On the first day of Christmas
my true love sent to me
a place that feels like home
[Title] A Mutually Shared Belief
[Fandom] Akira (manga)
[Rating] PG for language and brief mentions of death
[Word count] 970
[Notes/Summary] Neither Kaneda nor Kei had a home, so they had to make their own.
Home? Come on. Kaneda’s never been one to get sappy about home sweet home, mainly ‘cause he never had one. Your parents die in a fire before you’re a year old - like, the concept of home literally burning down around you before you’re even old enough to notice it - then what you never had you never miss, right? And he figures he must’ve been an ugly baby or whatever, because it was wall-to-wall children’s homes ever since, and they’re home in name only.
Not that he’s complaining. What you never had you never miss. Or you build it out of the stuff you do have instead. Forts out of blankets. Friendships out of fights in the playground. Collections of toys out of second-hand junk people donated. Bikes out of spare parts and vehicles that people have technically donated. You know any moment the authorities could send you on to a different dorm, a different school, a different life. You might be able to build up a, like, a shell or something from other people’s homes, but it’s only temporary.
Doesn’t matter. You’re still you underneath. And, to be honest, can you really see him growing up with parents and… and pets and a garden and… dinner on the table every night? He’s too mouthy for that to work long-term. They’d have kicked him out years ago.
Kei started off with a home, but she doesn’t remember much of it. It, and her parents, are single-shot blurred memories that she doesn’t think about too much in case she wears them out. And it feels strange to think about them a lot, anyway. What would she be trying to achieve? Retroactive grieving?
Sure, after they died, she and Keiichi lived with Auntie Chiyoko. That was where she grew up, in Auntie Chiyoko’s narrow wooden-framed house with three floors, one room per floor, sliding doors in every room, sliding doors into cupboards, many of which she wasn’t allowed to look in. It didn’t feel like home, when she was little. Auntie Chiyoko treats kids like she treats adults. Forcefully. Chiyoko looked after Keiichi, and Keiichi looked after Kei, who wasn’t Kei then. She went to school when she had to, and Keiichi took her to the wasteground and taught her how to fire a gun, and Chiyoko told her, walk like I’m behind you, even if I’m not. Don’t let them see if you’re scared. Everyone was scared of Chiyoko.
Maybe that was home, but isn’t part of the definition that you think it will always be there? Otherwise, surely it’s just a place you happen to be living in. She knew already that nothing’s always going to be there. Chiyoko and Keiichi talked about if something happens. If something happens to me. Something could always happen. Maybe the only reason most people have homes is they don’t know that yet.
So there’s Kaneda, and there’s Kei, and you’d really think they’d both have cleared out of Neo-Tokyo after it had been razed to the ground in a psychic apocalypse. You’d assume neither of them had much keeping them there.
Kaneda figures maybe he was born to live in a junkyard. Maybe the wreckage of a ruined city where everything you want you have to build from what’s been broken, maybe that is home for him. Sounds kind of shitty when you put it that way, and not saying sometimes he doesn’t miss reliable hot water and roads without murderous potholes, but everywhere’s got its downsides, and fuck it, they can move him on from institution to institution to squatting in an abandoned building but they don’t get to move him on from the city itself. Specially not considering how close he was to all the action that went down. He’s got more right to this place than anyone.
And home isn’t the place where your friends died, no one ever says that, but the things that happened, actually that was a lot of his Frankensteined life burning down around him, and if he wants to pick over the embers and see what he can salvage, so what?
Kei figures she’s been fighting for something all her life, and even if both sides of the conflict were vaporised in minutes she’s not ready to lay down arms yet. Perhaps she can’t. She still walks like Chiyoko’s behind her with a minigun, she still checks the accessible exits in every room she goes into. Neo-Tokyo she knows; even with the buildings burnt away she knows it, and she’s learning the new parts, learning the new exits, the ratholes, the tunnels. Move away now and it’s a whole new battleground to memorise, and not knowing the escape routes can get you killed. She’s avoided getting killed so far.
That’s just talk. That’s using a battle as an excuse. She knows there isn’t a battle any more, not really. But it was part of whatever wasn’t really home. She thought she was prepared to lose everything but she didn’t think it would be almost everyone she called a friend and every familiar landmark and everything she thought was worth fighting for and even prior conceptions of the nature of reality. Just goes to show, you can still be surprised.
She hasn’t lost everything. Nothing happened to Chiyoko, more or less (she happened to everyone else, instead). And everything happened to Kaneda, and yet he seems to have come through it still himself, still the mouthy hot-headed delinquent she wanted to punch when she first saw him, and he shrugs at the destruction and picks up a hammer and starts nailing boards and tarpaulin over the broken windows, like he figures it’s worth it. Kei’s not sure she believes it is, but home is only a mutually shared belief, so she stays and goes along with it.
a place that feels like home
[Title] A Mutually Shared Belief
[Fandom] Akira (manga)
[Rating] PG for language and brief mentions of death
[Word count] 970
[Notes/Summary] Neither Kaneda nor Kei had a home, so they had to make their own.
Home? Come on. Kaneda’s never been one to get sappy about home sweet home, mainly ‘cause he never had one. Your parents die in a fire before you’re a year old - like, the concept of home literally burning down around you before you’re even old enough to notice it - then what you never had you never miss, right? And he figures he must’ve been an ugly baby or whatever, because it was wall-to-wall children’s homes ever since, and they’re home in name only.
Not that he’s complaining. What you never had you never miss. Or you build it out of the stuff you do have instead. Forts out of blankets. Friendships out of fights in the playground. Collections of toys out of second-hand junk people donated. Bikes out of spare parts and vehicles that people have technically donated. You know any moment the authorities could send you on to a different dorm, a different school, a different life. You might be able to build up a, like, a shell or something from other people’s homes, but it’s only temporary.
Doesn’t matter. You’re still you underneath. And, to be honest, can you really see him growing up with parents and… and pets and a garden and… dinner on the table every night? He’s too mouthy for that to work long-term. They’d have kicked him out years ago.
Kei started off with a home, but she doesn’t remember much of it. It, and her parents, are single-shot blurred memories that she doesn’t think about too much in case she wears them out. And it feels strange to think about them a lot, anyway. What would she be trying to achieve? Retroactive grieving?
Sure, after they died, she and Keiichi lived with Auntie Chiyoko. That was where she grew up, in Auntie Chiyoko’s narrow wooden-framed house with three floors, one room per floor, sliding doors in every room, sliding doors into cupboards, many of which she wasn’t allowed to look in. It didn’t feel like home, when she was little. Auntie Chiyoko treats kids like she treats adults. Forcefully. Chiyoko looked after Keiichi, and Keiichi looked after Kei, who wasn’t Kei then. She went to school when she had to, and Keiichi took her to the wasteground and taught her how to fire a gun, and Chiyoko told her, walk like I’m behind you, even if I’m not. Don’t let them see if you’re scared. Everyone was scared of Chiyoko.
Maybe that was home, but isn’t part of the definition that you think it will always be there? Otherwise, surely it’s just a place you happen to be living in. She knew already that nothing’s always going to be there. Chiyoko and Keiichi talked about if something happens. If something happens to me. Something could always happen. Maybe the only reason most people have homes is they don’t know that yet.
So there’s Kaneda, and there’s Kei, and you’d really think they’d both have cleared out of Neo-Tokyo after it had been razed to the ground in a psychic apocalypse. You’d assume neither of them had much keeping them there.
Kaneda figures maybe he was born to live in a junkyard. Maybe the wreckage of a ruined city where everything you want you have to build from what’s been broken, maybe that is home for him. Sounds kind of shitty when you put it that way, and not saying sometimes he doesn’t miss reliable hot water and roads without murderous potholes, but everywhere’s got its downsides, and fuck it, they can move him on from institution to institution to squatting in an abandoned building but they don’t get to move him on from the city itself. Specially not considering how close he was to all the action that went down. He’s got more right to this place than anyone.
And home isn’t the place where your friends died, no one ever says that, but the things that happened, actually that was a lot of his Frankensteined life burning down around him, and if he wants to pick over the embers and see what he can salvage, so what?
Kei figures she’s been fighting for something all her life, and even if both sides of the conflict were vaporised in minutes she’s not ready to lay down arms yet. Perhaps she can’t. She still walks like Chiyoko’s behind her with a minigun, she still checks the accessible exits in every room she goes into. Neo-Tokyo she knows; even with the buildings burnt away she knows it, and she’s learning the new parts, learning the new exits, the ratholes, the tunnels. Move away now and it’s a whole new battleground to memorise, and not knowing the escape routes can get you killed. She’s avoided getting killed so far.
That’s just talk. That’s using a battle as an excuse. She knows there isn’t a battle any more, not really. But it was part of whatever wasn’t really home. She thought she was prepared to lose everything but she didn’t think it would be almost everyone she called a friend and every familiar landmark and everything she thought was worth fighting for and even prior conceptions of the nature of reality. Just goes to show, you can still be surprised.
She hasn’t lost everything. Nothing happened to Chiyoko, more or less (she happened to everyone else, instead). And everything happened to Kaneda, and yet he seems to have come through it still himself, still the mouthy hot-headed delinquent she wanted to punch when she first saw him, and he shrugs at the destruction and picks up a hammer and starts nailing boards and tarpaulin over the broken windows, like he figures it’s worth it. Kei’s not sure she believes it is, but home is only a mutually shared belief, so she stays and goes along with it.