The Joker's Mask.
I have been hiding behind the mask for so long, I can no longer tell you who I am beneath it. Sometimes I even manage to forget there is more to me than just the laughing joker, but then something always happens to remind me of the hundreds of year's worth of pain I have bottled up beneath the mask.
The pain of being Death.
The pain of losing those few I allowed close to me.
The pain of being ignored by the one I love.
The pain of knowing that no one truly knows me.
The pain of being lonely, even when people surround me who call themselves my friends.
All that pain.... I ignore it, stuff it down where I won't have to deal with it. I have a job to do. Death has little time for regrets. And also, I have my fellow workers to think about. They have their own pain to deal with; allowing mine to show would just add to their burdens. Staying cheerful and friendly, making jokes.... These things help them cope, too.
But even with all my practice, the pain breaks lose sometimes. I try to make sure that when it does, I am alone, so no one else will be effected by it, and not on a mission, so my job will not be effected. A while ago, however, I failed miserably at keeping my pain from effecting my performance on the job.
You see, I had to watch the little boy die. It wasn't the first time I had to watch a kid dying, but it was the first time I had to watch a kid who looked just like my little brother die. Unless, of course, you count my brother himself. What, you didn't know I had a brother? I told you no one knows me.
Anyway, this kid who looks just like my lil' brother is dying, lovely brown hair, big violet eyes, the same face and everything, and I'm watching, just like I watched my brother die, except this time I can't hold him, even though I want to. And suddenly, all the pain becomes too much to bear.
Do you have any idea what it's like to spend most of your time with souls of people who have just died? For centuries on end? Do you know how many people I've watched die? I don't even remember anymore, it's been so many. And then I go home, and see *him.* Koenma-sama. My love, even if he doesn't know it. He's my boss, the head of the Reikai. Sometimes I wonder if he even cares I'm gone, but then my common sense asserts itself and reminds me that I'm the ferrygirl he relies on the most. He'd miss me, because he'd have more work to do.
Most of the time, I'm so deliberately happy and bubbly that these things don't faze me, but not even *I* can be happy all the time. I'm the one who's always cheering people up, whether they're bosses, other ferrygirls, or the freshly dead. And when I'm down in the dumps, there's never anyone there for me.
It wasn't that I couldn't handle a kid who looked just like my brother die. (He wasn't a reincarnation of my brother - I checked. He just looked like his twin.) Or rather it was, but only because my defenses were so worn down that I couldn't take that much pressure.
So I quit.
I know, I know. Ferrygirls can't really quit. There are always souls of the departed to take to the Reikai, and always souls ready for reincarnation to take to their new bodies. The best we can hope for is to briefly get a new assignment, like when I was assigned to be an assistant Reikai Tantei and help Yuusuke and the others. Let me tell you, after decades of the same high stress job, day in, day out, with no vacations, being transferred to a different high stress job seems like bliss.
This kid I was watching, he had an error in his file. I almost didn't notice it was his time to go.... It was only because of my skill and thoroughness as a ferrygirl that I caught it, and that was at the last minute. Not only did no one else know his soul was due at the Reikai, but no one knew where I had gone.
I couldn't bear to see that kid die, so I merged myself with him. So now I live the life my brother didn't have a chance to. That's why I named myself Duo - my second chance at life, the kid's second chance at life, my brother's second chance at life.... It seemed appropriate, you know?
I've always known it wouldn't be able to last.... I'll have to go back to the Reikai sooner or later. Someone will figure out something's wrong with my file eventually, or they'll finally track down good ol' Botan.
In my fondest dreams, Koenma kisses me passionately on my return, declares that while I was gone he realized I am his True Love, and then yells at me for being gone so long.
Of course, he'll probably just yell at me. All that extra work I created for him by leaving, and all the extra work I'll create when I go back - I think I'm stuck as a guy now, and who ever heard of a male ferrygirl?
But right now I have something else I need to concentrate on - being a Gundam pilot.
Now, instead of being Shinimegami, I am Shinigami. Instead of the caretaker of souls, I am the bringer of death.
~Owari~
Notes:
Shinigami - God of Death
Shinimegami - Goddess of Death