Trying to be productive here.
This is a direct adaptation of Kizuitara Kataomoi PV. Please forgive me if this looks weird.
Dandelion
The performance ended. So is her life. She knew it. She could felt it, the last seed, hanging on the seedhead.
She turned her head to the right, facing away from the crowd before her. It’s not that the view wasn’t amazing, but she knew it’s her time limit and she has to say it before she disappears.
She saw the two persons who protected her extended life. She smiled sadly at them. She would part with them. She didn’t cry. She knew she was supposed to be dead, anyway.
“Bye bye,” she said, looking at her fellow members, who she was with on her last days, cherished every moments she had with them.
A moment of silence, then she disappears, her body dispersed like dandelion’s seeds. She left them, beautifully.
Tears were shed in silent cry. No one moves, except the fans in front of them, who thought it was a special effect.
There, in the dressing room, a single seed flew. There is also a photo of Nogizaka46’s members for their 8th single. The seed landed right on top of the new center’s face. Her crooked smile in the photo was covered by the seed.
Her name was, Nishino Nanase.
.
Fans’ chants were heard from the backstage. It was the first live performance of their new single. They supposed to be anxious, of their performance, of the dance steps, but no, they were not.
Nanase leaned on Nanami’s embrace, felt that her life, her time in this world was only a few minutes. The other surrounded them, with Mai furthest to the both.
“Do you think you could perform?” Nanami whispered to Nanase. Mai and she knew the state of the dandelion Nanase’s life was hanging on.
“I’m alright. I think… at least until the song is over….” Nanase predicted, “let’s go.”
With her statement, the members went to their starting position. Everyone hid their real emotion, each wore a smile as their mask.
The curtain opened, and they began to sing.
.
It was the last day of the lessons for their new single. Fortunately, there’s no strong wind on that day and no dandelion seeds were scattered.
On that last day, the members, including Nanase, decided to took a commemorative photo as a celebration… and a memoriam.
A memoriam of Nishino Nanase.
They all were smiling on the photo.
.
Nanase spent her limited life with the members. She danced, laughed and ate with them. She cherished every second of her life with the memories of her friends. She made sure of it.
Then, the countdown started as the dandelion on the yard of the building they trained on dispersed its seeds.
Nanase started to notice it when she discussed some parts of the song’s lyrics with some members and her hand suddenly went weak. Unable even to lift the pencil she held made it rolled to the ground, attracted members’ attention to her. She stared at her hand.
“It started,” she whispered to herself, but loud enough for those around her to hear.
As time went by, she still able to move, to dance, to sing. But there’s a point when the next dispersal of the dandelion seeds halted her when she trained her dance moves.
She fled from her position to a nearest window and coughed out some seeds from her throat as the other continued the dance routine except Ikoma as she was recording that day’s lessons.
Ikoma recorded the lesson with her phone. But, when Nanase fled out from the camera’s focus, she only gazed at Nanase.
She can't do anything about it, except cherishing every moment spent with Nanase.
.
She stood in the yard, stared longingly to a single dandelion that grew up there.
“Nanase,” she heard Nanami called her name and turned her head to Nanami, who walked towards her. They looked at each other before turned their attention to the view from the yard as the place was on top of a cliff.
Both of them watch silently for a while before Nanase broke it.
“I’m glad I met with all of you,” she said, wearing her crooked smile on her face, “I’m really glad to be one of the members.”
“In that case, this time you should be yourself when with everyone,” Nanami smiled warmly to Nanase. Nanase nodded affirmatively.
“Let’s definitely make the live a success!” Nanami grinned. Nanase hummed in response. Both of them grinned at each other.
“Nanase! Let’s practice!” Mai walked to Nanami’s side and smiled at Nanase, “everyone is waiting.”
“Let’s go,” Nanami smiled. Nanase hummed again and the three of them walked back to the building.
.
It was night. The practice was halted to gave them time to rest. Most of them didn’t have any intention to leave the room, too tired to walk.
Nanase saw Mai standing before a window and approached her.
“Mai,” Nanase tried to greet Mai. Mai stayed quiet and leave Nanase immediately, but Ikoma saw the scene and decided to confront Mai.
“I know you’re frustrated, but aren’t you being too cold?” Ikoma stopped Mai from fleeing the room. Mai avoided Ikoma’s eyes and didn’t answer the question. Members started to watch the scene.
Nanase, who felt the misunderstanding will get bigger, tried to defend Mai, “No, it’s wrong! Mai is worried about my condition….”
But she didn’t get to finished her sentence, as she felt herself weakened and passed out on the floor. Mai was the first to notice it.
Ikoma and the others tried to make Nanase wake up. But Mai stayed on her place and looked out to the window. It was raining, and the dandelion almost fell to the ground.
Mai ran from the room immediately. Nanami who saw her left was running after her. Nanami didn’t understand what was Nanase’s meant at the time when they relaxed on the cliff. ‘But Mai might know something,’ Nanami thought.
As they left, the members noticed that there’s something weird happened to Nanase. There’re white things that flew out from around her body, as if Nanase was dispersed to the air.
Outside, Nanami followed Mai ran to the yard. She was shocked when she found her crouching to the ground, trying to protect a dandelion Nanami saw with Nanase with her body. But she remembered the look Nanase gave at the dandelion and thought that the dandelion might had something to do with Nanase.
Nanami followed Mai’s action. She also crouched on the ground in front of Mai. ‘This should be able to protect it from the wind coming from this side,’ she thought.
As they saw the dandelion below them, they thought, ‘I will protect Nanase’s life!’
Mai knew Nanase’s condition on the practice room wouldn’t improved unless the rain stopped. She cried silently while protecting the dandelion.
When the rain stopped, both of them stayed like that for a while, making sure that the rain really stop. Then went back quickly to the building, worried about Nanase.
Inside the room, Nanase slowly gained her consiousness. She sat up slowly, and when Mai reached the room, followed closely by Nanami, she hugged Nanase at once. She cried on Nanase shoulder. Then she felt Nanase hugged her back and gripped her shirt tightly.
“Everyone… I’m sorry for no telling you about it,” Nanase said quietly.
Nanami cried and watched as everyone gathered around Nanase. She slowly walked towards the group and joined them.
.
The first dance lesson started right after the announcement was made. While the hands moves wasn’t that hard, it was the timing and the legs steps that needs more speed and precisement. With Nanase’s body, she was slow following it.
‘If this continue, I won’t make it,’ Nanase thought on a resting time of the lesson. If she can’t improve herself, she won’t make it through the first live before she died.
She understood that her life was granted. That she was playing against time. That she didn’t have much time left. Unlike the others, who could joked and relaxed at this time.
“Nanase, go rest for a while…” Nanase could heard Ikoma talked to her. But her eyes kept focusing on the mirror in front of her and didn’t move. Only when she caught a glimpse of Mai walking outside she did move. No, not to rest, but to catching up to Mai. Ikoma, who realixed that she was being ignored, watched as Nanase walked out of the room with wary eyes.
“Mai?” Nanase called out once she caught up with Mai and stopped her from walking further. Mai turned her head slowly but not meeting up with Nanase’s gaze at her.
“Nanase, it’s impossible, you know,” she said to Nanase and continued walking.
Nanami who saw their conversation went up to Nanase and said, “What’s happened?”
Nanase didn’t answer her and walked to the yard, she sat on an elevated base of the next building and stared at the dandelion sadly. Nanami followed after.
Nanami looked at Nanase and waited for her to speak.
“I… don’t have much time left,” Nanase said, still staring at the dandelion. Nanami saw the sadness on Nanase’s eyes then trailed her gaze to the dandelion.
‘What was that for?’ Nanami thought.
.
She stood towards the view in front of her, thinking about her time in the world, when she heard some voices called her name.
“Ah, there’s Nanase!” It was Fukagawa’s voice.
“The election has been announced. Let’s go!” This time it was Ikoma’s.
Nanase wiped her eyes to made sure she didn’t cry and ran to the open door, followed Ikoma and Fukagawa running down the stairs.
When she took a turn on the next staircase she heard some staffs congratulate her.
“Congratulation! Do your best!” they said. She didn’t reply as she didn’t know what are they talking about.
On the corridor to the practice room, she heard some members shouted at her.
“Come on, Nanase! You’re late!” while grinning at her. She stared at them questioningly while being ushered to enter the room. Inside, all of the members crowded on a single whiteboard on the room.
“Congrats!” and “Nanase, good luck!” were heard once she walked closer to the whiteboard.
“Congratulation,” Nanami said smiling as she was in front of the whiteboard. There’s a paper glued to it, with her name placed at the bottom center with red mark, which indicated her as the center of the new single.
Nanase stared at her name and said, “Since I was elected, I’ll work myself to death.”
Of course the members took the “death” word as a joke, they didn’t know anything.
Everyone congratulated her again, except Mai, who didn’t say anything since the election was announced. Mai also knew that Nanase wasn't joking about working herself to death.
Nanase noticed it, but she didn’t say anything about it.
.
Mai was walking back to the practice building from a convenience store nearby when she received a call from a member.
“Nishino-san is… Nishino-san is….” The caller said hurriedly.
“Slow down…” Mai didn’t continue what she wanted to say as she saw Nanase’s body lying on the ground in front of a dandelion. It seems that she found what was the caller wanted to say to her.
She disconnected the call and rushed to Nanase’s side, trying to wake Nanase up.
“Nanase! Nanase! Nanase! Oi, Nanase!” Mai shook Nanase fiercely. It worked.
Nanase’s eyelids fluttered and she saw Mai’s blurred image hovered in front of her.
“Mai,” she called out to Mai, “please don’t say it to everyone….
“I think, my time to be in this world….
“Is only until this dandelion dispersed its seeds….”
Mai was silent. She wasn’t sure what to do. So she did the only one thing to Nanase.
“Okay….”
.
Nanase saw some people hovering above her, and heard them asking if she could hear them and if she was alright.
‘Eh, Am I… going to die...?’ she thought and saw her heartbeat on the electrocardiogram. It was down from 40 to 36.
‘God, please… give me some more time…’ she pleaded.
On her last futile attempt, she raised her left hand towards the lamp. At her last heartbeat, she saw the image of the dandelion in the yard of Nogizaka’s building, then she heard the beeping sound of the machine stopped for a while.
Then her heart started beating again.
She was granted a short, extended life.
.
Miona sat on a corridor of a local hospital. She was waiting for the result of the check up of her sprained wrist. She was watching a video of Nanase which was taken yesterday.
It felt nostalgic to her, even though it was just happen yesterday. She smiled at the image of Nanase in the video. It was when some hospital staffs passed her.
They were moving a bed at such a speed. She couldn’t see who was it, but she managed to saw the left hand of the person in the bed. She recognized the watch the person wore and watch the video on her phone again.
‘It’s Nishino-san!’ she screamed on her mind.
.
“Ah, this is cute!” Miona reached out to a dandelion, ready to pluck it.
“No, no, don’t do it,” Nanase put her hand between Miona’s and the dandelion.
“Eeh, let’s pluck it,” Miona whined at her.
“No, because even a flower like this is alive,” Nanase gave Miona her crooked smile.
“Eeeh, but I want to show it to everyone…” Miona tried to negotiate.
“No, stop it,” Nanase still smiling as she said it.
She confiscated Miona hands for a few times before Miona gave up on it. She smiled at the dandelion. Proud of herself to be able to protected it.
She didn't know that her life would be like the dandelion in front of her.
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Topic: Oneshots: SKE48 fic - Silent Understanding (M Rena/F Airi) [2015.05.15] (Read 36199 times)