WONDERLAND

final word. what, why and how is mahiru?

In this final chapter, I do a dissertation on Mahiru, because why the hell not? Also yes, this is the deep a/n I promised last night.

lmao this is longer than the epilogue.

x

what mahiru?

simple, a girl who saves herself. a girl who takes no one's bullshit (but her own). mahiru isn't a tragedy, she isn't a product of someone else's mistakes and she won't drag other people to suffer with her because she's afraid of it.

mahiru doesn't need validation for her actions and she doesn't need saving— but i wanted to depict a 'morally' grey character who gets better and becomes stronger for herself. mahiru, to an extent realized that this was a destructive lifestyle and under the unconscious influence of those around her, she does. but what i wanted to try with mahiru was to allow mahiru to be at peace with herself— to be able to reassure herself and not need someone to do it for her.

she doesn't need to be validated by her father, by eishi, by rindou, by amami or anyone to be happy. and she realizes that. realizes that perhaps she could choose another way— that there was another way of finally being happy.

because mahiru's pursuit all along was to be happy. to be at peace. to be safe. to have what was taken from her by her mother's death. leaving her childhood home — leaving a father and the reaches of the death of her mother, the smothers of her mother's memories. she makes the deal with senzaemon because in selling totsuki, a formerly untouchable institution she is able to gain credibility in the financial world, where she will no longer have to rely on the tetsuya name. 

and at the end of the book, mahiru is finally able to be happy by pursuing what makes her happy instead of just investing in it. because while monetary and superficial things are what her lifestyle and society dictated to be guarantees of happiness, it isn't. happiness is different for everyone— and mahiru finally comes to understand that concept and pursue her own happiness, instead of the one caught up in the past.

why is mahiru?

i wanted to write this book because sometimes, shitty things happen and you have no control over them. all you can do is get up and move on.

and this is what mahiru does over the course of the book— she moves on. she gets up, and she lives a happy, meaningful life. 

her suffering hadn't been because of her own mistake, or something she had a hand in making. she didn't cause her mother to die. simple as that. mahiru is a victim of the wrong time and the wrong circumstance— of absolute terrible parenting and emotional neglect.

shiro pushed the responsibilities onto her because he wanted someone to blame. mahiru was not to blame. amami thought she was a devious fiend because she didn't cry at her mother's funeral. mahiru was not at fault.

mahiru was at fault in absolutely zero of these circumstances. but she was blamed and suffered for it either way.

but it doesn't end up dictating her entire life. that is my aphoristic of the day, kids.

how is mahiru?

she's great— she's going to get married, and end up proposing to eishi instead of getting proposed to. she's going to have kids that she'll never neglect and kids who'll have fun bullying eishi with her.

she's going to continue being friends with rindou, isshiki and most of the elite ten. she's going to mentor souma and get mentored by joichirou. she'll pass off the tetsuya name to 'some poor bastard' and take the tsukasa name and open a restaurant with eishi.

it's going to have a fucking three month waiting list and the president will fly over because it's just that good. she's going to be a billionaire, she's going to be a grandmother of children she'll spoil. she'll remain on speaking terms with amami.

most of all, mahiru is going to be happy.

the end.

thanks to anyone still reading for being on this journey with me. i truly appreciate every single one of you.