素直な気持ち伝えるのさ

I wrote this for Shiritori, so I figured despite that it's early for Christmas, I'd post it here before I go on vacation!

title: celebrate
rating: pg
characters: Hitomi and Tohru-centric
warnings: Contains some passing mentions of the 1995 Kobe earthquake and PTSD, but much less so than the play itself and the original fic to which it's a companion.
word count: 1690
beta: yomimashou
author's note: This is based on Inochan's 2015 play, Karafuto Ojisan. (I was inspired by it being brought up in the MC of the Saturday show in Osaka!) It's set several years after the play and is basically a companion to 赤いスイートピー meant to be read second. If you haven't seen the play but are interested, I wrote an in-depth plot summary here. Written for Shiritori @ writetomyheart!
summary: Hitomi thinks that perhaps this has been the best Christmas present she's ever gotten.

( 'So, how did you celebrate Christmas as a kid?' Hitomi has wanted to ask ever since the very first Christmas she'd spent with Tohru so many years ago )

So… I had so many feelings about Karafuto Ojisan that somehow, this happened. Over 8,000 words of this happened?! I don't even know what else to say besides that the play really was amazing, and Inochan was really amazing, too. ♥ I'm actually really proud of how this turned out, so I hope that it's an enjoyable read!


title: 赤いスイートピー
rating: pg
pairings: gen; focused on Tohru and Hitomi (Inoo's and Matsunaga Reiko's characters from Karafuto Ojisan)
warnings: Mentions of poor parenting, parental death, PTSD, and earthquakes. Please read with discretion. There's also sort-of an OC; see the author's note.
word count: 8,310
beta: yomimashou
author's note: I have so much to say about this and I don't really know how to say it. XD; I'm that weirdo who wrote over eight thousand words about a play that probably five people total in international fandom saw, but I really wanted to sort out my feelings at the end of the play. It leaves off with a sort of oddly ambiguous "happy end," but it didn't feel good to me (or, from my eavesdropping, a lot of the Japanese fans at the shows I was at XD;), so I wanted to give it my own positive conclusion. I do want to mention that I named and gave a gender and a few lines to Hitomi's unborn child from the play, but I'm not sure that it makes so much more of a difference that it really counts as an OC. The title is from Matsuda Seiko's Akai Sweet Pea, for which you can find an English translation here (though the part I used in the fic, I translated myself, so it's a bit different). For reference, red sweet pea is a flower. If you want to read my plot summary of the play, you can find it here!
summary: They've grown into themselves, but they've grown into their little family, too, and, Hitomi thinks idly, perhaps when she'd dreamed of going to a far-off place by train as a child, this had been the final stop that she was looking for.

( Kobe is a nice city, Hitomi thinks to herself as she moves around the factory in the calm stillness of the morning. )