Post by Charlotte Shimizu on Oct 11, 2023 4:13:08 GMT
Sapporo Hachimangū
Sapporo, Hokkaido - Japan
20 August 2023
“I do not think the fire will hold the answers for you tonight, my friend.”
Charlotte turned away from watching the remains of her ring gear turn to cinders to see the wan smile on the face of the man who had taken her in seven years before. She gave him an equally tired smile. “Perhaps not, Benkei, but sometimes you do not need answers to find relief.”
“Be careful you do not find yourself in another cage too quickly in your flight from this one, kōkanchō.”
Charlotte snorted at the pet name Benkei had given her after she had shared some of the stories of her mother’s people with the Ainu priest. She didn’t mind being called a cardinal, even if the birds of that name in Japan were not the ones she had grown up with in Oklahoma. Birds were meant to be free.
Her name meant free man, and her middle name meant ocean or memory depending on if her father or mother were the one asked. All these things couldn’t or shouldn’t be confined… so why had she let Neo Honshu trap her so much that they felt-
Stiff with anger, Charlotte rose and added more wood to the fire. She had tried to fight against the prejudice, tried to explain that not all Native Americans were the same, but it had all fallen on deaf ears.
“It was a mistake to stay as long as I did,” she murmured softly.
“Perhaps… but you would still be searching for who you are, Una.” Benkei’s equally soft reply was a twist of the knife that her father’s family had put into her heart. “I will not say it is right, but the tribe of Yamato has long stood strong because of it. If it has worked for centuries, what reason do they have to change it?”
Charlotte sighed. “There are days when I wish I were just one or the other, you know.” She snorted softly again. “Yes, I know, Ben. Wishing is not helpful.” She turned and smiled wryly at her friend. “It is no more possible than it is for you to be anything other than Ainu.”
“Indeed.” The priest’s placid agreement made Charlotte pause and think. He was prodding her towards something, but as usual, he wanted her to figure it out for herself.
Seven years ago, when she’d found herself drifting and exiled from her paternal family, Hitasho Benkei had helped her find her feet again. He’d given her a job helping him run Sapporo Hachimangū. He had helped arrange her papers so she could stay in Japan as long as she needed or wanted. And he had taught her to fly, for that’s what it felt like when she was within the squared circle.
It had started as her simply participating in the monthly wrestling performance hosted by the temple. Before a year had gone by, she and several other locals had been recruited into Neo Honshu. She had not hated or envied the boys for their success. It had only been when Ishikawa Rini had finally started to get a push that Charlotte had started to feel the bitter sting of it… And then the writers wanted to use Charlotte as the villain for Rini to defeat…
Rini had been Charlotte’s training partner ever since she started. In fact, Rini had been delighted to have a female partner that she could tell stories with. Charlotte couldn’t help but smile as she recalled how Rini had created a story where she was corrupted and needed Charlotte to use her ‘priestess powers’ to cleanse her, and then afterwards, they were an unstoppable team, taking on all the men and racking up wins…
That history could have been overcome for the sake of the show… If they’d not tried for years to team up together, but the producers had always had some reason that ‘now wasn’t the time’. Or if the writers hadn’t decided that Vodou was the same as anything Charlotte had practiced at home, so they could write some bit where she used a voodoo doll against Rini.
Charlotte shook her head, disgusted anew, and added another log to the fire. “I think it is time for -”
“Maasu!!!”
Charlotte winced, sighing. “Did you call her?” she asked Benkei dryly.
Benkei only smiled enigmatically. “Why would you assume I would need to do so, Una?”
Charlotte grimaced again, but rose and brushed her pale blue hakama straight. It was better to just go out rather than make Rini find her.
Rini had become a good friend outside the ring as well, hauling Charlotte around shopping districts wherever they went, or forcing her to watch marathons of anime so she would understand whatever obscure reference Rini made. Charlotte hadn’t minded all that because of the novelty of having a friend that didn’t think she was strange for any number of reasons like her peers back in Oklahoma had. Rini thought all those strange things were cool; even her mixed heritage was something to be admired for Rini.
It had been when Charlotte was accredited as a priestess of the temple, allowed to be more than a shrine maiden, that Rini had dubbed her ‘Maasu’ - again, an anime reference that resulted in a whole weekend spent watching Sailormoon. Personally, Charlotte identified more with Jupiter than Mars, but nothing could dissuade Rini once she’d made up her mind.
Charlotte stepped outside, sliding the door closed behind her just as Rini made it to the top of the steps. One might have wondered how Rini could shout loud enough to be heard while still climbing the steps, but Charlotte never did. Despite the girl’s sweet, bubbly nature, or perhaps because of it, Rini could go for hours if she was allowed to.
“Rini, what’re you doing here? You have a-” Charlotte started, but Rini nearly tackled her with a hug, cutting her, and her air supply, off.
“I came right after, when they finally told me why you were gone,” Rini explained, finally releasing Charlotte so she could breathe again.
“So what’re you doing here, Rini? You should be there. You’re their new-”
Again, Rini cut her off. “What’s the point if my Maasu isn’t there with me?”
Charlotte felt her carefully constructed antipathy shatter and she nearly folded over into Rini’s arms, tears coursing down her face despite her wishes. “Rini… You can’t sacrifice your career for me…”
“No… I shouldn’t, but I totally can,” Rini countered. “We’ll find another promotion that’ll let us be a team like we should be and-”
Charlotte sniffed back the tears and sighed. “Rini… You know that won’t happen here. I’m still haafu. I know that makes no difference to you, and I can’t tell you how much that means to me… but you know I’ll face the same thing anywhere in Japan. It’s time for me to go home.”
“Then I’ll go with you.”
Charlotte stared at her friend, struck dumb by how absurdly simple Rini thought it could be. “Rini, you have a family and a career here… You can’t just give it all up for me.”
Even as she said it, Charlotte saw an eerily familiar expression appear on Rini’s face. It reminded her of the times she’d stared into a mirror, asking herself how she could reconcile the feuding halves of her heritage.
“You are my family, Una-chan,” Rini countered softly.
A sinking feeling knotted itself in Charlotte’s stomach. Rini had rarely used her name, Charlie or Una, since she’d started calling her Maasu, and then only when wrestling called for it. She knew that the Ishikawas hadn’t been very pleased about Rini’s choice of career, nor about Rini’s friendship with Charlotte for that matter, but they’d allowed that it seemed to be something Rini had a passion for. Something had changed then, and not for the better.
“When-” Charlotte started to ask, but her voice cracked at seeing how sad the subject made Rini.
“Everyone runs out of patience eventually. Yours just met its limit, but my parents lost theirs two years ago.”
Charlotte sighed and pulled Rini into another hug, millions of thoughts running through her head. Still, it all boiled down to one simple thought; Rini had been her first real friend, and she would not just walk away from her. “You know it’ll be easier for me to leave… Will you at least let me lay some groundwork before you follow me?”
Rini’s only response was to sniffle and nod, her cheek rubbing against the rough-spun silk of Charlotte’s kosode. Charlotte let out a relieved breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She let the hug last a few moments longer before she gently nudged Rini to her side and guided her into the temple. “Come on, Muun, let’s see if Benkei can use a miko in exchange for helping you emigrate.”
423 S West Ave
Tahlequah, Oklahoma, USA
10 October 2023
Charlotte eyed her new home critically. It still felt rather barren to her, since most of her belongings were still in transit from Japan, but she had at least finished arranging her kamidana, even if it had been a pain to install it above eye-level. She still didn’t have much in the way of furniture, and her kitchen was almost painfully bare compared to the one in her parents’ house. Yet it was hers. She’d saved enough from working for Neo Honshu to afford the three-bedroom house just up the road from her childhood home.
“The only good thing they gave me, I suppose,” she muttered wryly to herself.
What furniture she did have wasn’t really to her taste, but she wasn’t about to tell her parents that the overstuffed armchair was too soft and she disliked the texture of the upholstery, nor was she going to tell her brother that the entertainment center looked like it’d been glued back together too many times and the varnish looked almost orange with age. Something about not looking gift horses in the mouth.
She sighed and flopped into the armchair, nearly overturning it but for her quick reflex to lean forward, and contemplated what she could fix for dinner or if she should wander over to her parents’ house. Her phone, placed on the small table next to the chair, started chiming insistently. Charlotte was about to ignore it when she saw that it was the messenger app she’d kept from her Japanese phone so Benkei and Rini could call her without incurring international calling charges.
Swiping to answer, she brought the phone up to her ear. “Moshi moshi.”
“Maasu! You didn’t tell me you were going to sign up with IWF!”
Rini’s accusation nearly blasted her eardrum, making Charlotte pull the phone away from her ear until the shouting stopped. “I didn’t know myself until my sister met me at the airport. Apparently, she was working on it since she graduated in the spring and kicked it into high gear the moment she knew I was coming back. She threw a fit when she found out that I had burned that ridiculous costume.”
“She really thought you’d keep that Pocahontas get-up? I thought she was smarter than that!” Rini’s statement was one that everyone had echoed to Hannah, but Hannah had stubbornly insisted that the gear should’ve been kept at least until a new set was ready. “Anyway, I saw your match. It’s been years since I saw you looking that alive in a ring. I hope you thanked Tsuki for that.”
Charlotte smiled softly. “I have, and she’s been insufferable over it. I don’t even care that I lost. I finally got to be me again, Rini.”
Rini’s answering chuckle held a mix of emotions, all of which Charlotte could understand easily. There was some sadness because Rini wasn’t wrestling right now, but Rini’d always been more concerned with the happiness and success of others. Rini had seen first-hand how hard Neo Honshu had been for Charlotte. “I’m so happy for you, Maasu.”
“I know, Muun. I’ve got a place that’s big enough for both of us now that’s not far from my parents. I even have space for a small gym and a studio for doing promotions. Mom and Dad have both said they’d help you find some work here until you can get your own break in the business.” Charlotte would’ve offered to see about getting Rini into the IWF with her, but she knew Rini would’ve demurred, insisting on getting a job on her own merits rather than because of Charlotte’s influence.
“If Tsuki doesn’t mind, I wouldn’t object to her being my manager too. No sense in making it more difficult for myself.”
Charlotte laughed outright. “Are you joking? She’ll probably have a contract ready for you to sign and date as soon as you land here. How are you and Benkei doing with the emigration papers?”
Rini sighed, frustrated now. “It’s taking a while. That’s actually why I wouldn’t mind if Tsuki started working on getting me something before I get there… A work visa looks easier to get than anything else I qualify for. I appreciate that your parents are willing to help, but I could no more work for them than you could.”
The girls shared a rueful laugh. While Charlotte had loved watching her mother work on the intricate beading for regalia, she had never managed to have the patience to make such fine things herself. She also remembered her father showing her incomprehensible drawings that he said were the plans he’d designed for their house. She liked that he still had the plans for the home he had designed for the family he hoped to have, because it lent a sense of history that the new home would otherwise lack, but she couldn’t comprehend the strange symbols that dotted spots she could only vaguely recognize as the rooms of the house.
Rini had much the same experiences, even if her mother stayed home and her father was a respected journalist and photographer. Rini was a disaster in the kitchen and could burn water, and her writing skills were barely passable.
“Alright… I’ll set Tsuki on it. Do you mind if I connect you both on LINE? That way she can call you when she has something solid.”
“That sounds great, Maasu. Save some of the home decorating for me, will you?”
“And take away your chance to haul me through a shopping mall? I would never dream of it, Muun.”
Rini laughed, back to her usual high spirits and good humor. “Have a good evening, Maasu.”
Charlotte smiled. “Have a good day, Muun. I’ll be seeing you soon if Tsuki has anything to say about it.”
As the call disconnected and Charlotte set her phone back on the table, she decided to have dinner at her parents’ house. Hannah hadn’t moved out yet, so it was an easy way to tell her that Rini needed her particular brand of enthusiastic assistance.
Sapporo, Hokkaido - Japan
20 August 2023
“I do not think the fire will hold the answers for you tonight, my friend.”
Charlotte turned away from watching the remains of her ring gear turn to cinders to see the wan smile on the face of the man who had taken her in seven years before. She gave him an equally tired smile. “Perhaps not, Benkei, but sometimes you do not need answers to find relief.”
“Be careful you do not find yourself in another cage too quickly in your flight from this one, kōkanchō.”
Charlotte snorted at the pet name Benkei had given her after she had shared some of the stories of her mother’s people with the Ainu priest. She didn’t mind being called a cardinal, even if the birds of that name in Japan were not the ones she had grown up with in Oklahoma. Birds were meant to be free.
Her name meant free man, and her middle name meant ocean or memory depending on if her father or mother were the one asked. All these things couldn’t or shouldn’t be confined… so why had she let Neo Honshu trap her so much that they felt-
Stiff with anger, Charlotte rose and added more wood to the fire. She had tried to fight against the prejudice, tried to explain that not all Native Americans were the same, but it had all fallen on deaf ears.
“It was a mistake to stay as long as I did,” she murmured softly.
“Perhaps… but you would still be searching for who you are, Una.” Benkei’s equally soft reply was a twist of the knife that her father’s family had put into her heart. “I will not say it is right, but the tribe of Yamato has long stood strong because of it. If it has worked for centuries, what reason do they have to change it?”
Charlotte sighed. “There are days when I wish I were just one or the other, you know.” She snorted softly again. “Yes, I know, Ben. Wishing is not helpful.” She turned and smiled wryly at her friend. “It is no more possible than it is for you to be anything other than Ainu.”
“Indeed.” The priest’s placid agreement made Charlotte pause and think. He was prodding her towards something, but as usual, he wanted her to figure it out for herself.
Seven years ago, when she’d found herself drifting and exiled from her paternal family, Hitasho Benkei had helped her find her feet again. He’d given her a job helping him run Sapporo Hachimangū. He had helped arrange her papers so she could stay in Japan as long as she needed or wanted. And he had taught her to fly, for that’s what it felt like when she was within the squared circle.
It had started as her simply participating in the monthly wrestling performance hosted by the temple. Before a year had gone by, she and several other locals had been recruited into Neo Honshu. She had not hated or envied the boys for their success. It had only been when Ishikawa Rini had finally started to get a push that Charlotte had started to feel the bitter sting of it… And then the writers wanted to use Charlotte as the villain for Rini to defeat…
Rini had been Charlotte’s training partner ever since she started. In fact, Rini had been delighted to have a female partner that she could tell stories with. Charlotte couldn’t help but smile as she recalled how Rini had created a story where she was corrupted and needed Charlotte to use her ‘priestess powers’ to cleanse her, and then afterwards, they were an unstoppable team, taking on all the men and racking up wins…
That history could have been overcome for the sake of the show… If they’d not tried for years to team up together, but the producers had always had some reason that ‘now wasn’t the time’. Or if the writers hadn’t decided that Vodou was the same as anything Charlotte had practiced at home, so they could write some bit where she used a voodoo doll against Rini.
Charlotte shook her head, disgusted anew, and added another log to the fire. “I think it is time for -”
“Maasu!!!”
Charlotte winced, sighing. “Did you call her?” she asked Benkei dryly.
Benkei only smiled enigmatically. “Why would you assume I would need to do so, Una?”
Charlotte grimaced again, but rose and brushed her pale blue hakama straight. It was better to just go out rather than make Rini find her.
Rini had become a good friend outside the ring as well, hauling Charlotte around shopping districts wherever they went, or forcing her to watch marathons of anime so she would understand whatever obscure reference Rini made. Charlotte hadn’t minded all that because of the novelty of having a friend that didn’t think she was strange for any number of reasons like her peers back in Oklahoma had. Rini thought all those strange things were cool; even her mixed heritage was something to be admired for Rini.
It had been when Charlotte was accredited as a priestess of the temple, allowed to be more than a shrine maiden, that Rini had dubbed her ‘Maasu’ - again, an anime reference that resulted in a whole weekend spent watching Sailormoon. Personally, Charlotte identified more with Jupiter than Mars, but nothing could dissuade Rini once she’d made up her mind.
Charlotte stepped outside, sliding the door closed behind her just as Rini made it to the top of the steps. One might have wondered how Rini could shout loud enough to be heard while still climbing the steps, but Charlotte never did. Despite the girl’s sweet, bubbly nature, or perhaps because of it, Rini could go for hours if she was allowed to.
“Rini, what’re you doing here? You have a-” Charlotte started, but Rini nearly tackled her with a hug, cutting her, and her air supply, off.
“I came right after, when they finally told me why you were gone,” Rini explained, finally releasing Charlotte so she could breathe again.
“So what’re you doing here, Rini? You should be there. You’re their new-”
Again, Rini cut her off. “What’s the point if my Maasu isn’t there with me?”
Charlotte felt her carefully constructed antipathy shatter and she nearly folded over into Rini’s arms, tears coursing down her face despite her wishes. “Rini… You can’t sacrifice your career for me…”
“No… I shouldn’t, but I totally can,” Rini countered. “We’ll find another promotion that’ll let us be a team like we should be and-”
Charlotte sniffed back the tears and sighed. “Rini… You know that won’t happen here. I’m still haafu. I know that makes no difference to you, and I can’t tell you how much that means to me… but you know I’ll face the same thing anywhere in Japan. It’s time for me to go home.”
“Then I’ll go with you.”
Charlotte stared at her friend, struck dumb by how absurdly simple Rini thought it could be. “Rini, you have a family and a career here… You can’t just give it all up for me.”
Even as she said it, Charlotte saw an eerily familiar expression appear on Rini’s face. It reminded her of the times she’d stared into a mirror, asking herself how she could reconcile the feuding halves of her heritage.
“You are my family, Una-chan,” Rini countered softly.
A sinking feeling knotted itself in Charlotte’s stomach. Rini had rarely used her name, Charlie or Una, since she’d started calling her Maasu, and then only when wrestling called for it. She knew that the Ishikawas hadn’t been very pleased about Rini’s choice of career, nor about Rini’s friendship with Charlotte for that matter, but they’d allowed that it seemed to be something Rini had a passion for. Something had changed then, and not for the better.
“When-” Charlotte started to ask, but her voice cracked at seeing how sad the subject made Rini.
“Everyone runs out of patience eventually. Yours just met its limit, but my parents lost theirs two years ago.”
Charlotte sighed and pulled Rini into another hug, millions of thoughts running through her head. Still, it all boiled down to one simple thought; Rini had been her first real friend, and she would not just walk away from her. “You know it’ll be easier for me to leave… Will you at least let me lay some groundwork before you follow me?”
Rini’s only response was to sniffle and nod, her cheek rubbing against the rough-spun silk of Charlotte’s kosode. Charlotte let out a relieved breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She let the hug last a few moments longer before she gently nudged Rini to her side and guided her into the temple. “Come on, Muun, let’s see if Benkei can use a miko in exchange for helping you emigrate.”
423 S West Ave
Tahlequah, Oklahoma, USA
10 October 2023
Charlotte eyed her new home critically. It still felt rather barren to her, since most of her belongings were still in transit from Japan, but she had at least finished arranging her kamidana, even if it had been a pain to install it above eye-level. She still didn’t have much in the way of furniture, and her kitchen was almost painfully bare compared to the one in her parents’ house. Yet it was hers. She’d saved enough from working for Neo Honshu to afford the three-bedroom house just up the road from her childhood home.
“The only good thing they gave me, I suppose,” she muttered wryly to herself.
What furniture she did have wasn’t really to her taste, but she wasn’t about to tell her parents that the overstuffed armchair was too soft and she disliked the texture of the upholstery, nor was she going to tell her brother that the entertainment center looked like it’d been glued back together too many times and the varnish looked almost orange with age. Something about not looking gift horses in the mouth.
She sighed and flopped into the armchair, nearly overturning it but for her quick reflex to lean forward, and contemplated what she could fix for dinner or if she should wander over to her parents’ house. Her phone, placed on the small table next to the chair, started chiming insistently. Charlotte was about to ignore it when she saw that it was the messenger app she’d kept from her Japanese phone so Benkei and Rini could call her without incurring international calling charges.
Swiping to answer, she brought the phone up to her ear. “Moshi moshi.”
“Maasu! You didn’t tell me you were going to sign up with IWF!”
Rini’s accusation nearly blasted her eardrum, making Charlotte pull the phone away from her ear until the shouting stopped. “I didn’t know myself until my sister met me at the airport. Apparently, she was working on it since she graduated in the spring and kicked it into high gear the moment she knew I was coming back. She threw a fit when she found out that I had burned that ridiculous costume.”
“She really thought you’d keep that Pocahontas get-up? I thought she was smarter than that!” Rini’s statement was one that everyone had echoed to Hannah, but Hannah had stubbornly insisted that the gear should’ve been kept at least until a new set was ready. “Anyway, I saw your match. It’s been years since I saw you looking that alive in a ring. I hope you thanked Tsuki for that.”
Charlotte smiled softly. “I have, and she’s been insufferable over it. I don’t even care that I lost. I finally got to be me again, Rini.”
Rini’s answering chuckle held a mix of emotions, all of which Charlotte could understand easily. There was some sadness because Rini wasn’t wrestling right now, but Rini’d always been more concerned with the happiness and success of others. Rini had seen first-hand how hard Neo Honshu had been for Charlotte. “I’m so happy for you, Maasu.”
“I know, Muun. I’ve got a place that’s big enough for both of us now that’s not far from my parents. I even have space for a small gym and a studio for doing promotions. Mom and Dad have both said they’d help you find some work here until you can get your own break in the business.” Charlotte would’ve offered to see about getting Rini into the IWF with her, but she knew Rini would’ve demurred, insisting on getting a job on her own merits rather than because of Charlotte’s influence.
“If Tsuki doesn’t mind, I wouldn’t object to her being my manager too. No sense in making it more difficult for myself.”
Charlotte laughed outright. “Are you joking? She’ll probably have a contract ready for you to sign and date as soon as you land here. How are you and Benkei doing with the emigration papers?”
Rini sighed, frustrated now. “It’s taking a while. That’s actually why I wouldn’t mind if Tsuki started working on getting me something before I get there… A work visa looks easier to get than anything else I qualify for. I appreciate that your parents are willing to help, but I could no more work for them than you could.”
The girls shared a rueful laugh. While Charlotte had loved watching her mother work on the intricate beading for regalia, she had never managed to have the patience to make such fine things herself. She also remembered her father showing her incomprehensible drawings that he said were the plans he’d designed for their house. She liked that he still had the plans for the home he had designed for the family he hoped to have, because it lent a sense of history that the new home would otherwise lack, but she couldn’t comprehend the strange symbols that dotted spots she could only vaguely recognize as the rooms of the house.
Rini had much the same experiences, even if her mother stayed home and her father was a respected journalist and photographer. Rini was a disaster in the kitchen and could burn water, and her writing skills were barely passable.
“Alright… I’ll set Tsuki on it. Do you mind if I connect you both on LINE? That way she can call you when she has something solid.”
“That sounds great, Maasu. Save some of the home decorating for me, will you?”
“And take away your chance to haul me through a shopping mall? I would never dream of it, Muun.”
Rini laughed, back to her usual high spirits and good humor. “Have a good evening, Maasu.”
Charlotte smiled. “Have a good day, Muun. I’ll be seeing you soon if Tsuki has anything to say about it.”
As the call disconnected and Charlotte set her phone back on the table, she decided to have dinner at her parents’ house. Hannah hadn’t moved out yet, so it was an easy way to tell her that Rini needed her particular brand of enthusiastic assistance.
Well howdy there pardner.