part two | the tale of elusive shadows
theory fifteen | baa baa black sheep
For the first time, Alouette could see a hint of anger in Maximillian's eyes.
It wasn't just the look he gave to Claude when he teased him or to Diederich who always took Claude's side in the argument instead of his and the glimmer didn't look like the hatred he had for Katherine.
The anger was somewhat real.
"I must have said something weird." Maximillian took a deep breath and sat down on a wooden bench, not even looking if the dew had made it wet. "Well I guess that's why that conceited literature student called us 'Eccentricity Brigade'"
Then his eyes reflected disappointment.
"Hey, can I ask your score?" Maximillian smiled at her, placing the violin case on his lap.
"On what?" Alouette tilted her head.
"Stresseman's placement exam."
Damn. A lot of memories started flooding into her mind. She remembered the endless nights she had spent taking the midnight study train just to get inside the university. It didn't get better when the day came and she felt like she was having a seizure when her hands shook as her foot took a step inside the examination room.
And she would never want to remember the physics questions that she cursed so much.
"Average. Why ask?" Alouette's simple reply, wanting to hide the embarrassment of almost throwing up when she saw the equations of hyperbolas and mathematical solutions that require pi and other Greek forsaken formulae.
Maximillian laughed at himself and finally, face palmed and it sounded very much painful.
How embarrassing would it be to walk around the campus with a red hand mark on one's forehead?
"Good for you. I never passed." He chuckled bitterly and Alouette took a seat next to him. "I was about twenty points below the average line and God it made me want to cry."
Alouette's eyebrows furrowed. She might was well believe that Maximillian was joking with her.
"Then how---"
"I'm in Stresseman because they considered my audition. All applying music students have to do one and if it weren't for my violin then I might not be here while Claude and Diederich would be." He sighed. "I can't even believe Dee. He's sixteen and he's smarter."
Even Alouette couldn't believe that fact.
"I'm a disgrace to my family." He said bitterly and then grimaced.
Alouette stared at him for a while and at that moment, she wished that she was Claude because if he were the one in that place, he'd know what to say and Alouette didn't.
Because Claude knew how to see through people...and she didn't.
"N-No you're not." She stuttered, not sure of her words. "I suck at every science subject and my Dad's a doctor and a professor. That's pretty much something to compare."
Then your mother?
She bit her lip at the thought.
"Not if you're in the middle of five siblings in a family of lawyers and you happened to be the idiot." Maximillian grimaced.
"What...?"
Maximillian looked down at his feet and silence took over him. He absolutely looked hesitant. Like he said the wrong words to the wrong person.
"My nickname reminds me of my brothers." Maximillian almost choked on air, it was almost inaudible.
"Do you have a problem with them?" Alouette asked, praying to God that she had said the right words.
"Everyone is a lawyer in my house. Parents, my two older brothers and the other two below me are planning to be." He started, fidgeting with his fingers. "They happen to uh... look down on me and my dream to become a violinist. Saying that I wouldn't last long in the real world... That it's not a real profession." He bit his lip. "Baby Max this and Baby Max can't do that..."
Alouette froze. What were the right words to say? What would be something that could make him feel better? She didn't know.
"But the violin is the only thing I have..." He whispered harshly, almost as if he was talking to himself. "No one would understand."
Alouette breathed in and reached to his back to give at least an action of comfort to him but before she did,
"Only Claude does..." He mumbled, stood up and left.
Alouette watched as Maximillian's figure disappeared to the campus and the words slowly repeated in her head.
"Only Claude does...huh..." She repeated to herself.
Of course it would.
She remembered her talk with Claude with the can phones. About how he often teased Maximillian about his name or about himself even if Maximillian hated it dearly. She questioned herself as to how Claude could do it without hurting him. Or maybe it was simply because Maximillian knew that Claude never took those things seriously.
But even Claude has his own problems.
Alouette looked at her feet, her head started to hurt and she could see a white figure from afar but she dismissed it immediately. Instead, she thought of Claude. Of what he said to her on their last cup phone conversation and...
And of why he quit playing.
Would Maximillian know...?
"Alouette!"
She held her head up again and noticed Amanda running towards her with a big paper bag on both hands and boy, it looked heavy.
Alouette waved at her and Amanda only stopped and nod, breathing heavily.
"Was that Maximillian?" She asked between breaths and Alouette nodded. "What *breathes* happened *breathes* to his *breathes* tight pants?"
"I know you're excited but don't forget to breathe." Alouette patted her shoulder. "As for the tight pants, it's a Mary Jane break up thing."
Amanda nodded, her mouth forming into a large hole.
Once Amanda was breathing again like a human being and not a diseased malnourished hyeana being drowned in water, she handed the paper bag to Alouette.
She could see why Amanda was breathing too much. It really was heavy.
"You know what it is." Amanda winked.
Alouette could feel the corner of her lips rise up.
"Thank you, Amanda."
The player.
× × ×
Alouette questioned how the old century people managed to carry such things and it could be labelled as 'portable'. How could the people back then not have bulgy muscles if they carried such "portable" players all the time.
It wasn't at all portable. It deserved to be shelved.
Alouette took a deep breath again, this time, thanking the Heavens for letting her be born in an era where such a thing as an iPad existed.
Blue Madeline was still far and to make it worse, she was still in the music building which was about miles to her dorm.
"What'chu carrying?" She felt fingers press onto the sides of her stomach and she almost cursed as the player almost hit the ground before she caught it.
"What the flipping unicorn peas!" She reacted, out of breath as her head turned to the assailant who almost murdered her ---not so portable--- device. Though Alouette highly doubted its breakage. It would cause the ground to break which was a lot more trouble to the physical plant staff than it was for the old player. It looked much stronger than a Nokia phone but it couldn't help to be careful.
At first, Alouette thought that it was Claude because aside from genius-I-know-everything Claude, he was also air-headed-weird-childish Claude but somehow it was impossible. The voice was high and the person wasn't taller and Diederich was out of the picture as well.
When she turned around, grey eyes like her shimmered and the girl was petite. She wore her black hair to a side pony tail and she wore a cute sailor-inspired coat.
"Aru-nee!" She screamed cheerfully as she hugged Alouette like she was her long lost child.
And Alouette couldn't believe it either. She immediately thought of the cup phones and Nagoya and playdates.
"Louise!?" Alouette screamed and Louise had let go and stared back at her, nodding with a huge grin on her face. "Ruu! Oh God it's really you, right?" She spoke in Japanese.
Louise puffed her cheeks and spun playfully, making a huge circle from her arms.
"That's correct!" She said cutely in her mother tongue.
She could almost tear up. Louise was in front of her and she looked pretty much grown up compared to the last time she saw her. If she wasn't carrying the player then Alouette would have thrown the girl up and down and just hugged her until the world explodes to a thousand pieces.
"Then Saiko obaa-san must be here too?" Alouette asked once again in Japanese and Louise nodded.
"She's gonna visit you soon but I came earlier because I wanted to go see you, Aru-nee!" She cheered, bouncing up and down like she had too much sugar. "And please you can speak in English, I'm fourteen now!"
Alouette smiled at her. She really did look like she had grown and perhaps Louise never really minded missing school because her Aunt Saiko home schooled her ever since Yuuko's death.
"Well that's great, Ruu." Alouette smiled gently.
It then hit her. If Louise was in Stresseman and her Aunt was with her, then the tapes would be from them? She felt the urge to ask Louise but then, she didn't look like she knew about them and Louise never really was interested in films to begin with. Alouette would also surely remember if they had video taped themselves out of a whim years ago.
"Well, Aru-nee," Louise started and cleared her throat. "I need to see oji-san for a while. I need to give something to him." She smiled and pointed towards Rufus' office.
"From Aunt Saiko?" Louise nodded and skipped backwards. "When are you going back to Japan? Both you and Aunt Saiko." Alouette asked hesitantly.
Louise tilted her head and smiled.
"That's a secret"
And she ran towards Rufus' office as fast as the wind could take her. It was amazing how Louise could easily adapt to Stresseman's environment or maybe it was her inhuman memorization skills that made her wary of the place.
Alouette shrugged at herself and continued walking towards the dorm. She coulf talk to Louise anytime of the day after the whole mystery shennanigan about the tapes would be solved.
Setting that aside, she figured that she still had kilometers to go before she reaches her dorm's door and Ms. Forester's lovestruck face.
× × ×
At first, Alouette contemplated on going to Stresseman's Château where the only person who could see the tapes would be Thomas but when she arrived in the dorm like she had participated in Tour de France after miraculously gaining athletic skills, she figured that any secluded place in Blue Madeline was enough.
She was in the attic and God, it was scary.
Cobwebs everywhere, the smell of mildew and dust mixing and the vintage furniture covered in white cloth; it was Insidious all over again. She never wanted to be heard by any dorm mates and least of all Ms. Forester.
Alouette then continued to lift the sheets of cloth on the collection of objects in the attic, trying to find an old TV that could be of help. She crept up to each one carefully, afraid that something might pop up but then she realized that even she was haunted by literal ghosts so she sped up her pace.
Eventually, with God hearing her prayer, she found a small dusty TV at the corner of the room that still looked functional in her eyes.
Setting it up was trouble and Alouette never knew anything about players and TVs so she used up all her luck, hoping that the cables she had been plugging and unplugging were right and wouldn't contribute to spontaneous combustion.
The cables were like snakes, going on every direction and connected to sockets that Alouette never knew still worked. The small TV was plugged on to the vintage player which was covered in a small layer of dust.
Alouette swallowed the lump in her throat. This was it. She was going to find out who sent the tapes and whose memory was she going to remember or everything was just a prank.
She got the first tape from the box that was labeled "Happiness" in Kanji. She took a deep breath and placed it on the mouth of the player and pushed it inside.
Play.
The TV had static at first, like Sadako was going to come out of the screen any minute and for a few seconds, Alouette believed that it was just a prank but the noise that scattered on the screen started to clear up and there it was.
The room inside the TV was white, small and bright. Sunlight was seeping into the room even with the gritty quality it had given. Alouette could hear someone behind it and once the camera stopped moving, someone had sat down in front of it, appearing on the screen.
It was her. It was Yuuko Yamanaka, the person who had been haunting Alouette's days and nights, her mother.
Alouette felt like she couldn't breathe and maybe, she was just holding in her breath. Her mother looked so young, her hair shorter and her skin a lot whiter and for some reason, she thought that she was seeing herself in that screen but the obvious cheerfulness that was emitted by little Yuuko was just impossible for her to copy.
She looked different from how Alouette remembered her, so different from the one that haunts her. Her eyes were bright, not hollow, there was feeling in her smile and not of spite...this was the mother she knew and had almost forgotten.
"Hello, this is Yuuko." The girl on the screen said in Japanese. "Well they said this could help with the sickness so I'm doing it per request. It's such a stupid thing to do but why not try?"
Alouette's fingers were caressing the noisy screen, running them to her mother's hair, then to her face and bright eyes and somehow, she couldn't think of anything else but the little memories that she left for her.
"I got into Osaka University and I'm working real hard for everyone. Mostly for Saiko-nee." Her face dropped for a moment. "She's been refusing meals lately and locking herself up in her room and I'm very worried. I hope she's okay..."
Aunt Saiko's anorexia
"But I don't really want to talk about the bad stuff right now so I'll change the subject." She smiled brightly again, beaming at the camera. "I went to the hospital today and I met a person in the waiting room. He looked so tired and worn out, he looked like a tired puppy on his nap! He knew all the bones in the human body and he knows all the scientific names of the animals I throw at him, he's so interesting. He said he was here for an internship under... Doctor Fue...Fuku..Fuku-something-san." And then, she smiled softly, as if offering her gaze to someone, like she was thinking of someone. "I want to meet him again... I want to meet Rufus again."
....Dad!?
Alouette glanced back at the tapes. These were her mother's memories. Memories before Alouette was born. Her mother's past that she never talked about.
"It's pretty fun to hang out with Rufus. He stutters a lot though." Well, Alouette never knew that. "But I like it when he smiles. He's always so attractive when he does. He said he was going to bring me to London. I thought he was kidding but he actually did buy tickets. Rufus always surprises me. I wonder if he likes me the way I like him..."
Another tape was on her hand and she played it, craving for her image, for their parents' past. One after another, the tapes were playing like hotcakes, each memory after another and then Alouette recognized such familiar places in the videos like her Aunt Saiko's room, the playground that her mother brought her often to and then, sceneries changed and she begun to see fancy apartments and finally, her and her father's home in London.
"Rufus proposed to me." It was almost like a whisper and Alouette could almost see the tears slipping out of her eyes. "Rufus proposed to me..." She repeated quietly like it was a secret.
Alouette's face crumpled. She never had memories of both of her parents together. It was always just one. One for that day and one for the other, one for this occasion and one on another. Her mother and father were never together and she never knew why.
"Alouette. We're naming her Alouette." Alouette almost flinched. She observed Yuuko's stomach as the same size of a basketball. "Rufus doesn't seem to have objections but isn't Alouette such a beautiful name?"
Another tape was playing already and Alouette had wondered what broke them up, what broke their family up but as the tape played, she thought she was going to find out.
Yuuko's eyes were swollen, dark rings under her eyes and for the first two minutes of the tape, she just sniffed and wiped out her tears.
"I don't know why he doesn't understand!" She screamed, colorless streams running down her eyes with a sob. "Is he leaving us alone? Is he going to leave Alouette alone without a father? What would happen to her? I just want him to understand and get he doesn't! Rufus.... don't leave me alone."
Alouette had her finger on the power switch, shaking, wanting to shut it down. Perhaps she wasn't ready to know. Perhaps she was never to know for the rest of her life but her finger just stopped there, just brushing up against the button but it just froze and she never turned it off.
She thought she had the right to know, even if the truth was too painful to accept.
"Saiko-nee's not getting any better. He's still not here. Is he leaving us for good? What about Alouette? What about me?"
Yuuko was already hugging herself, like she was going to get attacked by the ghosts inside her head and then, she looked up straight, her eyes almost crazed.
"Have you forgotten all about me, Rufus?"
Alouette turned it off. The black screen stared at her as she gripped her shaking hand, the image of her mother left in her head burned and ached and she wondered if her mind was playing tricks with her again because she couldn't believe that what she saw was the truth.
She had always thought of her mother as gentle and loving but the ghost she always sees are opposite and for once, she had seen her mother's face for real in a long time and crazed like that of her broken dreams.
She ran to the stairs and she felt the pang of cold air hit her. It started snowing already but she didn't mind, she headed for the door without getting her hands on a coat and started to run outside to the nexr dorm.
Her heart was beating in her ears and she could see her breath appearing in front of her in the form of white smoke. She stood in front of the building and barged right in. Alouette tried to remember the path she had followed on the first day of class and arrived in front of his door.
Without thinking, she got her hands on the door knob and opened, bringing herself in without knocking.
"Oh, Alouette." Rufus was there as usual, sitting as his office chair and drinking coffee from a paper cup with books scattered around his desk as he played with his red Sharpie. "I always tell you to knock, right?"
Alouette took a deep breath. She looked at her father's face and found herself shaking, not because she was boiling with anger but it was because of fear. Fear at the fact that this was the man who hurt her mother too much, this was the man who broke her mother's heart...and this was the man who broke her mother's soul.
He looked so calm like how he acted everyday, like nothing was wrong. And so the words came out like a hesitant sob because part of her wanted tk believe that her father was not the one who broke everything--- who broke her and her mother. That the man who took her in after her mother's death was the man who broke everything in the first place.
"Why..." Alouette started off. "Why did you leave Mother?"