone’s faces as soon as possible! (Also remove, or do not remove Post-its?)
--( ) I waited for a spell before going into Flandre’s room; just long enough for Sakuya to probably tell them just what happened. (Also remove, or do not remove Post-its?)
--( ) Why not make a grand entrance to celebrate our victory over the “Kay-In-The-Haystack”? (Write in an EPIC MANEUVER!)
Regardless, you’ll probably also want to write in what questions/comments/actions you want to ask/tell/do to the people you’ll be visiting next update! I’m looking at
you,
>>40090!
