Archive of Our Own ^beta

I twirl the glass of red wine absently, surveying my surroundings. The elegant ballroom is filled with men and women dressed to the nines, and the sweet scent of alcohol wafted through the air. I see elaborate ice sculptures everywhere I look, and a live string quartet plays in the corner. The crystal chandeliers twinkle in the warm light and there is a small army of waiters serving wine and hors d’oeuvres to the guests (bruschetta with tomatoes and crustless mini quiches, crab salad canapés and shrimp cocktails). The Shirasaki Corporation's year-end gala is held every year to celebrate successes of one fiscal year and the commencement of another. The past year had been particularly successful, as 2015 always is, and to celebrate, Sumeragi - my father – had declared: “For this year’s gala, no expense will be spared!”

And so it was done.

Father makes a point to tell all five of us to mingle with the guests in order to drum up rapport, but despite (or maybe, due to) the opulence of the event, I try to keep a low profile. I always stand somewhere different, but I’m always somehow spotted regardless of my best efforts. Probably something about my blonde hair and blood red eyes - I make a mental note to try dying it, sometime - but by the time I finish that thought, a social climber spots me by the washrooms and attaches herself to my arm. She compliments my suit and begins talking about how fabulous the evening is and how she simply loves the décor; I immediately tune her out and start making my way to the open bar.

Sadly, she doesn’t seem to get the hint. I barely spare her a glance but she continues on and on in her extremely one-sided conversation. When we reach the bar, I drain my wine glass and motion for something stronger. It won’t look favorably upon our family to be ignoring the guests, but honestly it’s already 8:30 and the gala and the people - they're so dreadfully dull, especially since nothing new ever happens.

I am 21 and 439. I’ve suffered through this particular event four times now – the one life I skipped out, Father was furious and it took months of quiet coaxing from my mother to calm him – and each gala is exactly the same. Just like how each life begins exactly the same way: I am born again, exactly where I began, with all my memories of the lives I’ve lived before. As to why, though, I cannot say.

My second life. Imagine my surprise when I found myself in my childhood body, with all the bittersweet memories of my first life still fresh. When I looked into the mirror, I had expected a tired, balding old man to be looking back at me, not a toddler with fearful scarlet eyes. Fear pulsed through my veins; was it a sick joke? Was I dreaming? But no – everything in my childhood was exactly as I remembered, right down to my drawings on my bedroom floor, and time ticked on as it did in the past. As I tiptoed through that life and reflected on my past one, I couldn’t help but think that I had not (in my memory) committed any great sin to warrant the repetition of my life, and wondered if it was a one-off sort of deal.

But when I awoke as a toddler again after my second death, I resolved that I owed it to myself to at least try to find the reason. I spent that fruitless life looking to God for answers. I joined religious orders and prayed with holy men; I make pilgrimages to religious landmarks both famous and obscure. I read books and histories and hoped to find an answer, but an answer did not come. When that lifetime ended, as sure as clockwork, my next life began again with all only my memories as proof of the past. It’s happened five times, now, and I still don’t know why. I can only thank the stars that in each life, my mother secures my upbringing by marrying my father a few months after he becomes a widower. If anything, I’m glad I can I spend every childhood in the unconditional love and acceptance of family.

Of course, it’s not all sunshine and daisies. “Learning” my ABC’s and going through the school system for the fourth time has made me grievously concerned for the state of Hoshido’s schooling system. Initially, I had some difficultly maintaining a veneer of childhood naivety (especially when it frustratingly obvious that Nohrian agriculture is a bad investment, and for the love of all that is good, please would you buy up iron and steel instead) but I quickly realized that adults don’t tend to take you seriously when you’re barely out of your diapers and trying to give investment advice.

It was someone's birthday or some other celebration and my father, and a number of his other business associates are gathered around the basement pool table, discussing sports and the weather while playing billiards. I had been trailing after my father, watching him as he made shot after shot. It’s nice when they forget when I’m around; I get some relief from the tedious repetition of children's cartoons and get to listen to actual unfiltered adult conversation. But when the topic shifted to the firm’s proposed acquisition of Nohrian farmland and its merits, I forgot myself and blurt “Nonono! Nohr’s lack of sunlight makes it an inadequate for agriculture!"

Or so I had tried to say. In my defense, it was only my second life and sadly, I was prone to overlooking that despite my nearly half a century of business expertise, I was also 5 years old and I would be lisping my L’s and R’s until I am 7.

The room fell silent until father's booming laughter filled the room and others began to join in. Someone made a comment about “precocious children these days”, which then led to my hair being ruffling and my cheeks being tugged all evening. Heat rises in my chest, and I fight the urge to bite someone.

My second life was a learning process. In that childhood, Ryoma had, once again, tried to trick me into giving him my Halloween candy by scaring me with his fairly realistic looking rubber wolfskin mask. It had worked in my first life - back then, I had run to my mother in tears - but this time I knew better. I roared back with all the fury a 4 year old could muster and pulled his mask away. His face was full of surprise, and the mischievous older brother I had known in my first life never tried to trick me again.

It was then that I hypothesized that the behavior of others won’t deviate much, unless I deviate first. I also theorized that they lead linear lives, with no recollection of any past ones. Although Ryoma’s shock seemed genuine enough, I was not entirely convinced. For good measure, I decided to test my theory on my mother. When Sumeragi and my mother had wed, he had agreed to raise me as if I were his birth son. After a health scare and a subsequent family medical history check, I found out late in my first life that my biological father was in fact a man from Valla who had died shortly after I was born.

But my mother wasn’t scheduled to tell me this for another 40 years; and so armed with the name of my biological father, I casually mentioned him to her, careful to scrutinize her face for any form of recognition.

Her expression was all the confirmation I needed.

In the lifetime I spent searching for God, I had heard stories about a family of diviners, and had decided that perhaps, maybe they could help solve my predicament. I spent a several days trekking to a secluded hamlet in the woods and found a humble log cabin with two banners decorating its exterior. The large one had the name of the cabin, which was a giant forest snake of all things, while the smaller one declared “Awaken hidden truths inside!” I turned the doorknob, and immediately felt regret wash over me. It was that, or the scent of the incense. Looking back, I’m still not sure.

It’s not easy to surprise me, but when woman pops out of dark, I jumped a little.

“A visitor!” She cried happily, tarot cards in hand. “I see the ocean in your future! You the ocean’s grey waves, destined to —“ She looks through her cards again. “…to seep life, beyond the shoe?” Her eyes narrow, and she shuffles through the cards again, muttering to herself. In her haste, several cards fall; I bend down to help her pick them up, and it’s a picture of a … a half dragon, half caterpillar?

How can anyone tell a fortune with that?

When the cards were gathered and packed away, she invites me for tea. The walls of the cabin are covered with paintings with harsh lines and dark shadows, of boiling brooks and stormy clouds. Out of all my lives, it is among the strangest of places I’ve ever been, but she seems nice, if just a bit odd. Plus, the tea is the best tea I’ve ever had. We engage in light-hearted conversation; she asks me where I’m from, and how I heard of her, and she cheerfully talked about how she comes from a long line of diviners. As we waited for the next pot of tea to seep, I asked her the question I came to ask: “Do you know anything about being born again?”

Her eyes lit up. “Do you mean the afterlife? Ooh, or perhaps reincarnation? You know, many religions believe in that, maybe you -“

I cut her off with a shake my head. “No, not reincarnation. Being born again, exactly where you began. It’s the same life, and nothing changes, and no one remembers except for you.”

“Ah!” she smiled brightly. “Good luck with that."

Through careful observation and discreet testing, I concluded that while I have the memories from my past lives (or perhaps more accurately, memories of future events), others do not. At times, I’d use my memories to my advantage. More often than not, I skipped the general education phase in childhood and proceeded straight into higher education so I could learn things that truly interested me. In two of my lives, much to the dismay of my parents, I had forsaken education and decided to travel the world instead. When I grew particularly bored, I also used my knowledge to win the occasional sporting bet or three.

I decided early on not to cause significant changes to how I acted, though. If you try to make something better, you are - more likely than not - making it worse.

The lives of others are not something to play with; as linear as they are, they are important too.

I had lived my first life rather happily and, at the time, had found it rather fulfilling; a majority of it was dedicated to Shirazaki Corporatio and by the time I retired, the multinational company held sway in almost every major industry, including technology, energy, agriculture and transportation. My stock options and salary provided more than enough for a comfortable retirement. I had married the love of my life, a woman with sky blue hair and eyes that are kissed by starlight. She kept busy with a modest singing career and our two children had grown up happy and healthy. We spent our years together blissfully in love, but I guess it couldn’t all have been a fairytale. When I was 68, she suddenly had a stroke and became very ill, very quickly.

The doctor had said there was a small chance that surgery will help. He explained that it would be painful and it will be long, but there was a small chance that she could return to the quality of life she lived before. However, he cautioned, the chances of that were slim - the surgery was dangerous and invasive and had the potential to do some serious damage - but the only thing I heard was that she could return back to the way it was before. And so I jumped on the chance.

A few months later, we were in the hospital room after yet another stroke left her paralyzed. Her life is slowly dissolving before my eyes, and we had come to the silent conclusion that the inevitable end was coming sooner, rather than later. The room is silent, save for the machine’s rhythmic beeping. She is asleep and I am reading the Financial Times off my tablet — “Shirazaki Corp Acquires $100 Million in Automotive Industry Investments!” — and I pondered the point of it all.

“Corrin?” Her small voice startled me out of my reverie.

“It hurts."

(Things do not go back to the way they were.)

I twirl my glass and the ice hits the glass with a pleasant tinkering sound. As I mull over what to drink next, a woman shrieks to her companion over by the washroom. The two begin fishing through a trashcan, and the taller one loudly laments over the loss of her cellphone. Her companion tries to stop a passing waiter to see if he can assist them in their search, and eventually other guests stop to help her sort through the garbage as well. I watch them with mild interest, but I keep seated and drain my glass.

Besides, why intervene? The world is too complex and there are innumerable forces at play. Why try and right every wrong, and why try to solve everyone’s problems? You can moan and groan about not getting into your #1 school, or complain about how many pimples you have, but the second that school accepts you or the moment your face clears up, the concern then shifts to “wait, did Takumi get into a better school than me?” and “when did I get so pale?”

Through the passage of my lives, I’ve learned that the human heart is a fickle thing - and future events can be even more so. For instance, if I used my knowledge of future events to prevent catastrophe, couldn’t another occur? If one dictator were mysteriously assassinated, who is to say another, saner, cleverer dictator would not take their place? If one terrorist attack failed, could another, more violent one occur in retribution? There are too many possibilities and unknowns; the outcome of my interference or otherwise could beget consequences beyond my imagination. Thus, the only acceptable action is inaction.

Or at least, this is what I tell myself.

The annual Summer Fest in Izumo Park is always a sight to behold. The organizers boast over 7 dozen food vendors from all over the world, and there are games ranging from balloon popping to goldfish scooping to basketball. The colourful lanterns light up the night and the smell of stinky tofu permeates the air. The atmosphere is sticky and humid, but every year people come because it’s beautiful and exciting and fun.

Me? I like going for the Hawaiian pizza.

I am in the middle of chewing said pizza when I spotted her blue hair in the crowd. It’s only when I got closer that I noticed that she was walking hand in hand with a man with green hair. My eyes are drawn to her ring, which is filled with gemstones (which looks, in my opinion, much gaudier than the simple elegant one I had chosen for her lifetimes ago). She laughed at a joke I couldn't hear and his purple eyes twinkled when he looked at her. A little girl with green pigtails grabbed her hand (oh, I realize , her daughter), and the little family stops at the takoyaki stall, debating what flavours to buy.

I watched as they paid for their purchase and disappear into the crowds, and wondered idly if she is happy.

I motion to the bartender to bring over another glass, and while I wait, I find that the woman and her companion have finally stopped a waiter. I sigh a little. Although I cite complexity as my excuse for the lack of interference, but maybe apathy has something to do with it as well.

I roll my eyes at her predicament and divert my attention elsewhere. My unwanted companion is still babbling away, seemingly impervious to my lack of interest. Eventually, I grow tired of hearing her inane babble, and flash her my most charming smile and excuse myself. My eyes trail over to the drunken pair, and I overhear her slurred explanation about how she thinks she threw it out in the trash. I feel a rare tinge of sympathy for her, and decided to walk by. “Check your purse”, I say helpfully. “The inside pocket”, I add quickly. “Under your wallet.”

She looks at me incredulously but checks all the same and is flabbergasted to discover I am right. I want to savour the surprise on her face, but out of the corner of my eye, I see a familiar blue — and I wonder, could it be.... How…?

“Excuse me, but do I know you from somewhere?”

My heart races.

In my fourth life, I was studying medicine in Notre Sagesse to investigate biology as a possible cause of my predicament. I had moved to the city precisely because it was not Hoshido and I had been relishing the fresh unfamiliarity of my surroundings. That particular day was bright and sunny, but there was no time to enjoy it. I was late to my residency at the local hospital, and since I was the youngest there by several years, I had already earned the ire of several older residents. Being late would do nothing but make my life difficult.

I’ve discovered that the universe always seems to work against you when you’re late, though. As I rushed out of the local coffee shop, we collided in the middle of the busy sidewalk. the scalding coffee spilled all over my scrubs and thoroughly ruined her frilly white dress. I recognized her immediately; the flurry of sky blue hair was unmistakable. I gaped at her blankly as she started to apologize, but all I could think of — could it be? Of all places to meet — )

I look at her blankly, like all those lifetimes ago.

“Sorry, it’s just that you look…” she hesitates and chews her lip. “You look familiar.”

I was never the best liar, and she always could tell when I wasn’t telling the truth. But that was before; right here, right now, I am a stranger to her. And so I adjust my tie and shake my head and try to flash her a nervous smile. My heart beats faster still.

“No, I don’t believe we’ve met before.”

I extend my palm towards her.

“My name is Corrin."