@blasterdiablo / @crimsonkaiser Merry Christmas <3
Her face always lights up whenever she enters the Hatter’s studio, Misaki being completely taken in by all the materials. The ribbons, the fabrics, the buttons, and everything in between she thought were amazing and wonderful. Honestly, she wishes she could learn how to make dresses and hats like Ren gets to. Sadly, that isn’t what her role is to be. She instead had to attend boring royal adequate and croquet lessons she could honestly do without.
It’s why she hopes that when she grows up she’ll be able to change the strict system their world was under, the one that decided their roles for them. Everyone whose heard of her idea says it is crazy and impossible, but she had faith she could do it. She could almost picture it in her mind, a future tea party with all her friends being whatever they wanted to be. Oh, how she awaited that day.
If that day was to ever come, that is.
Misaki had been invited to the studio not just to look around. No, she had been invited to try on some of the new things Ren had been working on. His father was currently out and about with the Duchess of Hearts, leaving his son able to do as he pleased for a while. Ever since his training got started, she and Ren didn’t see each other as much as Misaki would like. That’s why they had to cherish every moment and every memory they had together, since they might be limited as time goes on.
Her eyes light up at the sight of what he had come to let her try on, a whole array of different hats with unique patterns and styles. They were far from the pristine and clean designs of his father. In fact, on a few of them she could see a few pins sticking out. Though, none of that mattered to her. In her eyes, they were beautiful. She could see the care and attention Ren put into them just for her. That was what mattered more than what they looked like, at least to the princess.
Eagerly, she puts on each of the hats, making little poses and whatnot for him. The smile on her face was as pure as one could get, one that matched the pure white heart that beat in her chest. Such a pure heart had not been seen in Wonderland since the beginning some said, for it was the type of heart that had managed to create their world. Perhaps it is because of that fact she would have the power to change this place for the better, to allow everyone’s unique talents to shine without the weight of restricted roles. It was what her people, especially her friends, deserved more than anything.
“Thank you! Thank you so much, Ren!” The princess exclaims, moving in to wrap her small arms around the other’s body. “I love all of them! I’ll be sure to hold onto them, forever! Promise! Maybe I can even wear them to the next tea party! Wouldn’t that be great if all of us wore your hats, Ren? It be a really grand party then!”
The two of them would spend the rest of the time in the studio having fun with one another, as all innocent children do. Sadly, this precious time couldn’t last forever. Nothing ever does. That was a lesson she learned rather quickly, much faster than any child should ever the day she lost everything.
Her childhood seemed like such a long time, despite the memories of it being crystalized in Misaki’s mind. Everything was. Every sight, every sound, every feeling, every smell, and every memory was preserved in perfect detail, whether it be pleasant or dreadful. It was this, her ‘curse’ as she would come to think of it, that had caused her to be unable to move forward and remain in this... ‘rutt’ as it were. Those horrid memories of the past just wouldn’t go away, no matter how much she desired them too.
She honestly wishes she could just forget it all, forget everything and just...just feel and not have to think. That would certainly be better than carrying all of this baggage, all of the pain, right? It’s what everyone wanted of her, anyway. She isn’t blind to it, or to the damage she has done to her home. Misaki was a perceptive person, after all.
However, perhaps it is those clear memoires and the feelings tied to them that makes her unable to let go, despite how much time has passed. It is why she hasn’t been able to move forward, and why...she still hasn’t let go of the items inside a special wardrobe in her chambers, delicate hands moving over them in the few moments she had before it was time for bed. They are of the clothes and hats he had gotten from Ren as a kid, each and every single one she kept. She had kept all of them, for each had sentimental value.
One might think that means she should still care for Ren, and that her coldness towards him was out of character, but things were more complicated than that. Truth is, she still cares about ‘Ren’, the kind boy from her past who made these items for her. Who she doesn’t care for is ‘Hatter’, the person he turned into after the madness that came with his role spread throughout his soul and he started to become twisted and sadistic.
Despite his words, despite his actions, she can feel the difference between the two. He wasn’t her friend anymore. He really hadn’t been since the day she found out how he had been mistreating Kai and Miwa, when her entire view of him had shattered. Just like her parents had been taken away by a force out of her control, so too did her best friend.
Ren died the day the new Mad Hatter had begun to awaken, and no matter how much she wanted things to go back to how they were, they just...they just couldn’t. She couldn’t change the past. She couldn’t do anything.
She moves to grab one hat off the top of the shelf, one with a bunch of different patterns in it. To most anyone else, they would find the whole thing horrendous. That wasn’t how she saw it. Even all these years later, it was her favorite creation of his. Nothing he was putting out these days came even close to this. What he was putting out was soulless creation after soulless creation, just like the work of his father who came before him...
“Why did...Why did you have... you...have to leave me...too?” The queen squeezes the hat after bringing it to her chest, not super tight as to not damage the relic of her childhood. Holding it like this brings back memories, them replaying in her mind to the time when she first received it from him. They were good times, memories she treasured. No memory since the incident had become treasured in her mind, only painful ones or those she would easily forget if not for her curse.
She can feel her heart ache as she continues to reminiscence, Misaki moving to place the item back on the shelf and closing the wardrobe up tight. There was a reason she didn’t intentionally think of the past. Even the good memories, like those of her and Ren, brought her nothing but suffering. Perhaps that fact is truly the reason her smile was so scarce these days, her expression now muted as she moves to her bed to begin her nighttime routine with the White Rabbit.
How could one be truly happy if such happiness was never to last?
If in the end, it would just bring suffering?
These were the questions that remained on her mind as she listened to Kai tell her another childhood story, and would remain on them until she eventually fell asleep to once again face a nightmare of the past. Though, tonight’s would surely be about Ren. How could they not be when she spent the last while thinking about him?
Until she could be proven wrong, until she could truly begin to see that moving forward wasn’t a waste of time and that happiness could come back, she is content to have things as they were, even if she continues to suffer. For Misaki Tokura believed that is what fate had decided for her, and that nothing could be done to change it, just like it was fate to have her be so helpless as to be unable to do anything to hold onto what she held dear...
