Thinking about Junko (Madoka's mother) still having faint feelings of grief for the gap where her daughter once was...
Junko lifted her son to her chest, gently cradling his small body and passively listening to his incoherent coos. She wasn't focused much, really. Far too focused on recalling the conversation with that ravenette girl. That drawing… and those ribbons; they looked so familiar. Seeing it washed her in an odd, sweet feeling, one that also stuck pins into her heart in bitter sadness. Sweet… that word reminds her of that girl Tatsuya babbles about. Madoka, Junko recalls, the name nearly triggers tears from her eyes. She briefly imagined caressing the girl's head, her pink hair ruffling up around her fingers. A deeper voice drags Junko from her fantasies, the voice of her husband, Tomohisa.
“Are you alright, my love? You’ve been quiet.” He adjusted his thin glasses and furrowed his brows.
Junko blinks herself back into reality, “Oh, what? Yes, yes I’m just fine.” She pulls a tight smile onto her face.
Tomohisa nods with a soft sigh, one with an underlying tone of deep caring for his wife. In reality, he's also been behaving strangely as of late. He also feels that bittersweet pang in his heart hearing the name of Tatsuya’s imaginary friend. Sometimes, his mind even feigns the sound of light footsteps padding down from the upper floor, ones that don't match anyone else's. Part of him hopes that it's nothing, some trick of the mind, but he believes deep down that perhaps Madoka meant more than an imaginary friend.
It became Tomohisa’s turn to snap up from his thoughts, now as his wife beside him slowed her pace noticeably. Her footsteps dragged subtly over the sidewalk, head turned to the vibrant pink boutique, lined with small plushies for young girls. Junko caught her eyes onto one plush in particular: a pink bunny with shiny button eyes. The bunny brought a familiar picture to her mind, one of a baby pink bed, holding up the toy between white pillows. Junko knew that room, swore she did, at least. She was captivated by the idea of it, nearly smelling the soft peach and strawberry lingering in the air, the light struggling against the heavy pink curtains.
“Hm?” Tomohisa tilted his head, “Dear?”
Once again, Junko shook her head away to form a response, “Yes, well it's just…”
Suddenly her husband smiled in that soft way he always did, “What, do you want that plushie over there?” He pointed playfully over her shoulder at the cute shop.
Junko chuckled, “Mhm, what's wrong with acting young again?” She nudged against him.
Tatsuya babbled out something resembling a little laugh, encouraged by the sudden excitement.
At home, now with a pink bunny plush tucked lightly away from Tatsuya’s grasp, Junko set her son gently in his cradle. As Tomohisa began chopping up various vegetables for dinner, his wife made her way to the second floor. She couldn't tell why, but her feet led her up to the unused room to the left. Junko daydreamed about a world with her daughter excitedly decorating her room with frills and bows, and yet the room remained quiet and blank.
As she opened the stiff door, her hands trembled with an emotion she couldn't yet identify. Her feet balanced her weight to the center of the room. The air seemed to carry with it the smell of dust, hiding a faint hint of strawberry. Junko couldn't explain the smell, no one would have sprayed a sweet perfume in the vacant room. Maybe Madoka would, but she doesn't exist. Not anymore, at least.
Not anymore, Junko repeated in her head, what could that mean. Unknowingly, she slowly sank to the floor, still cradling the childish plush as her knees pressed to the hardwood. Madoka. Perhaps… this would have been her room. Perhaps she would have been tucked into bed, or waking up for school, or hugging her plushies close to her chest. At that last part, Junko brought the plush to her own chest, pressing it there tightly in a hug as she visualized a warmth that never existed in this life.
At the moment Tomohisa came looking for his wife, Junko was laid onto the hard floor, cuddling the bunny plush as a kid would, and most surprisingly, tears were streaming from her eyes in steady trickles. Junko never cried, only twice could he remember his wife shedding tears. Instead, she fancied herself to be too busy to cry and clipped up her shoulder-length hair from her face. Now, however, she lay vulnerable, grieving memories that never truly happened.
