#mo-ri

nanami hates mo-ri with all her heart.

how could she not? mo-ri gets everything without lifting a finger, and she doesn't even appreciate it. nanami dropped out of high school for her career and spends every night comparing likes, because she has no spot at some prestigious academy or a three-year career plan all mapped out. nanami always has to be mysterious, interesting, flashy, "different" while mo-ri just stands there staring into space. and yet she gets shot for the main spread. sponsors sign her. and she doesn't even smile. nanami hates mo-ri for not deserving what she has, but even more for not valuing it. its like everything nanami dreams of is just dust on a windowsill to mo-ri.

mo-ri is the "second" kanon.

at 12 she accidentally finds a death certificate under her own name (except the birth date, there was written a different one) and a couple of childhood photos of an unknown girl she somehow looked alike with.

mo-ri silently endured the horror of realization, mostly because she'd heard since childhood "what kanon should be like." "kanon doesn't act that way" so mo-ri won't suffer either. in fact, mo-ri doesn't feel anything.

these days, mo-ri isn't looking for herself. she has no favorite color, no opinions of her own, and ever her hobbies are from other people's advices.

she ended up at shuuetsu only because "kanon always wanted to perform on stage." the only thing is, her voice didn't work out. teachers say mo-ri's singing lacks "liveliness." but being a model works too, right? her parents don't complain even if she looks like she doesn't belong to gyaru aesthetic.

the stage name mo-ri is the only thing "the second" kanon chose herself, and it means absolutely nothing.

once a year, on october 27, mo-ri sits by the cage of an old parrot who appeared long before she was born, pi-chan, and "commemorates" the sister she never knew. not out of pain, just because it's what she's supposed do. just because no one else does.

though sometimes mo-ri feels like she genuinely misses "the first" kanon tobari.

as for mo-ri's parents, they genuinely love their daughter, kanon tobari. they don't realize what they're doing to mo-ri. in their eyes, they're loving parents who gave their second daughter a chance to "continue the life" of the first. they don't see any violence in giving the second child the same name as the first, because to them it's an act of love and remembrance.

the sudden loss of their dearly beloved daughter made them realize the world isn't safe. so they smother mo-ri with overprotection, so that the accident doesn't happen "a second time."

nanami sees in mo-ri a reflection of her own emptiness.

if you've got nothing remarkable about you, turn that into a brand!

but while nanami fills the void with "seven faces" and a race for likes and views, mo-ri just exists. and that's infuriating.

however, mo-ri has one pretty useful trait: mo-ri will become anyone and anything, if that's what's wanted from her. a classmate said undead are cool and vkei is in fashion? mo-ri listens to undead. a colleague at the agency said mo-ri would look good in gyaru style? mo-ri dresses in gyaru. nanami wants to "be friends" with mo-ri for the cameras? mo-ri "befriends" her. over time nana notices this chameleon act, and at first it angers her even more because mo-ri doesn't resist, doesn't play, doesn't pretend. she just does it, as if there's no self inside her that could be insulted or hurt by the demand. and then nanami realizes: "if mo-ri can become anyone, why not become mine?"

so nanami starts reshaping mo-ri step by step. she says "moricchan looks good in green" and mo-ri wears green. nanami says "moricchan, let's go out" and mo-ri doesn't object. "kiss me" and mo-ri kisses her; not because she wants to herself, but because nanami wants it.

but mo-ri stays empty. she lets herself be held by the hand, sit beside, even sleep in the same bed. but her eyes don't light up, her voice doesn't warm up for nanami. mo-ri does exactly what shes told and not an inch more. and nanami, used to fake reactions (both her own and others'), cant stand this genuine emptiness. she wants mo-ri to respond to her, even with hatred, even with anger, anything, just with something alive. mo-ri doesnt know how. she just looks at nanami and states a fact: "i'm here, because you wanted this."

actually reused the old design for a new oc because i love curly hair im guilty.

who is atsuko and who did she lose

unruly pink hair that, with proper haircare routine, would probably turn into pretty waves. never had the money for that, not that she really needed it anyway. always furrowed brows, a smirk on her lips, and blue eyes.

her name is furuya atsuko.

she's from reimei, a non-special student for three years running. her parents shoved her into the up-and-coming academy hoping for fast money from an idol career. she didn't want any of it, but atsuko never had the spine to go against her strict mother.

shes short but better not ask directly if you want to keep all your limbs intact.

always with band-aids on her face, not because shes constantly getting beat up (...though that too). these are memory. she wears them in memory of the one who's no longer here, who was everything to her.

atsuko never called her by name. never did, and she regrets it to this day. just some stupid nicknames made up on the spot, just to get an annoyed sigh and a smack on the head that atsuko would try to dodge with a giggle. fujikki~, fujipyon :<, fujicchi <3, fujiyama!!!! hisarin :3. behind every nickname is the one who changed everything, who appeared just as suddenly and spontaneously in furuya's life as she left it, the day after her birthday

back when band-aids weren't an accessory yet

a regular fight, almost cliché. atsuko got into it with some honor student, either words led to words or she was just in the wrong place. a crowd gathered, hitting without looking. atsuko wasn't scared at first, snarling back whenever a witty come back popped up in her mind. witty comebacks quickly turned into apologies and pleas to stop, but the venom from the mouths of the students surrounding her never stopped flowing, and the hits didnt get lighter. someone tried to reason with them, "enough, guys stop". you can try stand up against a crowd by yourself and youll end up in the place of that first-year who cant keep her sharp tongue in check when she should.

and then someone yelled "sensei, fight here". there was no sensei of course, they always turned a blind eye to beatings. youth, childhood, oh come on you'll make up, they didn't meant that, blah blah blah... the crowd still scattered just in case.

atsuko was left lying on the ground, groaning and sniffing back snot mixed with dirt. and then some girl loomed over her. neat, tidy, clearly not the type to get into other people's fights - not the type to ever meddle in other people's business if anything. she fished a mint colored band-aid out of her skirt pocket and timidly held it out to atsuko.

"the *** do i need your band-aid for. think you're such a goody two-shoes huh? piss off"... atsukos own venom spilled out of her mouth and she couldn't stop it even if she wanted to. not that furuya even knew how to react to unprompted kindness in this academy without a hint of suspicion.

the girl didn't get offended or scared however. didn't even start making excuses. she flicked atsuko's forehead and called her a weirdo. said "be thankful i didnt walk by like everyone else" and then left. something stirred in atsuko, and something stirred in that stranger girl too. back then they didnt even know each others names.

reimei is a machine.

all students know how things work there. special students on top, non-special on the bottom. every special student gets assigned a non-special 'assistant', a free labor source and sometimes a punching bag. reimei is a system that grinds people up.

that girl was non-special too, atsuko saw her burgundy tie with no stripes, but she found a way not to be a victim. she showed atsuko all the camera blind spots, as if reluctantly, as if "just leave me alone already". she knew how to set up the right person and what a hilarious expression that annoying tanaka girl from 3-a makes when a bucket of water gets dumped on her.

together with atsuko they pulled all sort pranks: firecrackers, staged falls, ruined belongings, you name it. tacks on chairs, paint on clothes, chalk in lockers... chaos became a form of protest. it was fun, so so fun. atsuko had never had as much fun as when she was trying to hold in her laughter hiding in an empty laundry basket.

on the roof where theyd skip class, the two didnt have to play. that girl allowed herself to crack a smile at atsukos dumb jokes. atsuko allowed herself to put her head on the girls lap and stay quiet.

...sometimes it was exhausting. pretty often actually. the regular beating up and casual insulting never stopped from a couple of tricks and sometimes shed catch it from other non-special students too but that's a whole other story.

atsuko once told her, "let's run away."

"run away where?" the girl asked back, in a tone so unusual to her, as if she was genuinely curious.

"dunno. heard about kimisaki?"

that girl nodded. atsuko smiled, brushing it off with "i saw curtains in the right color in 3-b. we'll bring them to your mom, shell sew us a uniform?"

the girl laughed softly. the flick on the forehead still came, but it was worth it. that was a rare sound. atsuko remembered it for life.

something broke

that girl wanted to be an idol, so so much. atsuko saw that spark in her eyes whenever shed start rambling about idols from yumenosaki. she even let atsuko listen to a song she wrote in middle school!!! atsuko's been apologized for laughing for two whole weeks after that.

the girls family didn't support her. "if you want to be a star, earn your own tuition" and she did. in a couple of months, just a couple of months!!! she saved up for a year at reimei, working herself to the bone at parttime jobs during middle school. she got in. then they placed her among the non-special students and her dream shattered in the first week. but going home wasn't any easier, sometimes even harder.

that girl had a family. a family living in an old house in the suburbs, wellkept, with flowers and quiet family dinners. the silence there was suffocating, like everyone was afraid to even think about the wrong thing.

that girl had a surname. a pretty, stately one, fujisaki. "wisteria on the cape". her real surname wasn't fujisaki however, shed known that since childhood, though no one liked to talk about it out loud. the girl's grandfather changed it, long ago, before she was born. koyama. koyama meant small mountain, something that fit a burakumin family, that drew a lot of judging looks and job rejections. "wisteria on the cape" was prettier. cleaner. further from what couldn't be named.

the girl's grandfather was obsessed with pure blood and status. he didn't want anyone to know where they really came from. he demanded from the girl the same thing he demanded from his daughter: be the best, be proper, live up to the new name. no one in the family ever said the word "burakumin" out loud. it hung in the air, unspoken and weighed heavier than any words.

kaito didn't forgive. didn't forget either. now he was a special student. she wasn't.

and then a classmate from middle school transferred to reimei, kaito shiraishi. son of a famous lawyer, arrogance to spare. once nearly the end of middle school he confessed his love to her. said pretty words, gathered the whole class and even a few onlookers from the parallel class. the girl said "sorry."

kaito took revenge. not with his own hands - too much dignity, especially when he had those who came as a nice bonus with the status. they ruined her belongings, dumped dirty chalk water on her head while he carried out orders to beat her up. kaito made not-so-subtle hints in the notes his sidekicks passed to her (crumpled papers thrown at her). "admit you were wrong, and i just might deign to take you under my wing. your face isn't half bad, maybe you could even scrape by as some second-rate singer with my help" - to humiliate, to subjugate, to claim, that girl knew what he wanted. the girl refused. this is how her first year went, and in her second year, atsuko showed up.

that's when kaito found another lever. threats to "switch to your little noisy friend" worked way better than leaking the girl's personal info to seniors and veiled comments about the girl's background.

the girl broke.

a year. a whole year she fed kaito information about atsukos pranks. about where and when they'd happen. about who was involved. about how to avoid them. about who atsuko furuya was and which alley she'd walk home through. the girl betrayed the only person who actually saw her.

atsuko didn't know of course. she found out later.

that girl was seventeen. the day after her birthday, she killed herself.

teeth

what atsuko didn't understand back then was why the girl did it. not the pranks, the pranks made sense. there was something else. she'd provoke, purposely find the angriest honoured student in the hallway and walk too close. brush shoulders. drop the bag of someone she shouldn't even think about, completely "accidentally" of course, knowing she'd get hit. look into their eyes and smile her most proper smile, the one that always gave atsuko chills because she knew nothing good ever followed that smile.

then screams. a crowd. atsuko sprinting down the whole hallway because she heard a familiar voice. atsuko barreling into the fight without thinking. atsuko getting the worst of it, then sitting on the roof with a split lip and mad enough to bite someone's head off.

"them again. what a bunch of jerks. the hell do they have against you? and you-! you're no better, could've kept your mouth shut. you know how to do that better than anyone else," the accusations poured out unfiltered, maybe on purpose, maybe because atsuko knew it'd hit the girl where it hurt.

"i didn't ask you to step in," the girl replied, putting yet another new band-aid on atsuko's cheek.

"and i didn't ask if you asked or not."

after fights always came kisses on the roof. the kisses on the roof were nice. worth every fight.

atsuko obeyed without a command.

the girl provoked others and atsuko took the hit. she created chaos and atsuko cleaned it up. sometimes when kaito walked past them in the hallway and shed have to be completely deaf not to hear and completely blind not to read to the not-so-subtle insults aimed at the girl off his lips, shed look at atsuko with this weird expectant gaze. the kind of gaze you give a dog when you're about to throw a ball. "well, go on. what are you waiting for."

the girl needed to feel she could control at least something and that something became atsuko's reaction: always predictable, always ready to jump in, always coming back, always barking her own insults in return. the girl tested how far she could push before atsuko said enough. atsuko never said enough once. it was beyond her understanding, because obviously you stand by your people no matter what right? whether it's on purpose or not, that's a whole different question she never asked.

it wasn't normal, they both knew that but in reimei healthy relationships didn't exist as a species and this was at least real. the girl got proof that she mattered enough to someone that theyd take a hit for her. atsuko got an outlet for all the chaos that piled up at home and couldn't get out because at home she had to be the good girl.

what remains

that girl was fujisaki hisako.

hisako loved collecting dried flowers though she always considered calligraphy her hobby...which she hated with all her heart.

in public she was diligent ans sweet, reserved and "proper". in private she was rude and blunt, angry and despairing. surrendered.

hisako wanted to be loved more than anything; to be popular and acknowledged but the system crushed her. hisako adored MaM with all her heart...though she kept her oshikatsu tendencies to herself because her family would never approve such a pointless thing. hisako even wrote a song "orbital period" dedicating it to mikejima's ryuseipurple era.

hisako loved shonen manga, learned it from furuya's little sister. hisako loved dogs and often fed strays always staying late after classes.

atsuko found her first, walking to class in the morning. it took a whole group of seniors to pull furuya away from the bloody puddle.

on hisako's phone there was a song "planetarium". a cappella, quiet, gentle, sometimes dropping to a whisper. "don't disappear," she sang. "when you want to vanish, just look up, unlock the door," hisako sang. atsuko didn't know about that song, but atsuko knew hisako's phone password. she cried through the whole night when she found "planetarium".

now atsuko wears band-aids of the same brand hisako gave her the first time they met. atsuko keeps pulling pranks like it's a mission they started together. atsuko looks for hisako in other people: hairstyle, voice timbre, similar clothes, behavior, pursed lips or a mole on a collarbone, a neat "atashi" - anything would do. but there's always none. atsuko never finds her

on the quietest nights, she hums "planetarium" under her breath, never quite reaching the notes hisako sang.

....one more little thing.

the fraud

kaito shiraishi wasn't born a monster. nobody was. its just that some people choose to become one at some point and some dont. he did, methodically, petty, almost without noticing, or maybe noticing without willingness to acknowledge.

in middle school there was this pretty girl. he confessed to her about a month before summer break. gathered the whole class, called friends from the parallel classes, prepared beautiful words, everything he knew, everything that would suit the aloof quiet girl from the last row with the prettiest shoulder-length hair. kaito was sure of victory because he was always sure. he never entertained the thought that he could lose, hed never had to after all. the confession wasnt an act of vulnerability to him, more like a performance where he was the protagonist and the pretty girl was the trophy about to be laid at his feet.

the pretty girl barely raised an eyebrow. in her usual manner, she looked away as if he was something so unimportant she couldn't even look at him properly and mumbled a "sorry."

he was dumbfounded. so was everyone else in the classroom. did she really just say that? did he hear her right? maybe she was flustered - that's what girls did when they were caught off guard, right?

silence. a barely audible snicker. an exhale from his side. "...right."

something collapsed inside kaito and he didn't know how to name it, something that wasn't puppy childhood love and wasnt a human heart either, more of his own self image. kaito was exposed and he was exposed in front of everyone and he was exposed with just one word. he was exposed so easily, as if it took no effort at all. kaito never forgave that.

they met again at reimei, coincidentally actually. not like he'd go chasing after some fool who couldn't see what she'd missed. kaito went to reimei because graduating from that school gave good recommendations for an actor career.

actually, kaito wanted to go to shuetsu. his family had connections, tons of them, they just wouldn't use them. didn't see the point in wasting resources on a lost cause. what was the use after all? he'd never amount to more than some second-rate actor in their eyes. and getting him into a top private academy? not worth the effort. better to save those favors for the friend's daughter, the one who actually mattered. kaito had always been an afterthought to his father, so he'd have to prove himself instead. to everyone. to her first of all.

at reimei, kaito was a special student. and she was not. she was the perfect target. finally he was above her and the system itself put the tools in his hands! kaito never acted openly, he knew how to say the right words to the right people thanks to his father. kaitos hands always stayed clean.

he called her a fraud. he said "what about you is even real? no name, no blood, no right to be here. a draft of a person." kaito knew about the blood hisako's family tried to hide behind a new surname, and that knowledge warmed him more than any power. he could have crushed her just by saying one word out loud, but he didn't, no no. that would have ended the game, and he liked the game. leaving others in oblivion pleased him. they thought he was just saying whatever came into his mind, never knew the implications of his words. because it was something only he and she knew, and oh how he loved that.

kaito offered a deal, a simple one actually. hed take hisako under his wing, elevate her status to a special student even, all for one little phrase.

she refused. dodged, resisted, bit the hand that could feed her, but it was an act. she played along, kaito knew. she liked the game too. she had to.

and then he found another lever: the girl hisako had been running around with. pink hair, that permanent sneer, always with those stupid band-aids on her face, always giving him shit in the most inventive ways. his threat was simple: he'd just go after her instead. what did it matter? girls like that were a dime a dozen. and just like that, hisako caved. "after second break, third locker. don't go there in your uniform." "she's rigging something with wires in the arts class." "there's a group of first-years banding together against the seniors. the leader's a girl with pigtails. had a run-in with furuya recently." kaito was finally winning.

and then hisako died.

he was furious. livid, even. how dare she, was his first thought, hisako had stolen his victory. he didn't want her dead, he wanted her to admit "yes kaito, yes you were right, i should have answered differently. i didn't mean it. i was scared. i was shy." not this, never this. death didn't give him that. death left him with a void he couldn't fill.

he'll never admit guilt. he knows he drove her to it, kaito's not stupid. but on the second thought, it's hisako's fault. she was too weak, she chose it herself, and kaito was just offering her a way out. right? isn't that right? kaito can still picture that dark stain on the asphalt out front, the one nobody, not the janitors and not some worthless first-years could ever fully scrub away. he'd already heard what had happened before he even got in the car that morning and something's been lodged in his chest ever since. hisako's death carved a wound that won't heal though hed sooner die than admit it. he'll mold it into part of his personal mythology instead, a story of that stupid girl who couldn't see his kindness for what it was. a lie, obviously, but it's the only one that keeps his head above water.

in the silence of night, kaito will lie wide awake staring at the ceiling for years, thinking... not about hisako of course, no no, never about her. about how she still said "no". one single word in middle school, a step off the roof after her birthday. she still won the game hed been playing for real.

father

keigo shiraishi is a famous lawyer, a man with an impeccable reputation and extensive connections. his son had everything, except perhaps his father's belief that he'd amount to anything. long time ago, keigo helped a certain family hush up an unpleasant case: a hit-and-run, a tragedy, a daughter dead, the driver fled. he handled it quickly and cleanly. saved face for everyone. the murderer was never found. the victims family, tobari, were left without justice, but with a sense of debt to the lawyer. later they turned to him again for help with a contract for their younger daughter, and keigo helped. he always helped.

tobari family had a daughter kanon. a sweet girl with gentle eyes. obedient, kind, proper with such cute little eyebrows and porcelain skin. keigo doted on her. he brought presents, made time for family dinners, and would sit there beaming as little kanon delivered her recitations with such earnest overdone theatricality. he saw in her what he didn't have himself, a daughter he could spoil, not a lousy son who decided a pretty face would make him a career.

kaito noticed. he saw his father heading out with boxes of toys, caught fragments of conversations about "the tobari girl" but didn't really pay it much mind. his father had tons of such acquaintances. kaito didn't know his father had given up on him long before reimei. shuetsu, the school where that "tobari girl" studied was closed to him not because it was expensive, his family could afford that for sure, but because his father didn't believe. didn't want to waste resources on a lost cause.

mo-ri never knew Kanon, but she knows everything about Her.

she knows how Kanon looked, what She was fond of, what She dreamed of, how She spoke and how She laughed. the old pet parrot pi-chan, who'd been in the house long before mo-ri was born, sometimes speaks in the voice of a six-year-old Kanon, and mo-ri freezes. out of reverence. its the only way to witness and confirm the existence of the Goddess she serves.

a modest shrine, built as the tobari estate. the altar is a mirror, only there can mo-ri see a face that isnt hers. mo-ri is its sole priestess. and her only duty is to make sure everything stays in its place.

mo-ri has rituals. every october 27th, she sits by pi-chan's cage and "mourns" the sister she never knew. why? mother no longer cries behind a locked bedroom door, and father no longer stays at work until late. grandmother no longer throws pitying glances at her granddaughter while whispering something to her husband. the "extra" things were cleared from the room long ago. and still, mori "mourns." because it must be done. because no one else will. because Kanon deserves to be remembered.

and mo-ri has her prayers, though shed never call them that. but when she stands before the mirror and checks that her image sits just right, she thinks, "do i look like Her today? will they notice the difference?" and if her parents smile when they look at her, it means the goddess has accepted the offering. today mo-ri was a good girl. today mo-ri did just enough.

all she has are borrowed things. Kanon in every object in the house after all...in the spacious room that wasn't meant for mo-ri. in the synthesizer in the living room that mo-ri never touches. in the family portrait in the hallway where mo-ri doesn't appear. in the name "Tobari Kanon," which mo-ri never claims as her own. that name is like a heirloom, you can't take it for yourself - only guard it.

the name Kanon is a piece of clothing that the younger sister wears after the older one. so mo-ri treats the persona "Kanon" like a precious thing entrusted to her. you don't ruin borrowed things right? you take care of them, handle them with respect, especially when they mean so much to others, and especially when they're all you have.

a priestess doesn't argue with her deity. she doesn't ask for anything for herself. her love for Kanon isn't ~love~ in the ordinary sense. it's an endless attention to making sure the goddess's expression sits perfectly, that her hair shines just right, that her tone of voice is exactly the one that's needed, that her parents keep believing their daughter is still here.