Now and Forever...Itsumademo... - Chapter 17B

[unare_haineko]

Title: Now and Forever…いつまでも…

Author: Mayonaka no Taiyou/Unare Haineko

Pairing: [Juntoshi] Matsumoto Jun x Ohno Satoshi

Rating:  R-ish

Summary: This story follows Ayumu, a more or less normal child born in 2012, three years after the ending of ‘Kodoku kara Umareta Ai’ (which you can read here).  His parents, Jun and Ohno, are everything but

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Lady Strange & Mr Sakurai, Session 9, part 1

[mmestrange]

Upon departing from the very posh residence of Jun, her ladyship directed her carriage in the direction of Sho’s shared residence with one Aiba Masaki. Due to the freshness of her team of horses, she arrived at her intended destination in a trice and soon made her way up to flat where Sho was currently sighing over (but not paying the least attention to) the show on television

Lady Strange & Mr Sakurai, Session 9, part 2

[mmestrange]

“Then she doesn’t have what it takes to be a good researcher. She only wants the knowledge so that she can tell people, she knows X and Y. She doesn’t care how X and Y came about. People like that don’t care about the inverse of what they know. For example, people like that think they know nobility but how can they know nobility when they don’t know what it means to be ignoble? Iris still lacks the capacity to understand,” sniffed her ladyship with stern disapproval

Lady Strange & Mr Sakurai, Session 9, part 3

[mmestrange]

“Iris is a person who thinks she deserves the best and when the ‘best’ or what she thinks is the best is denied to her, she will resort to unscrupulous means to get it. Why else did she order a Rolls Royce cocktail?” lilted her ladyship’s voice in an unpleasantly cold intonation

Lady Strange & Mr Sakurai, Session 9, part 4

[mmestrange]

“Tosh, you have no brain and no heart and you’re still walking up and down like an automaton, you should be find. Come, let’s play,” she giggled playfully, slicing downwards in an inverse Y-incision in her search for more internal organs. “You ate a fig, yes? Let’s see what happened to it. By the way,” she went on conversationally with her rapier between her teeth as she stuck a hand into his body cavity in her quest to locate his stomach, “Did you know that Fig (the fruit) heralds an argument in the language of flowers? In my day when I was a mortal in Athens, we believed that Apollo once sent a crow to collect water from a stream for him. The crow saw a beautiful fig tree and was tempted by the fruit. The crow then hangs around the tree, waiting for the figs to ripen. However, the crow knew that he would be late (since he is hanging around the fig tree rather than collecting the water for Apollo) and the crow feared he would be punished. Thus, the crow ate the ripe figs and then went to the stream where he found a snake from the

Commentary & Analysis CH 17, Aiba section: Daedalus, Perdix and Birds, Part 1

[mmestrange]

ON AIBA, THE TOWER, THE SPARROW & FALLING

Yes, Vindication on so many counts! From our past discussions when the ‘drugs in JE’ subplot first appeared, I knew I was vindicated there. Vindication on the whole ‘Aiba falling like Icarus into the sea from flying too close to the sun or the truth’ business. Ha! We did say in our previous discussion that the only way out for him is to make like Perdix, become a partridge and fly himself to safety. I giggle-snorted when I saw the reference, so gleeful was I. Yet, the wheels in my head threw up questions whilst I was chortling:

(01) What exactly did Aiba see?

(02) How did he get out of his drug-needle-scrape stupor to snap into sense?

(03) Who was he talking to when he allegedly shouted ‘no way’?
- What was Aiba saying ‘no way’ in response to?
- Was Iago or one his minions pulling a Darth Vader and going ‘Luke, I am your father. Join me’ spiel?

(04) What happened when there was the ‘scratching against rock, followed by a swish and a thud’? I can understand the scratching against

Commentary & Analysis CH 17, Aiba section: Daedalus, Perdix and Birds, Part 2

[mmestrange]

The important thing is the sparrow flies OUT FROM the tree (where it is dark) and towards the street light INTO the glare of the light. The literary significance of this is telling - it means that the Sparrow/Aiba has chosen to go out the cocoon of shadows where it’s safe and into the light of truth. Having seen the light of truth (i.e. the revelation of the role of drugs in the jimusho), there is NO WAY Aiba can retreat back into the shadows. Once one knows the truth, one knows it - there’s no other way around it. That then is the message for the Arashi men, viz., they must face the truth whether they like it or. The truth may be unadorned, glaring and ugly, but if they don’t face it, they will never overcome their hang-ups or escape from the rut into which they have fallen since the group’s dissolution

Commentary & Analysis CH 17, Aiba section: Daedalus, Perdix and Birds, Part 3

[mmestrange]

Because Aiba has flown to close to the sun (i.e. the glare of the truth that JE is involved in the drug trade), he is locked up in a tower (i.e. the poppy room). Because he is locked in the tower, he has to escape. In escaping the tower, Aiba risks plummeting to his death like Icarus (because he has flown too close to the sun). But because Aiba is an innovative and earnest sort of fellow (as evinced from his mirror suit and his kindness towards Fa-nine when he first met the man and to the half-inebriated Aoide), he is favoured by Athena. Athena, blessed goddess of wisdom and war favours ingenuity and disdains injustice, thus, she saves Aiba from Icarus’s fate and bestows upon him the fate of Perdix.

In the original Perdix-Daedalus story, Athena transforms Perdix into a partridge. Here, ‘Athena’ transforms Aiba to a sparrow. A sparrow is significant in a biblical sense. Don’t get it? Fear not, I will explain.

Those of you who are familiar with Shakespearea’s Hamlet will know this quote from Act 5, scene v, lines 217-224 (in the New

Commentary & Analysis CH 17, Aiba section: Daedalus, Perdix and Birds, Part 4

[mmestrange]

Colours & Aiba - Returning home in blackThen Aiba come home dressed in black. That too is significant. In the language of colour, black means

[emodiva]

ugh all this legal talk is turning my brain to mush... :P

[mmestrange]

I've analysed the legal talk in my commentary (found in the comments section of CH 17D) labelled:
"Commentary & Analysis CH 17, Jun Section: The Contract - PAGES 01-17 ONLY"
and
"Commentary & Analysis CH 17, Jun Section: The Contract - PAGES 18-30 ONLY"

That should help.