Tangled Regrets – Chapter 5 – A Dreaming Girl

Jasmine tea smells wonderful.

It’s… A tame scent, something definitely noticeable yet non-intrusive. You find it when you look for it, but you would miss it if you were preoccupied with something else, something more pressing.

My new mother greets me as she passes by the living room on her way to the yard, and I smile politely in return.

Just like jasmine tea.

The taste isn’t as sharp as others, honestly. There are far richer brews, ones where you can almost feel the leaves opening up in the warm water to let out each nuance, strands of flavor mingling into something unique and distinctive.

Mrs. Kaname took me to buy some when she discovered my interest. We ended up leaving the store with ten carefully sealed packets.

Yet here I am. Drinking jasmine tea.

From the convenience store.

While I have a full packet of it, still unopened, made with a far more expensive process, each tea leaf perfumed by being placed days on end over a tray of jasmine blossoms, each flower removed and replaced as soon as needed for the infusion of aroma to be uninterrupted. Optimal.

I hate it.

No… No, that’s not true. I… I actually was fascinated when we got to try it in the store, the clerk explaining in exhausting detail how to best brew it—temperature, time, never to break the buds, foods that could be paired with it… It might have been the best tea I ever tasted.

Then I remembered, and…

Sayaka and Madoka are in my apartment, asking me about what being a magical girl is like.

I haven’t been as happy in… Too long. Not since Kyouko left.

I try not to paint too rosy a picture, to have them accompany me so they learn what it’s actually like, so I don’t allow myself to trick them.

Trick them into being with me. My comrades.

My friends.

I serve them each a piece of cake from a local shop I spotted some time ago. Strawberry cake, because that’s the kind I can be most certain a couple of young girls like them will appreciate.

Then I serve them each a cup of jasmine tea.

The memory hit too suddenly, and only Ms. Kaname’s enhanced reflexes allowed her to take the teacup from my hands before I spilled it all over the floor.

Some quick reassurances, a half-hug that felt like it always did, and some apologies to the clerk, who looked awestruck after learning I was… One of those.

Parallel lives. There have been far too many novels written about this.

Tasteless novels.

I take another sip from my cup, pondering whether to go to the kitchen and get some cookies. Vanilla, maybe?

No. Too much effort.

Instead, I’ll take another long, delicate sip, letting the aroma fill my nose as I take in the warm liquid—

“This is too cruel!” I shout, my rifle trembling with the desperate strength of my clenched fingers.

“I don’t understand. This is far more efficient,” Kyuubey says, tilting its head in that way I had always thought was cute before, its childish voice displaying careless, fleeting curiosity.

And I shoot it through its head.

I drop to my knees and scream, scream with a throat that can get hoarse, bleed, be torn, and it won’t matter, because this body is nothing more than a—

“Mami! Mami, please—” Homura starts to beg, and I turn just in time to see her panic at what she sees in my eyes.

I hear a clock ticking, and it’s the last thing I hear in that life.

The teacup doesn’t shake in my hand, and even if it did, I’m holding a saucer beneath it.

I keep sipping the tea before calmly setting both saucer and cup down on my lap.

I… I don’t blame Homura. Not really.

Not after… After all the times she wasn’t fast enough. Relentless enough.

I remember a clumsy girl, wearing glasses, her hair done up in braids. And my heart clenches.

How much of what she became was because of me? How much did I push her every time I collapsed when the secret was revealed? How much could I have helped if I hadn’t been—

I take another sip.

The tea is still warm, and the freshly brewed pot is right in front of me.

It’s my old tea set. The one from my home, white porcelain edging on crème with a floral motif of red, green, and blue. The surface has a barely noticeable spiderweb of cracks over it, a sign of how long it has been in my family.

My old family, I mean.

A car crash, mom and dad mercifully quiet, my blood draining as I felt my body relax, a peaceful drowsiness I didn’t quite understand filling me with every scarlet drop that left me. My eyes were barely open, fixated on the glint of the sun on the very tip of a shard of glass stuck on the driver’s seat in front of me, but my eyelids were so heavy, and just… just letting go and sleeping seemed so appealing, to close my eyes and just…

Drift.

And, just as they lowered, as I felt the beginnings of a dream weave around me, a white shape.

Almost like a baby fox, but with bunny ears. It’s soft-looking fur was white, its eyes red, and its profile seemed to catch the light just like the edge of broken glass.

“Do you want to make a contract?”

And I did.

Again. And again. And again.

There isn’t a single life in which I didn’t, a single time I didn’t become a magical girl.

A single time I wasn’t fooled.

A single time my parents didn’t die.

I look at the cup. There’s almost no tea left, so I set it down on the table and refill it, the stream of amber liquid falling surrounded by gentle wafts of steam as I slowly let the tea raise until it almost reaches the lip of the cup, tempting me to just pour a few drops more, to let it overflow.

I set my teapot down, and carefully take the cup and the saucer, moving it to my lips with a steady hand until I finally take another sip and there’s no more risk of it spilling.

The memories come easier and faster these days. I think they’re supposed to.

I… I wasn’t that good of a student last year.

Ms. Kaname was an engaging teacher, and her fame preceded her. Enough that even someone like me had heard about her. But… I still was someone “like me.”

That is, completely uninterested in magic.

It can’t bring back the dead, can it?

I spent most of the year staring blankly at the blackboard, at my textbook, at my notes. And all I could see was the glint of the sun on the edge of a shard of glass.

“Ms. Tomoe… If you ever want to talk—”

“Thank you, Mrs. Kaname, but I’m fine.”

I may have been a bit rude, cutting her off like that. She was my teacher, after all, and showing a certain amount of concern for a recently orphaned student was… Well, not expected. Not when so few cared to try.

Mrs. Kaname… She was a good person. She tried.

It wasn’t her fault that she was a magician.

And… that wasn’t one of those memories, but it still felt too vivid. Something that I just lived through, rather than remembered through the haze I’ve felt since…

Since I was stuck behind the driver’s seat, looking at a shivering mote of sun, my eyes gently drifting close.

And someone pulled me away.

They weren’t magicians, no more than almost anyone, but they were trained first responders.

That means they did a good job. As good as could be expected.

But they didn’t perform a miracle.

And that means I have a scar running down the side of my belly, from where I almost bled to death. From where I almost dreamed.

And that my parents went ahead to that dream that is no longer within my reach.

I wonder if there ever was magic to do that? To reach those who—

I take another sip. The tea is still warm, still fragrant, in its mild manner. The aftertaste is gentle, soothing, so I’ve finally nailed both the temperature and the steeping time for this particular brand.

It’s… At least it’s one thing I know how to do other than—

I dance around the witch’s attacks, the little nutcracker dolls shooting at me with their tiny rifles as I pull weapon after weapon from my body, each one of my shots that much faster than should be possible at the speed my arms apparently move, each one destroying a bullet before it reaches me.

I maintain my poise through it all, a gentle smile on my face, trying not to show Sayaka and Madoka how much it actually takes out of me, how much it strains my reserves to twist and turn like a dancer while keeping my awareness of the maze’s shifting geometry. I will need the grief seed after the fight is over.

But I turn my head just a bit out of what my path suggests, and get a look at the entranced faces of my two companions and…

It’s worth it.

Seeing them cheering me on, not a hint of fear for their own wellbeing now that I’m protecting them. Seeing them trust me. It’s… everything I need right now. Everything I need to finish the fight.

And, as my bullets ricochet off the paintings of armies from the time of Napoleon, as each one of my bullets traces its intended path and a web of magic is born through all the witch’s soldiers, leaving the little general alone in the middle of it…

“Tiro finale!”

I do.

I win.

And Sayaka and Madoka cheer.

Gently and calmly, I let the saucer and cup on the table in front of me.

Then I pick up one of the sofa’s cushions and bite on it, my scream muffled enough that it shouldn’t reach the yard.

Because that’s all I’m good for now, isn’t it?

Magic.

Magic and fighting.

One of the best in the world. A legend in the making.

The adopted daughter of the Curse Breaker.

Her heir, seeing as her own daughter can’t do magic.

And I know that’s a lie. That it must be a lie.

Because…

“Mami! Mami, please, please—”

My body is broken, half of it just gone after the witch obsessed with candy took…

Its last meal, I guess.

Homura is looking down at me, her long hair swaying in the breeze of the real world intruding upon the maze, dissolving it. There’s regret in her eyes, but nothing else.

No surprise.

She had known I was too weak for this. Had warned me.

“It’s… It’s all right, Madoka. I’m just… going to sleep…”

“No! No, please! I just promised, didn’t I? I promised I would fight by your side! That I would be with you! That I—”

I lift my left hand, the one that remains, and cradle her cheek. Her tears run down my fingers, and I smile at their warmth.

“It would have been a wonderful dream… But there’s another one that’s been waiting for me.”

My eyes close, and I remember sun over glass.

My smile stretching my lips is the last thing I feel.

Madoka…

Madoka was always there.

She didn’t always become a magical girl, not after that first time we fought Walpurgisnacht, but… She was always there.

And I…

It had been almost a year since I lost my parents, since my aunt decided she couldn’t care for a girl my age and settled on sending me money every month.

I was alone in my house, taking care of it, almost obsessively devoting myself to making sure it was just as my mother would have expected, had she come through the door at that very moment.

She didn’t.

Still, I washed the dishes I’d dirtied during my breakfast and took my bookbag, resigned to yet another day trying to listen to Mrs. Kaname’s lectures on one form of magic or another. It was the start of the new year, but magic was a core subject from its introduction to graduation. Nobody wanted half-trained practitioners going off to do their own thing and experiment.

And I…

I didn’t care. Not really.

I was going through the motions, smiling when appropriate, doing what was expected of me and nothing else.

On a whim, I took a small detour through the nearest park, the one with all the cherry trees. I hadn’t even thought about watching the blossoms fall this year, but… Something pulled me.

I would’ve liked it if the beautiful sight soothed me, if the slow, stuttering rain of pink and white had captivated me enough to cleanse my thoughts, if the lonely petals drifting down the stream that cuts across the park along its tiled channel had caught my sight and distracted me.

They hadn’t.

But… The girl had.

Younger than me, yet wearing the same uniform. A girl starting the new year, just like me, who had decided to come on her own to watch the same flowers I’d decided to see.

A girl with pink hair tied in twin tails, standing in the middle of the path, the cherry blossoms almost the same shade of her hair, almost made to flatter and highlight it, to dance like her tresses in the spiraling wind that made her long, red, flashy ribbon stream behind her as she looked up, transfixed on a beauty I couldn’t quite see.

I stood there. I don’t know for how long.

Then I took a step forward. Toward school.

No. Toward her.

And my world shattered.

Each shard a memory, each glint of the sun a renewed pain that had never stopped in any of my lives.

Each one, an edge with my blood on it.

Yet…

After loneliness, after being abandoned, after fighting and fighting so long, improving each and every time just to try and keep ahead of the blackening of my soul...

Still...

After trying to keep my smile, my poise, my everything that I could cling to…

I…

After losing Kyouko, losing Sayaka, losing Homura. Just losing…

I…

I saw Madoka.

Smiling up at me, so hopeful, so confident in my strength, in me.

“I will become a magical girl and fight by your side, Mami. I promise.”

I was on my knees, crying like I hadn’t cried since the hospital, since I awoke from a dream I thought would never end only to find I was the only one to wake.

It was an ugly cry, a complete loss of composure, of poise.

It was the desperate wailing of a lonely girl who just realized for how long she had been alone.

And…

Gentle, slender arms surrounded me.

“Mami. Mami, I’ve been waiting for you for so long… I’m so glad you’re alive…”

She cried, like a girl who just found something she thought lost.

We cried. Together.

Yet apart.

I bite my cheek, determined not to let out a single sound, and reach back for my cup.

The tea has gone cold.

I drink anyway.

It’s slightly bitter now, the aroma settled in the water rather than wafting off it, and I think about adding sugar, as idle a thought as ridiculous.

You can’t fix everything just by adding sugar. Some things will just… remain spoiled.

I take a long gulp. There’s no reason to savor it anymore.

And…

Madoka.

Madoka dragged me to school, not to take our classes, but to talk with her mother. Mrs. Kaname.

I… I hadn’t expected that. Hadn’t made the connection, my mind still in turmoil with a thousand lives settling in it.

But Mrs. Kaname seemed more relieved than surprised. I didn’t understand why.

Not until she explained.

About the law, about living with people connected to the past lives.

About moving in with them.

A part of me was delighted, the part that remembered burning pink sailing over the battlefield and devoted promises of friendship and camaraderie.

The other…

I cleaned up my parents’ apartment.

“You don’t need to, Mami. You can leave it just at is and visit whenever you need to,” Mrs. Kaname said.

She had come in while I was trying to put together the boxes I’d bought the day before.

“I... I need to tidy it up,” I answered. “Nobody lives here anymore.”

She took a quick look at the living room, at the place I hadn’t allowed a single mote of dust to remain in for almost a year.

Then she knelt down beside me and took my hand, her other hand taking the roll of tape out of my grasp.

“It’s yours, Mami. You can… use it for whatever you need. Even if it is just to remember that you always have a place to go back to.”

I cried. Not like in the park. Not a wailing, messy affair. Just… a few quiet tears dripping down my cheeks.

She held me in her own arms, the strength of her presence beating against me in comforting waves before it settled, and she lifted me as gently as if I was little Tatsuya.

She settled me on my sofa, the crème thing with frilly cushions, and went into the kitchen.

She came out of it three minutes later, a tray with my teapot and two teacups on her hands.

“You like jasmine, right?”

I did.

It was my favorite.

And… It wasn’t as bitter as this.

Hiding a grimace of distaste, I set my teacup down on Mrs. Kaname’s coffee table. This time, I don’t intend to pick it back up.

I… Haven’t been a good guest, have I?

Mostly after…

Papers over a desk, Mrs. Kaname smiling reassuringly at me, Madoka clutching my left hand by my side.

“I… I know it’s sudden, but I really think it’s… It would be for the best. You and Madoka, after all… You know.”

I didn’t.

“Mami,” Madoka said, “it’s fine if you don’t want to. This doesn’t change anything: we will be together, no matter what.”

That same promise, said in so many ways, so many times.

I tightened my fingers around hers.

“Then… If it doesn’t change anything… Why?”

Mrs. Kaname looked at me, her eyes as sharp as whenever someone was suddenly reminded of her title.

“Because it does change things. You and Madoka will always share a bond nobody but you two and a very select few can understand. You and me?” She waved the papers. “We share another bond. And with this we will have yet another.”

I looked at it, at the sheaf of papers, and I wished I had Homura’s ability to stop time, because everything was going too fast.

“I don’t want to replace anything, but I want to be there for you as much as I am able. I will still try, this… This is just the best way I can think of to do that.” Her voice hesitated in the middle of her speech, something Mrs. Kaname, the teacher, rarely did.

Never mind the Curse Breaker.

“You don’t have to rush,” Madoka almost whispered.

But… But I did.

I signed the papers.

And became Mami Kaname.

I take a deep breath, my fingers clutching the edge of my skirt, and release the air as I relax them.

Because… I can no longer keep my appropriate, cheerful, bright, fake smile.

I am… I am Madoka’s sister.

Tatsuya’s sister.

Junko’s daughter.

Tomohisa’s daughter.

Kazuko’s daughter.

And each and every day, I feel like I’m coming apart.

I am not fighting for my life, the struggle against monsters and despair distracting me.

I am not guiding young girls down the path of what I thought was heroism.

I am not cleaning, again and again, an empty apartment.

I am… not alone.

Yet… Why does it feel so much worse?

I remember those moments, those fractured glimpses of myself looking at a glint of light over and through glass, those shards of me teetering on the edge of a dream I could forever rest in.

I remember almost a year of longing for—

I remember waking up. Alone. Whishing I wasn’t. Faking.

And I no longer need to do it.

So the mask of Mami Tomoe is now unneeded, and Mami Kaname is…

Too new. Too raw.

Too unused to being herself.

So I do these little things, these little charades where I sit alone with my tea and my soft smile, and my composure that is sometimes smashed by a memory too strong to hold back, and…

And I should be getting better.

I should already be better than I was, better than when my aunt told me she had given up on me, that there was no place for me at her home, that…

That I was to live in a grave devoted to parents who went on ahead, who called to me from that distant dream.

That I—

I am no longer that person, that Mami Tomoe. Yet, sometimes, I still wish I was, that I’d never left that empty house, never met this new family, never been constantly surrounded by a reminder of what I no longer—

Oh.

Of course. Of course I would miss something that obvious.

This is Madoka’s family, not mine.

And each and every day, I have to see them.

Warm. Happy. With each other.

Of course it would hurt. Of course I would feel slighted, resentful, angry—

Alone.

I hear a rustling sound, and the sofa shifts a bit.

At my side, Mr. Kaname has just sat down.

“You prefer jasmine, don’t you?” he says. And he leans forward, picking up an argent teapot with engraved roses that has the faintest stream of cloudy vapor coming off its spout.

He pours the light amber tea in one cup, the white porcelain undecorated except for a silvered rim.

Then he pours another. On one of my cups, almost cream porcelain with painted flowers.

He puts a cube of sugar on his own, then passes me my teacup, his hold on the saucer elegant and smooth in a way I don’t quite understand.

“I’m sorry, I know it’s a sacrilege to add anything to such a fine blend, but… I’m a sucker for sweet things. Junko always teases me about it.” He has a slight grimace as he apologizes, then he picks his own cup with that strange, understated elegance and stirs it with a silver spoon.

I take in the scent. It’s the expensive blend. The one from the store Mrs. Kaname took me to.

It’s excellent tea. The right mix of buds and leaves left to simmer on the water unbroken, the aroma unfolding inside me with every new breath.

It’s… even better than it was at the store.

“Oh, you aren’t thirsty? Sorry, I thought yours had gone cold, but if you just don’t want—”

I try to smile reassuringly at him. He flinches, so maybe I don’t quite manage.

Then a little hand pulls down on my skirt.

“Mami?” Tatsuya asks, his grin wide enough I can see how many teeth he still lacks. “Play?”

“Not now, Tatsuya.” Tomohisa chuckles. “Mami’s drinking tea with daddy. Do you want some?” he says, leaning down with his cup toward the child clinging to me.

“Uhg! Bitter!” his son replies, his whole face furrowing in utter distaste.

Before I know how or why, I’m patting his hair.

“Your dad always adds sugar, Tatsuya. Bitter things can also be sweet.”

His grimace fades away, and he smiles up at me in that way that lets me know he didn’t understand a single thing I just said.

Then he laughs at my face and grabs my skirt to try and climb onto me.

At my side, Tomohisa chuckles.

And I just fight to try and keep my very expensive tea from spilling over.