Hi guys!! Sorry for the late update :")
But here's a piece of calming background music for all of you, This is for better reading experience^^
***
Autumn walks towards the bathtub, toes flinching as they touch the chilled ceramic floor. Usually, Autumn turns her tablet or Nana's radio on for music and sings along as if she's onstage. However, for today, she just wants to crouch down, let her body soak in the lukewarm water as her mind goes off. Little Autumn slides down into the water, letting it block out the sounds around her. Her mind is in shreds; her eyelids keep drooping over and over each time while hearing those words like a broken tape in her mind.
"Because I'll fade away."
She parts her lips while heaving a deep sigh with a concoction of sadness and exasperation in it. She cracks an eyelid open in search of the wooden dipper her Nana had apprised a while ago, while cooking occupies all of her consciousness. In the brilliant light of October, a beacon of light pierces through the mullioned pane of glass. The sun streams in like a flamboyant guest, not waiting for an invitation. That makes Autumn see clearly as she explores her eyes around the illuminating room.
"I should've listened to Nana," she mumbles while reaching out for the wooden dipper beside those several white towels hanging over the wooden chair in the corner.
Autumn slowly scoops a great amount of water while the memories of yesterday come swirling into her thoughts again. The water pours down, it drips by her side, as her mind fades into dullness and everything is a foggy illusion. The sensation of the steamy water calms her; it takes her mind off things. All the things she honestly shouldn't care about. Autumn's train of thoughts vanish like her pencil sharpener when Nana Mistuko's voice echoes in the small lovely house.
"Audie, you're well aware that you've been there for more than an hour, right?" Nana asks in confirmation with a hint of worry lacing her voice.
Only then it registers in Autumn's mind that time passes very quickly, like so much time that she just watched it drain like water in a tub; so much time that she let it vanish like a magician in an act. So much time she watched it dissolve like a mirage across a desert. Papa would be mad at me.
"Yes Nana, I'm already finished," Autumn responds while deliberately recalling her Papa's preeminent rule. "Don't let time split away with an absence of executing indelible memories."
"Okay, head straight to the dining area to eat lunch," Nana replies as Autumn hears her light dissipating footsteps in the elongated engawa while the chorus of the birds drifts in like steady ocean waves. Little Autumn didn't waste a single second to go off into the big lump of water and hastily reaches out for the sterile flocculent bath towel that is sitting in the corner.
She doesn't want to make her Nana wait and that's why after the cloth absorbs and seeps the water flowing freely over her, she grabs her pink, Tuesday pantie along with her chosen hazel dress with its flattering V-seamed bodice with side panels cut on the bias, just a simple dirndl style skirt that has in-seam pockets. The fleecy fiber of the cotton lawn knee-length dress slips onto her shoulders, peppering her body with indescribable softness.
Afterward, avalanches of curly chestnut-hair cascades down her back like chocolate ice cream melting down in the blazing sun. The soft, ringlet strands flow down her little back, stopping in a line around her hip. Eventually, Autumn glances at the glistening mirror in front of her, which reflects her small, lovely face, drizzled with pulchritudinous imperfections. None other than her beguiling freckles scatter over her nose to accentuate her quintessential features.
Satisfied with her appearance, Autumn speedily switches off the lights and perambulates the vast engawa with her flip flops producing noises again as she strides the way.
In the long run, she finally arrives in the kitchen with tiles of sombre brown with cream and the palest of turquoise glass, the kind of hue that is soothing in its gentleness. They were stacked much the same as the bricks of a house, each placed by a careful, loving hand.
At the counter was an old woman, not the kind you pity with their old bones and feeble limbs, but the kind who could still run an army kitchen, given half a chance. She stands quite tall and slim, her shoulder-length white hair neat and likely styled with a traditional kanzashi designed with its golden flowers that makes Nana more youthful in Autumn's dear eyes.
(Kanzashi (簪) are hair ornaments used in traditional Japanese hairstyles. ... In the English-speaking world, the term "kanzashi" is typically used to refer to layers of folded cloth used to form flowers or the technique of folding used to make the flowers.)
Little Autumn is drawn by the sweet, savoury aroma which wafts through the cool autumn air. Her stomach clenches with hunger at the thought of honey-garlic fried chicken. She could imagine the palatable tempura in its golden-brown state. She focused on the other smells in the air, like the earthy smell of the falling leaves or the salty tang of the ocean.
And behold Nana's skills as she flips and flops the swimming tempuras in the hot vats of oil while her left hand prepares the ketchup and a dipping sauce which Autumn doesn’t recognize. She can't stop but salivate while glancing back and forth between her Nana and the exquisite golden-brown tempuras that remind her of the setting sun's hues of colour.
She then averts her gaze to the table that was sort of brown hued, that welcomes the eye and invites the hand to touch. Laden with delicacies, everything Autumn can think of, and things she has dreamt of, lie in wait.
With the tiniest of sparks, the gas that ignites as a great, blue flower being conjured into existence. Finally, Autumn hears it swiftly click, indicating that her Nana already executed her impressive tempuras.
The moment little Autumn slides into her chair, Nana serves her favourite pink plate as she fills it with a sufficient amount of food that unequivocally will nourish her body.
First off, Nana scoops a cup of glutinous white rice and places it on her platter. Next is the crackling fried chicken, drizzled in sweetened honey and added with buttery roasted garlic. Autumn inhales the air, her stomach rumbling as she watches the wholesome fermented soya bean paste, also called miso soup, being ladled into the dark wooden bowls; followed by the batter that puffs into an airy, golden crunch. One of the favourite Japanese dishes of Autumn; a bunch of tempura in a bowl creating a crown-like kaleidoscope for her scintillating eyes. Once more, she holds back herself from diving straight at the food while she hangs fire for her Nana to settle down first.
At last, Nana sits down while their eyes are locked in on each other. "Itadakimasu!" Autumn said and that gladdens her heart while amalgamating her hands in front of her chest. "Douzo meshiagare," her Nana asseverates, indicating that she can go ahead and consume as many as she can.
(The standard phrase before a meal, "Itadakimasu" comes from the verb, "itadaku", a humble way of saying to eat and receive. The person who prepared the meal would reply, "Douzo meshiagare" which means, "Please help yourself.")
She licks her fleshy lips and grabs the succulent honey-garlic fried chicken. She then drenches them in a sweet soy-garlic dipping sauce while Nana Mitsuko places two fried tempuras using chopsticks in young Autumn's plate. Her pudgy hands clenches the oil-soaked chicken and stuffs it as much as she can into her tiny mouth. Autumn licks her fingers, smeared with sauce and oil. Next, she snatches the delectable crispy tempura on her plate while saturating her rice with the warm miso soup. The sadness that consumed her a while ago dissipates like a candle blown off by the waves of wind. Devouring the food was like there is a party going on in her mouth, cherishing the scrumptiously diverse flavours that bring jubilation over her taste buds.
"Oishi!!" Autumn states in ecstasy while cupping both of her hands around her cheeks. She then glances at Nana Mitsuko that is gracefully eating with her chopsticks while giving little Autumn a smile that just seems so genuinely sweet.
She finishes everything on her plate as her stomach turns undoubtedly full while she dabs her fleshy cheeks with a delicate napkin before speaking. "Gochiso sama deshita," Autumn utters with her authentic smile along with displaying her two deep dimples, conveying her deepest gratitude to her magnificent Nana.
(After eating, Japanese people once again express their thanks for the meal by saying "Gochiso sama deshita," which literally means "it was quite a feast." Also, "Oishi" means delicious or tasty in Japanese.)
***
After the appetizing lunch, her Nana had prepared, she goes off to her designated bedroom since she should take an afternoon nap first, before she can proceed to play in enjoyment along with the golden, crackling falling leaves. But before Autumn heads on and snuggles into the bed that is lying down on the tatami floors, her glimmering eyes land on the big mirror right before her.
And what do you do when you see a massive mirror?
Of course, keep looking and appreciating your looks.
Autumn believes in the quote, "Beauty is when you can appreciate yourself.” She always feels like a beauty-queen in front of the mirror. Sometimes, a model wearing voguish designed clothes, as she conceptualizes herself, slaying the catwalk and making the public turn their heads towards her. And most of the time, she perceives herself in the reflection of the thin glass as an ice-cream vendor. Her dream, for ice-cream, never fails to transmit joyousness throughout her body.
She relentlessly snickers on how her innovative imagination propels her away from reality. Not until Autumn feels something is missing. As it finally sinks in, she instantaneously voyages outside, swinging several shojis along her way while her heart keeps pounding hard against her chest.
With her small feet, Autumn scurries towards the bathroom, as her brown pupils that bring the hearth-sipped hot cocoa to the memory, examine the entirety of the squeaky-clean bathroom.
Her hands can't stop trembling as she charges to the mini cabinets of the four-cornered room in search of an inestimable thing she possesses the most. With post-haste movements, young Autumn rummages through every single part of the bathroom, inspects here, ransacks there. The once systematized structure of the bathroom seemed like it's been sifted by a colossal tsunami, inexorable as an axe, ravaging anything and everything in its path.
Autumn sighs, as she juts her bottom lip out, redirecting the air-flow to the lone strand of her curly hair. Her sigh was softly deflating; it was as if the tension had lifted yet left her with a melancholy instead of relief.
Even though Autumn is suffused of despondency, she still compels herself to motion towards outside the engawa. With her toes barely lifting from the tatami floor, she places her right hand over her chest, still anticipating discerning its cold metal to her forefinger, while contemplating the ineffable mountain that she once circumnavigated.
"My clock necklace pendant... I think I lost it in the bushes," Autumn surmises to herself while she looks ahead to the unfathomable mountain, full of determination to retrieve her priceless golden clock pendant.
***
Once again, she set forth towards the stairs that seem interminable to her eyes. This is one of those days when a neckerchief wasn't such a bad idea – a day when the perspiration would surface on your forehead, your cheeks, the bridge of your nose, and run in rivulets down your face until you become sodden. Autumn keeps regretting it in her thoughts while circumspectly taking each step with the stench of stale sweat that ambles in with her.
At last, the humongous vermilion torii emerges in front of her vision like an oasis in the penetrating heat of a desert.
It was a thirst like she'd never known before. Even her saliva was thick like wallpaper paste. Autumn's throat felt parched as she continues to look for her water bottle in her mini, peach Dora sling bag. Her eyes resemble ecstatic star shapes as she grabs the bottle without reluctance. She promptly parts her sweltering lips as the cool water runs down her throat. Thick saliva lining the inside of her mouth immediately sapped any moisture that may enter as Autumn drinks everything in the bottle with relish.
Rehydrated by the water, Autumn explores her eyes over the towering trees leaning over the land. Perplexed as the sun passes through any miniature hole it can reach and irradiates the almost sienna background.
Her little toes advance to the bushes while the leaves detach from their autumnal boughs and fall to earth as gently as feathers.
But before she can even scavenge the bushes which she just snorkelled like an aquanaut yesterday, she once again catches the sight of a pebble tossed amid the air in her peripheral vision. But this time she just looks at it with her chibi face puffin' with its smug look.
"Do you really assume that an old-fashioned stratagem of yours will work on me the second time around?" she says while wearing a stern look with arms crossed over her chest.
I learned my lesson, bro, says her inner voice.
However, Autumn's stern look evaporates as soon as the realization spanked at her. Why does the boy throw a pebble again out of nullity?
As the sun casts the trees in their vibrant hues and brings the warm brown tones back to the earth, Autumn feels happy. It's as if invisible holes were poked into her skin and all her tension has leached out. She runs towards it and briskly clenches it while she flashes her smile as it bursts from within instead of being worn like an obligation in the way others do.
Autumn slumps over the dirt laden floor and lets the happiness soak deep into her bones but never releases her grip on the seemingly consequential golden clock delineated with a butterfly on it. She treasures it, for her mama, and papa values it as much as she does. Her chestnut eyes then perch on the words that are written over the rich soil.
"I saw them in the bushes yesterday."
She then shifted her gaze towards the bushes that might have concealed him away from her sight. I need to go back, her mind vocalizes while she dusts off the grime that clung in her dress. But not so long her heart whispers the antithetical, conflicting into each other.
But... he helped me and actually took my worries away, Autumn utters to herself with a pertinacious look that implies she already has decided. Because in Autumn's eyes, the boy is undeniably forlorn by himself in this mountain away from individuals.
"Umm... t-thank you for the effort you made to return it back to me," little Autumn can't help but falter while her cheeks are scorching red like a beetroot, radiating heat like a hot pan. Anyone could have cooked a three-course meal on her face, because of the pullulating mortification growing within her since the boy that caused her to forge sibylline thoughts was just solely helping her in spite of the fact that they are utterly anonymous to each other.
She's well aware to herself that she shouldn't care, yet she can’t stop herself from speaking. "Can you tour me around here?" Autumn asked with her balled fist to her sides and eyes, close shut. She knows that deep down she wants to accompany him as much as she can.
At first, his taciturnity just lingers in the air not until his remarkable response catches her eyes again. She walks towards it while hearing the susurrus sounds of the bushes. Maybe he's distancing himself from her. There, she takes notice of words written again over the ground.
"But, it's impossible I'm not allowed to be with mortals since, in the first place, they make my death inevitable."
Autumn raises and holds her eyebrows for a moment while waiting for clarification for the more she mulls it over the more her brain becomes a spinning top, always uncovering more questions than answers.
"But why, though?" she asks facing just the vast ocean of trees while the autumn season stretches forth with fingers of every hue, from the serenity of browns to fireside reds. It took a minute before he threw a pebble again. Even though it's odd communicating in this contorted course of actions, Autumn wears her incandescent grin from ear to ear.
"You think it's impossible only because you haven't taken action to make it possible," Autumn stated while walking towards the bushes, enraptured just by thinking of her being enlightened in his answers.
"Just by simply talking to a mortal can make me fade away. Just by being touched by your hands can make me evaporate into nothing. Just by looking at me, you can end this borrowed life of mine. I'm that vulnerable, just like a bubble that can easily pop and vanish amid the thin air."
Even though Autumn's mind is bewildered in his words she still searches for the positivity engraved deep inside it.
"If that's the case, then let's use my handkerchief so I won't see you," Autumn says while taking off the handkerchief that is holding her hair tied up. Making the subtle hue of her mahogany hair strands, curled and moved, as free as autumn leaves playing in the day shine.
"And for us not to touch each other we can use..." her sentence cuts off in the air while her eyes are scanning the whole area until her eyes land over the fallen light branch of a tree. "This one!" she eagerly says while flashing a proud smile for herself along with her twinkling hazel eyes.
"While for our communication, I can bring my paper and pen tomorrow but for now you can write over the ground," Autumn says while blindfolding herself.
"Let's just create our own insanely impossible ways, Sage," she says while tightly gripping the other end of the branch. As she waits for Sage to grip the other end while the thought of this growing friendship is a joy, ascends with ease as her brain fills with pure happiness, for Autumn is born with a lot of curiosity and the anticipation of discovery.
The corners of her lips instantly lift up, knowing that he trusts her for holding the other end of the thin wooden branch.
***
Her soul feels free to leave her body, to dance with the souls of the plants and animals around her while silently crossing the enchanting forest. Autumn's other senses got more sensitive since she can't use her sight, introducing a new world for her to explore.
If you think this is just a boring walk in the forest then you're wrong.
Her mind can't focus because of the overwhelming, bewitching beauty of nature which is flaunting at her. For her ears are filled with the luxuriating sound of a woodpecker hunting for insects, she can imagine it vividly in her mind with it's brilliant red crest rocking back and forth as it pecks. While the chirps of the birds came in bursts, bringing a wide smile to Autumn's face. The birds were calling to one another in that beautiful way they do. If their music were visible, it would be petals falling like rain, every shade of the autumn flowers, and a psychedelic view for the soul.
Autumn's nose feels blessed as the fragrance of the fresh autumn grasses and meadow flowers launch pervasively at her nostrils while the air feels silky on a hot day, cool and smooth. It eddies around her fingers as if it were water in some magic wishing well. Autumn cherishes every minute of it, allowing time to stand still just for her, breathing it in.
Her thoughts we're overpowered just by pondering over how exceptional God is to create a marvellous world for us to live in. Autumn is deeply drawn by her thoughts on the creation of nature when she feels Sage stop walking.
"Sage, why did we stop?" Autumn asks in confusion while his grip loosens on the other end of the wood. "Sage?" Once more she calls for his name but this time along with the bells that ring in a peal his heavy running footsteps away from her reaches Autumn.
"Can I take my blindfold off?" Of course, no one responded while Autumn carefully unfolds the white cloth that obstructs her sight.
As soon as she opens her eyes she is welcomed by the grass that grew in tussocks and flattened in waves with each gust of wind, only to spring up as fresh as a bunch of flowers right after. It was nothing like the uniform green of the meadow back home that almost looked combed. Each tuft was wild and slightly yellowing under the sun and between each of them there was bare soil, baked and powdery while the leaves made their final journey to the Earth it falls in a graceful tumbling motion, seeking the least resistance from the autumnal air. Already dead, yet its colour and its dance were so alive. Its descent was utterly silent until it joins its brethren below, and even then the noise is barely audible.
Her eyes were delighted in what it sees when it falls over the ground where Sage's words are embedded. "We can use this bell as a sign that I have a word for you, that being so you can't look back."
Just by reading it, Autumn feels pure bliss, knowing Sage also wants her to be around. "Hai!" Autumn yells in acquiescence while gazing up to savour the splendiferous view before her.
(Hai literally means "yes" in Japanese. Everywhere you go in Japan, you can hear people saying "はい, はい" (hai, hai) when talking to others. ... This links with Aizuchi, which are Japanese conversational interjections, to show active listening.)
"I'll put my blindfold on, so come out now," Autumn says while wrapping her white handkerchief around her head again. After she makes sure the knot is tight, she then takes off her flip flops as the grass underneath her soles is soft on soft, warm on warm, a gentle tickle as each giving wand forms a cushion of green. Each strand moves in the summer breeze as easily as her hair, the waves, and rustling as alive as Autumn's steady breaths.
She then comfortably lay down over the cosy bed of grass while hearing his footsteps coming towards her. For some reason, Autumn feels like being stared at, but not the kind of stare that can make her uncomfortable like in a corset but a heaven-spun autumnal gaze, that somehow feels like home... a gaze she can hold forever.
"Sage, I know my looks are irresistible but, don't worry, you can stare at me for free but only for today," Autumn says while having that cool feeling with her imaginary black slick glasses. Not that long she hears the bells again, she then slightly takes off her blindfold just enough to let her crack an eye. But his words just make Autumn frown for it says "No comment."
"You know you're really hurting my feelings! Just don't deny it," Autumn says again like an anime with a chibi face in its angry state while pouting. But her pouting lips dissipate and turn into a mouth of amazement now that she can audibly hear his faint chuckles behind her. That reminds her of the summer rain and the birdsong too, it feels like music to her ears. At some point, Autumn craves for it, she wants to accompany him in every autumn break she will have; which is weird.
And she knew in herself that her autumn breaks would never be the same, ever again.
Dear Diary,
I'm confused in myself while the wind gently sways the dried leaves and the sunlight keeps on bringing delight to my skin, I feel like I would look forward to my autumn breaks more than I could ever think of.
Looking forward,
Autumn Marigold.
To be continued--
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