Miscellaneous Anime/Manga One-Shots!

hackneyed (Mawaru Penguindrum)

In the still of the night, Himari Takakura holds a frail hand out in front of her, auburn hair splayed across her pillow, and compares her existence to glass. According to popular belief, glass is fragile, glass can be shattered with a single push, glass is the proverbial blind man who is afraid of the dark. Something like that.

But what she doesn't understand is why everyone seems to forget about Plexiglas.

After all, it has "glass" (minus a letter) in its name. Perhaps the altogether very necessary prefix of "Plexi" somehow distorts the meaning and muddies the cliche, metaphorical significance of associating "fragility" with "glass". Coupled with her rambly, exhaustion-induced thoughts, it's difficult to piece together and she wonders why the universe has forgotten such a blatantly obvious thing.

Plexigas is shatter resistant.

Something about the phrase resonates with Himari. She smiles her half-smile, broad face illuminated by the whitish glow of her computer screen. To the cooing of the owls, she, unable to stop the warmth from spreading to her chest, whispers in awe, "Shatter resistant, shatter resistant, shatter resistant."

It's beautiful. She's not merely glass anymore, she is no longer labeled by a painfully hackneyed phrase she cannot ever claim to truly understand.

She's Plexiglas. And not just in the bulletproof sense.

Her illness is a barrier.

From the moment she was diagnosed, with tubes encircling her torso and that rumbling machine controlling her every breath, she's been protected by that wall of glass. She screams and screams, bangs on the class pleading for someone, anyone, to let her out, but soon enough, everyone has left, leaving behind tidings of faux sympathy and hasty excuses and-

But somehow, she can't bring herself to be angry.

You've never been anything but terminal.

They had left to save themselves, to piece together a heart that was never broken in the first place. To minimize the casualties of her bloody war.

Yes, it's selfish, but isn't that what made them so very human?

And so, she watches the world from behind her wall of glass, floating above above existence itself like a ghost. No one sees her. Perhaps they feel her haunting presence, but never acknowledge it, never get the overwhelming urge to grin and wave and shout a warm salutation to the stars. Watching the little pink ants crawl by, she sits, alone, on a train that's already left the station, her pale face pressed to the frosty glass, as she vanished from their lives- from a world that's not any more beautiful with her in it.

But Himari isn't resentful, because she understands.

She's regretful, but not bitter. She's blue, but not red. She's alone, but not lonely.

She's Plexiglas.

And, as far as she's concerned, unshatterable.