Chapter Text
Avant de Partir
The earliest memory that Makoto had was when he was four and his mother scolded him for putting away someone else’s toy.
“That’s their responsibility, not yours!” she’d said emphatically. It was strange how strong she felt about the issue, so Makoto made sure that he didn’t do it again. But he’d seen kids pick up after other kids; it wasn’t anything out of the norm! He didn’t understand, but the next time Kenji-kun dropped that plastic egg toy he liked so much, he supposed he would leave it well alone.
The second earliest memory was meeting Ms. Lise.
“Makoto,” his mother had called one day. “Let’s go welcome our new neighbor! Well…our old neighbor I suppose, but she’s recently come back from her long vacation with her husband.”
Up until then, Makoto had always been afraid of going to the house at the top of the stairs. Not only because it was right next to the temple, which looked fearsome in its own right, but because it seemed cold and lonely with no one living in it. He couldn’t imagine what an old couple would do in such a big house by themselves, but the fact that the lights were on and the chimney was smoking made his steps come a little easier.
Even in the present, Makoto remembered his first impression of Ms. Lise. She’d opened the door with a flourish and gave a sweet, old lady grin before accepting Makoto’s gift basket. Her hair was gray and twisted into a braid that hung over her shoulder, and she wore the biggest red dress Makoto had ever seen. Her husband was next to her, but he didn’t really look as dramatic as Ms. Lise.
What Makoto remembered most was her smell.
It was as if someone had dropped a bucket of perfume on her. It was tantalizing, mysterious, and oh-so-strong. When he’d first smelled it, Makoto had been afraid. Ms. Lise was such a big personality, and though she looked Japanese she didn’t act like it.
Before Ms. Lise, Makoto had noticed a pattern among adults.
One adult was always the strong one. In Makoto’s family, it was his Dad. He was the one who spoke to any newcomers, and even when some old friends came along, it was his father who talked the most while his mother offered simple comments here and there.
There were some families where both adults were relatively quiet. Those families always had quiet kids that Makoto liked to play with, but oftentimes the kids turned out to be too boring or too…goody-goody. They didn’t break any rules, and while Makoto didn’t like getting punished, he didn’t understand why it was so important for those children to follow custom.
Ms. Lise, however, never followed custom. Her husband was nice, and spoke more than his mother did. He heard his parents discussing it one night, and that was when he first heard the term Alpha.
Mr. Hervé was this “Alpha.” But his parents had no clue what Ms. Lise was.
“Kaa-san,” Makoto remembered saying one night. “What’s an Alpha?” His mother had been tucking his covers in, but she froze at his words.
“Where did you hear that, Makoto?” she asked gently, but Makoto was sufficiently startled by her reaction.
“O-oh, someone on TV said it,” he replied lightly. Makoto’s mother frowned.
“We know what you watch, Makoto,” she said. There was an edge of worry in her tone. “Please tell me the truth. You know I don’t like it when you lie.”
Makoto gulped. He didn’t like lying, and he hated being found out even worse. “I heard you and Tou-san talking about it,” he confessed. “When you were talking about Ms. Lise and Mr. Hervé.”
She let out a long, slow sigh. Makoto fidgeted, not knowing what to do or say to make her feel better.
“Kaa-san?” he asked quietly. “I can…forget about it?”
His mother smiled kindly at his eagerness, but her smile held a twinge of sadness. “Makoto, my precious, precious boy. Believe me when I say that you’ll know everything when you’re older. Now’s not the time.”
It was funny. Makoto knew that his parents didn’t mind when he bent the rules, unlike many of his “playdates,” but this rule he vowed not to break. So far, no one has said anything about Alphas. He had a strong suspicion that his parents played an integral role in this, but he didn’t want to push it.
At any rate, Ms. Lise was a better playmate than any of the others. Makoto loved stories, and he’d listen to them all day if he could. Ms. Lise not only knew a lot of stories, but she told them as if he was in them right then and there, adventuring away over the sea, across the desert, in the jungle. It was hard at first, because she would often mix up Japanese words with another language, but Makoto soon got a hold of her dialect and even parroted some words back to her.
“Tu veux apprendre le français?” she once asked eagerly.
Makoto kind of knew what she said. “Tu” was him, usually, or sometimes it was Mr. Hervé. “Veux” was what Ms. Lise asked whenever she had cookies and Makoto had to say “yes, please.” But the rest of it was all different.
He nodded vigorously, and to his delight his friend seemed pleased.
“Bon!” she exclaimed. “Then I’ll tell you a very special story. You must promise not to forget it, and you must retell it to me by the end.”
Makoto gulped, but Ms. Lise went over to her bookshelf and pulled out a rather old, dusty book.
“This old thing has been beaten up throughout my family’s generations,” she chuckled. “This edition belongs to me.”
She returned to the shelf and pulled out a newer looking book, one that had a picture of a small blond boy with a yellow scarf. She came back to the couch and handed it to Makoto.
“This one is yours. Take care of it. It is in français, so you will learn quickly.”
Makoto examined the book, then opened the back cover. Ms. Lise chuckled and turned it to the front.
“You read novels like this from left to right,” she explained. “It’s how they do it where I come from.”
“Where do you come from, Ms. Lise?” Makoto asked.
He fully expected her to avoid his question, because he really didn’t care where she came from. All he cared about was who she was now, and Ms. Lise had all sorts of different ways of cleverly deflecting his questions.
“First lesson!” she announced. “When you’re asking ‘where,’ the word is où.”
“Où?” Makoto repeated.
Ms. Lise laughed. “Parfait, Makoto-chan. This is how you say where. And where are you is ‘Où es-tu?’”
“Où es-tu?” Makoto repeated again. He smiled. The words sounded so different from his mouth; his lips stretched wide and narrow to accommodate them, and it was wonderfully bizarre.
“Je suis ici,” Ms. Lise replied happily. Her eyes suddenly focused on Makoto with a quiet, intense glimmer, and Makoto noticed just how blue they were. “Je serai toujours ici.”
“Je serai toujours ici.”
Makoto didn’t understand why his parents were so happy with Ms. Lise, but they were.
“Thank you so much, Lise-san,” his father would tell her. And she was close enough so that his mother would also talk to her.
“Makoto has been much more adventurous because of you,” she’d say, and the thing about his mother’s voice was that it was quiet, but intense. Makoto couldn’t see how he’d become “more adventurous,” but if he knew anything it was that his friend could turn anything into a story.
Ms. Lise would smile kindly at his parents and tell them that it was only two friends entertaining each other as the summer days went on.
Mr. Hervé would always return to find Makoto and Ms. Lise engrossed in a game about something they’d read in their books. One day, it was about the serpent.
“If I was the prince,” Makoto declared. “I’d slice the serpent’s head off. I don’t want to die like that!”
“Mais Makoto,” Ms. Lise countered. “What if that was the only way you could get home? With a snakebite?”
Makoto hadn’t known the answer to that. The pain of the snakebite versus the pain of never seeing his family again? He frowned and folded his arms angrily.
“What kind of family is a stupid flower anyway?” he snapped. “There are tons of roses in the world. Why is his so special?”
Ms. Lise only smiled cryptically before deflecting the conversation.
“Well, it’s a tough choice to make chouchou,” she said warmly. “You’ll understand when you have to let go of something important to you.”
“Like my stickers?” Makoto asked. Ms. Lise’s eyebrows flew up and she gave a bellowing laugh.
“Maybe for now,” she giggled. “But later, there may be different decisions that you’ll have to make.” To Makoto’s surprise, her face sobered a little. “Sometimes people don’t see you for who you are. Sometimes you must make different decisions to find out for yourself. Remember that going against the tide, it’s not always bad, Makoto.”
They paused in silence as Ms. Lise’s words sunk in. Makoto wondered what she meant. There was a certain helpless sadness in Ms. Lise’s eyes, a kind Makoto had never seen before. With a sigh, she pulled him close.
“You’re a darling boy, Makoto. You’re going to make a big change,” she said. “But you’re going to have to be strong. What do you want most out of the world? You have to answer that question on your own.”
The old woman seemed so sad. It was uncharacteristic of her. Makoto wondered what sort of troubles she’d gone through for her to feel this sadness, and with a slight purse of his lips he began to cry.
“Oh dear!” Ms. Lise exclaimed, pulling away. “Makoto, Makoto!” She was laughing as she wiped away his tears. “You certainly don’t have to answer that question anytime soon!”
“You’re s-sad!” Makoto cried, and Ms. Lise’s hands stopped moving. “Something happened and you’re sad!”
She paused. “So you’re crying for me?” she asked. Makoto’s face twisted up again and he nodded.
He had seen Ms. Lise cry only twice. That had been the first time.
The second time was two years later.
Makoto came back from school gushing about his class.
“And we learned that we Present before middle school!” he chirped. “I might be an Alpha, or an Omega!”
"Ah," Ms. Lise said, turning towards him. She motioned for a pair of wet pants to hang to dry. Makoto handed them to her and continued to babble.
"I just hope I'm not a Beta," he muttered. "Then I'll just have to be a day-care worker or something. I can't wait to test my blood!"
Ms. Lise rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “My, my. When we were younger, we didn’t have the technology that you youngsters had,” she said. “I Presented the old fashioned way.”
“What’s the old fashioned way?” Makoto asked curiously. He also wanted to know what Ms. Lise’s Nature was.
“Well,” Ms. Lise explained. “Les hommes et les femmes would be an Alpha if they hit their Rut, an Omega if they had their Heat, and a Beta if neither of those occurred by the time they were in college. Now, though, they use your blood to see if you are one of the three, even if you haven’t grown the necessary parts.”
Makoto was surprised. His classmates had told him that their mothers seemed to be in pain when they were in Heat, and their fathers got very tough and harsh if they were close to a Rut. Makoto’s own parents seemed mellower, but he noticed that his mother got a bit curter and his father got a bit more impatient when they were close to their “time.”
Ms. Lise never got that way. But suddenly, Makoto didn’t want to know what Ms. Lise was. She could be a Beta, but with old age Alphas weren’t as aggressive, and Omegas weren’t as emotional. Ms. Lise was still adventurous, like an Alpha, but calm, like a Beta. She was also emotional sometimes, like an Omega.
If Makoto knew what she was, he knew he would only look for those qualities in her. And suddenly, he never wanted to know what he was.
His lip trembled.
“What is it, chouchou?” Ms. Lise asked worriedly.
“Je pense,” Makoto began, before he realized that he didn’t quite know the words. “I think that I don’t want to know what I am.”
Ms. Lise’s eyebrows pinched. Suddenly she looked like what she was; an old woman.
For a long moment, she stared at Makoto. He wasn’t watching her, but he knew she was watching him. If Ms. Lise was an Omega, he knew that she wouldn’t be able to go on adventures with him. If Ms. Lise was an Alpha, he knew that he couldn’t tell her his deepest concerns. And if she was a Beta…well, she wouldn’t be as vibrant. She would fade away, and her stories and laughter would be an echo in his mind.
But what about him? If he was an Alpha, he couldn’t cry as much as he did now. If he was an Omega, he couldn’t go on wild adventures. And if he was a Beta…
He may as well not exist at all, right?
“Makoto,” Ms. Lise said sharply.
Makoto lifted his head and met her angry gaze. He stiffened; he wasn’t used to Ms. Lise being angry with him.
“It doesn’t matter what you are. It matters who you are,” she said sternly. Makoto’s lip wobbled and her gaze softened as if by magic. “Come here.”
He fell into her arms, which were stronger than any Alpha, softer than any Omega, and more present than any Beta. “To you, I am not anything. To me, you are not anything,” she said softly. “To me, you are someone.”
“Et pour moi, vous êtes trop importante,” Makoto answered, struggling to get the words out. His face was buried in Ms. Lise’s arm, so he didn’t see her expression when her breath caught in her throat.
He did feel two warm tears drop on his arm, and he lurched back to see Ms. Lise laughing gently.
“Oh, you are a sweetie,” she giggled, wiping away her tears. There was a certain heartbreak in her eyes, one that Makoto couldn’t name. “Tell me again. Who was your favorite character in Notre-Dame de Paris?”
“Phoebus,” Makoto said instantly.
“He was a Beta, was he not?”
“Really?” Makoto said suddenly, eyes wide. “But he was a good guy!”
“Not necessarily,” Ms. Lise admitted. “But that wasn’t because he was a Beta. It was because his character wasn’t as strong as it seemed. The author, you know, tried to differentiate between Natures and personalities.”
“Vraiment?” Makoto gasped. A small part of him was itching to hear a story. A smaller part of him was itching to make Ms. Lise feel better.
“Oui,” she said, her eyes glinting. “Do you remember who my favorite character is?”
“Quasimodo,” Makoto recited.
“Very good,” she replied. “And do you know what Nature he was?”
“What?”
“He was an Alpha.”
At this, Makoto’s jaw dropped. The hunchback who was deaf and severely crippled, who stayed holed up in his bell tower, who shared a deep, emotional love for Esmeralda…he was an Alpha?
“You see, chouchou, the author understood something that people are still learning today,” she said. “And that is that your Nature isn’t who you are.”
Her last words were said with such conviction that Makoto felt them resonate within his very soul. Whenever he felt unsure, even as he grew into a fourth grader, he remembered her words. And soon, Alphas, Betas, and Omegas were at the back of his mind.
Things were brought back into focus when Mr. Hervé sailed out to sea and never came back.
There had been a new school of fish spotted somewhere beyond the usual fishing spot, and Mr. Hervé had sailed out with his fishing partners to try and catch them. If he managed to do it, he and Ms. Lise would be able to make a grand feast and invite the entire block. Ms. Lise was very excited, and her happiness was so infectious that Mr. Hervé left with a larger grin than usual.
Makoto had seen him off with pleas for presents when he stopped by a nearby wharf, and Mr. Hervé had promised to get him a couple of goldfish.
He never returned from his trip.
Ms. Lise had been telling Makoto a sad story about a man whose name he couldn’t ever remember and a girl named Cosette, who had the prettiest name but one that Makoto couldn’t pronounce. She was telling him how the author was the same as the one who wrote Notre-Dame de Paris, but she had stopped suddenly.
Thunder echoed outside. Ms. Lise was frozen.
That was three days before Mr. Hervé was reported dead. His crew had sunk at sea because of a storm that no one had predicted. Ms. Lise hadn’t smiled in all that time. She had become quiet, sullen, and her eyes watered every so often.
But Makoto wasn’t devastated because of Mr. Hervé’s death. He was devastated because of the guilt that followed.
Mr. Hervé had been hit when he had changed course to the wharf. If it hadn’t been for Makoto, he would have never gone to the wharf and instead would have returned home.
He couldn’t look Ms. Lise in the eye. He couldn’t look out at sea without crying.
Neither of his parents knew the reason for his sadness, but they tried all the same. They asked him if he wanted to go to Mr. Hervé’s funeral. Makoto, out of obligation, went.
Ms. Lise hadn’t gone. She wore black, but she didn’t leave the house.
As time wore on and fourth grade began its second half, Makoto only withdrew further. Mr. Hervé had been a mostly absent figure, especially when compared to the vivacity of Ms. Lise, but as Makoto thought about it, he’d been the fuel to her fire. And, unknowingly, he’d been the stability that Makoto had always counted on.
The next month had been torture. Makoto went to school listless and returned home even more listless. He came up with excuses for Mr. Hervé’s death to make it so it wasn’t his fault. The storm would have hit the boat even if it wasn’t going to the wharf (not true). Mr. Hervé would’ve probably gone to the wharf anyway without Makoto’s plea (not true as well).
It was not Makoto’s fault. He didn’t predict the storm, and he would never wish ill on Mr. Hervé.
That much was undeniably true, and Makoto realized that the realization made his heart ache worse.
He was so sure that Ms. Lise blamed him for her husband’s death, so when he managed to see her walking down the aisle in the grocery section, he turned and dashed the other way.
“Une minute, chouchou!” she’d cried weakly. Makoto teared up at the pet name.
“Non! Je ne suis pas un chouchou,”Makoto said miserably, but he stopped. Ms. Lise caught up to him and he noticed just how weak she looked. But she was wearing a smile.
“Tu es toujours mon chouchou,” she said kindly. Makoto’s lip wobbled.
“It was my fault,” he said quietly. Ms. Lise’s eyes grew sad.
For a moment, they only stood next to each other. It was the most distance Makoto had felt from someone up until then. Ms. Lise gradually realized that Makoto genuinely felt at fault.
“If I had known you were feeling this way, I would have talked to you sooner,” she said firmly. “You didn’t wish for the storm. You loved my husband. It wasn’t your fault, Makoto.”
He let her words wash over him, and for the most part he believed her. But he couldn’t, not fully. He turned away and looked at the ground, still ridden with guilt.
“Hervé would have wanted you to be happy, Makoto,” Ms. Lise said gently. “And so do I. You are our petit prince, you know.” Makoto’s head swung around and he was staring at Ms. Lise, wide-eyed.
“Le petit prince?” he gasped. She nodded.
“We want you to grow up knowing the same ideals you know as a child,” she explained. “Makoto, ton coeur est beaux, and we knew that you would make a change in this world.”
“Coeur?” Makoto said quietly.
“Heart,” Ms. Lise translated with a smile. “Your heart is beautiful, Makoto.”
Ms. Lise’s heart, Makoto had thought, was the most beautiful of them all. When it stopped beating, he knew it was because she wanted to see Mr. Hervé again.
He attended Ms. Lise’s funeral, and he immediately regretted it.
“We put to rest a strong, upstanding individual. She was someone who was kind and loving, and could enchant the hearts of millions with her stories and her smile.”
His father’s eulogy was the most beautiful. The others paled in comparison. Mrs. Tamura, moved by its beauty, decided to go say her own. Since she was an older Omega, social customs allowed her to speak in public places. Unfortunately, she began like this:
“When I met Lise, she was the strangest Alpha I knew. She…”
Makoto’s eyes widened.
Ms. Lise had been an Alpha, a loving, patient Alpha. And her husband was another Alpha. Makoto had not known that it was possible.
Your Nature…
Makoto clenched his fists.
Your Nature isn’t…
“I, as an Omega, was severely humbled by her presence. While I didn’t speak to her again, I…”
Your Nature isn’t WHO YOU ARE.
“Stop!” Makoto shouted. His parents looked down at him with surprise as he suddenly burrowed through the onlookers. “Stop!”
Mrs. Tamura was also surprised when the little boy stood up next to her.
“Ms. Lise wasn’t an Alpha,” he said firmly.
“But, my dear, she was?” Mrs. Tamura asked without conviction. Makoto felt his frown deepen. She was an Omega, and she certainly acted like the stereotype. Her words were frail and unsure.
“No,” he said defiantly. “Ms. Lise was Ms. Lise.” A sudden thrill went over him, and he could feel Ms. Lise watching him from wherever she was.
He turned to the procession. “Ms. Lise was brave. She was loving and also strong. She was my best friend in the whole wide world because she didn’t care about what I was. She cared about who I was!”
Makoto closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath. “I’m going to go to the doctor’s tomorrow,” he affirmed. “And I’m going to figure out what I am. But that doesn’t matter to me. It’s only another thing to know about myself. Ms. Lise would’ve never wanted to be just an ‘Alpha.’”
Mrs. Tamura looked guilty. The procession stared at the boy in awe.
“Ms. Lise was…Ms. Lise was…”
How could Makoto put it into words? How could he describe his closest friend?
“Ms. Lise was indescribable.”
It was his mother who answered. His mother who was still a young Omega.
Her face was defiant. “She was my son’s closest friend. She was a spectacular storyteller, a daring adventurer, and most of all, a loving, kind-hearted soul.”
The procession was quiet as she stood to stand next to her son. They looked at his father in shock, but he frowned and also walked by them.
“My sincerest apologies to Mrs. Tamura,” he began. Makoto’s heart sank for a moment. “But my wife and son are right.” Makoto looked at his father in surprise, and the Alpha placed a caring hand on his shoulder. “Ms. Lise was irreplaceable, and she will always be in our hearts. She was an Alpha some moments, a Beta in others, and an Omega at times. But she was always Ms. Lise.”
Makoto closed his eyes and felt the wind push softly at his back. “Je serai toujours ici,” he whispered to himself. “Vous serez toujours ici,” he said aloud.
At his words, the procession bowed their heads in respect. Makoto felt warm, as if he could hear Ms. Lise’s pleased laughter.
Tomorrow, he knew, he would have to be strong for her. Tomorrow, he would learn what he was.