WONDERLAND

nine."black and white films"

Contrary to popular belief, Mahiru had not been born a perfect culinary genius.

It started as something perfect. Hopeful, and so delightfully wonderful— Days spent with her father, Joichiro in tow and her mother, sometimes the stern chaperone. And other times, perhaps most times, the most mischevious of them all. 

Oh, kaa-san, she thinks, helplessly, as the city flashes into view before her. There's a pressure behind her eyes, as her throat wells up as her mother's hometown comes into view. I wish you were here. I wish you didn't have to go. 

There are times, she presumes, that a part of her father's inertia towards her was caused by her own indifference. Mahiru refused to cry at the funeral, despite the red-rimmed eyes of her father and how he cried when he held her, in the silence of the empty funeral hall. But what did bring tears was when she remembered how he stroked her hair and promised he would be there.

Where were you? She wants to ask, even though she already knows the answer. 

But Mahiru refuses to be like him. She won't let that pain change her any more than it has. She doesn't want that pain to define her— Because that pain had been her mother; sweet, kind and ferocious, her mother who never let her problems stop her. 

You let that pain consume you, tou-san, she told him when she stepped out of that house. But I won't.

It hurt that he never called for her. 

The train screeches to a stop and Mahiru gets out of her empty compartment. For once, it isn't because she's riding first-class, but because Fukue is a small town and an even smaller number of people go there every day. It's probably a miracle that there even is a train station going there at all.

Fukue is a small town— It's a classic post-card, or maybe even a black and white tourist commercial. Classic trolleybuses running slowly along tracks made in the second world war, meandering crowds of women entering and exiting multi-purpose grocery stores. Old Bentleys and maybe newspaper boys riding bikes down the street. 

For the first time in a long time, Mahiru is in a simple, gingham picnic dress with strappy sandals and a straw hat. She slides a few crisp bills into the ticket machine and buys a trolleybus ticket. Boarding the one running on the one and only route in Fukue, she stares out the window and looks at the town that doesn't seem to have changed. 

%%%

"Konichiwa," Mahiru says. And she bows. 

There's a silence of shock, for a few seconds and the boy in front of the door drops his broom. He stares at her for a moment, transfixed before a blush colours his tanned cheeks and he bursts through the door. 

"Joichirou-san's goddaughter is here! Mahiru-san is here!" he hollered, she winces at the volume of his voice. Countries boys always had an annoyingly loud pair of lungs on them. 

Mahiru rubs her eyes, wincing at the bright sunlight when she hears the click of a cane on the pavement.

"Amami-shishou," she bowed and gives the cane an understandably nasty look. It had been the bane of her shoulders when she was here. The old woman had thought it was still the slave era and hit away at her, while Mahiru's parents just sat there and laughed at her misery. 

"What?" the same old stern voice from her childhood says. "Just shishou? Not even grandmother now? Were you so glad that my daughter died?"

Mahiru looks up and stares into the same golden eyes. "If you're going to approach the same way my father did for the last eight years, then you might as well just tell me what you think about me."

Her grandmother glares. "She loved you so much. And you didn't even cry at her funeral."

"I was a child!" she says. "I didn't understand how to deal with the loss. And when I finally needed someone my father wasn't there," she said, scarily calm. "And neither were you. Don't point your fingers at me before you stare into the damn mirror, Baa-chan."

Amami sighs, and leans her weight onto the cane. "What do you want, Mahiru?" There's a softness there now, one that hadn't been there when she was at the funeral: wreathed in black and features pulled tight. Dark eyes glaring at her. 

Mahiru smiles, a hint of wickedness and trapped starlight. Blood is thicker than water. You were my mother's mother. My sweet mother who never rejected anyone in need. You gave her that trait. "I need you to be my grandmother again."

The grandmother who taught her how to make curry, how to not die in a kitchen. Taught her how to make a perfect pie and to be an absolute maniac when measuring ingredients in the kitchen. In a way, Amami made her. Made her and made her something that attracted Tsukasa and was attracted to Eishi in return. 

%%%

"I can't go with you," Amami says softly. Almost apologetic as Mahiru sits in front of her. Mahiru had curled her hair into loose waves and wore the straw hat for this factor. For the memories and for the child Amami had loved. 

"No?" Mahiru asks, a childish lilt to her voice. Gentle and mild, soft enough that it could be passed off as an old woman's imagination. "That's too bad."

Amami sighs. "I was never a good teacher." She glances at Mahiru. "If you were any indication."

You were never a teacher at all, Mahiru thinks. You just bossed your students around until they could do things your way on auto-pilot. If I hadn't been your granddaughter...

"You were my first," Mahiru says. She doesn't imply anything about being the best or being the most important. But a shadow of it lingers there and from the edge of her vision. Mahiru sees a tear roll down the woman's cheek.

"You're trying to change the world, Mahiru. And I'm trying to escape it. I won't have you just dragging me back because—"

She's speaking as if they're strangers. Past acquaintances or perhaps even mere friends. Love is something you have to exercise and however much she's adored Mahiru in the past, it's no longer there. But selfishness is something that runs in the family (ideas of who a person is, who a person should be) and even if her mother hadn't died, she's doesn't know if Amami will leave this for her.

"You're not in a world, Baa-chan," she says. 

Grey hair swish as she shakes her head. "But I need to protect myself. Just like you." Golden eyes meet. "I have a proposal, Mahiru. Bring me someone, and I'll see to it that the one I think worthy will receive my knowledge."

Anger flashes through her. And Mahiru thinks about ripping off the straw hat. But she needs her victory more than her pride and the only thing she does is donning a mask of disappointment. One that she showed Rindou, Joichirou and perhaps even Eishi. It's a well-practiced expression by the almost-stricken look Amami adopts. 

Mahiru stews in her anger and feels it boil and rise. "I'll do it," she says as she takes off the straw hat and ties her hair into a ponytail. 

"I'll do it," Mahiru Tetsuya says.

And she will.