Even if she couldn't feel the air around her, warm and delicious and buzzing with the joyful voices of those similarly trapped, even if the evening hadn't been lit to a glow by this strange street festival, the soft and bright petals being shoved into her eyeline would be a welcome delight.
The festival had so far been an evening of surprising buoyancy for Mima's mood. It was the sort of thing she went to when she'd first landed in Tokyo, fresh and eager to experience city life - but not again after that easy first year, outside of official capacities and performances, and not at all in recent months. She had resigned herself to her shoebox apartment for another dim evening of "settling in," but the loneliness stings a little more here than it did at home. At least she knew her cage was hers in Tokyo - here, it seemed as though she shared it with hundreds of others. Presented with the option to congregate in person with them in that lantern-glow outside of her window drove a spike through her the longer she deprived herself.
So she made herself presentable, fixed her pin to her shirt, and wandered out. Trudging became walking became singing became dancing, and before she knows it, she feels lighter than she has in years.
And now, flowers! Real flowers! Mima hadn't realized how she had missed them, until faced with one. She breathes in a sweet, astonished gasp of fragrant air. ]
Wow! They're so beautiful! [ She drags her eyes from the bright flower being offered to her to the rest of the basket, and quickly, starts fishing for her money. ] Would you sell me more than one? Maybe three?
[ She'd be kicking herself for the exorbitant expenditure of 1500 yen later -- for now, the thought of those bright splashes of colour dotting the sad murk of her dim little apartment in the morning threatened to burst her heart. She needs them. ]
flower peddling!
Even if she couldn't feel the air around her, warm and delicious and buzzing with the joyful voices of those similarly trapped, even if the evening hadn't been lit to a glow by this strange street festival, the soft and bright petals being shoved into her eyeline would be a welcome delight.
The festival had so far been an evening of surprising buoyancy for Mima's mood. It was the sort of thing she went to when she'd first landed in Tokyo, fresh and eager to experience city life - but not again after that easy first year, outside of official capacities and performances, and not at all in recent months. She had resigned herself to her shoebox apartment for another dim evening of "settling in," but the loneliness stings a little more here than it did at home. At least she knew her cage was hers in Tokyo - here, it seemed as though she shared it with hundreds of others. Presented with the option to congregate in person with them in that lantern-glow outside of her window drove a spike through her the longer she deprived herself.
So she made herself presentable, fixed her pin to her shirt, and wandered out. Trudging became walking became singing became dancing, and before she knows it, she feels lighter than she has in years.
And now, flowers! Real flowers! Mima hadn't realized how she had missed them, until faced with one. She breathes in a sweet, astonished gasp of fragrant air. ]
Wow! They're so beautiful! [ She drags her eyes from the bright flower being offered to her to the rest of the basket, and quickly, starts fishing for her money. ] Would you sell me more than one? Maybe three?
[ She'd be kicking herself for the exorbitant expenditure of 1500 yen later -- for now, the thought of those bright splashes of colour dotting the sad murk of her dim little apartment in the morning threatened to burst her heart. She needs them. ]