Chapter 3 Damn, that lion cub is so cute! I squeal along with the rest of the girls as Miki picks up the semi-dead looking cub. I can’t help but laugh at her baby-pink jump suit.
I can’t believe management actually convinced the safari park to let us borrow the poor thing. Well…I guess when we’ve promoted the place so many times already, they have to return the favour. I remember watching U-spirit when they followed Maki for three days. Seeing her love for animals come out when she went to Fuji Safari Park made me wish I was there with her.
Of course, back then it was just idolisation and admiration. Now…it could be anything more than that. Thinking about last night, I can’t help but wonder what was going through her mind all that time, especially just before she left. Did she lose as much sleep as I did over it? I sure hope she did…because otherwise I would feel like an idiot if it was only me thinking so hard about it all. What am I saying? Do I even still have those feelings for her? I roll my eyes at myself. Of course I do, why else would I be so worked up over this all?
“Reina, please don’t roll your eyes at me. And why haven’t you flipped your card yet?” Ishikawa-san’s voice brings me out of my thoughts. I look at everyone else, flip cards facing the camera. When did they do that?
“Oh, sorry. I was still thinking about my answer,” I lie. I don’t even know what the question is. I can’t believe I just tuned out like that in the middle of filming.
“It’s ok, we’ll edit this part,” one of the staff calls out. I sigh as I try to work out the question by peeking at everyone else’s answers, and quickly scribble something down.
Did she even mean it when she said we would have dinner together again? I wonder if we would go to a restaurant, or if she would invite me to her place again like she originally did. I feel a guilty pang hit me because she must have bought and prepared meat for the yakiniku that we never ate together. I should probably pay her back for the meat…no wait…that’s just stupid. I should just invite her out to dinner one day. But she said she would tell me when she had time off. What if she thinks that I’m annoying for wanting to meet again so soon?
“Reina!”
“Yes?!” I instantly sit up straight and look around, only just realising that I tuned out again. A few members laugh not-so-discreetly at me. Everyone but me had already written on their next flip board. There was another question already? I really have to start paying attention or people will think that there’s something really wrong with me.
I’m glad that this is the last segment that we’re filming for today, otherwise I might end up just staring into space for another hour or so.
For the last few minutes I manage to concentrate on the filming rather than my personal life. Even so, I can still feel it gnawing at my brain cells, making me work extra hard to push it out of the way for the time being.
After filming is finally over and we exchange many
otsukare-sama deshita’s with the staff, I practically run to my dressing room and slam the door shut. I need time to recollect my thoughts so that I’m not continually confusing myself. Maybe Maki would be in the building today for something. I might get a chance to run into her. Who am I kidding? She probably has a really tight schedule anyway… I check my phone and find two new messages from…Maki. Maybe she
has been thinking along my train of thought after all.
“I know it’s sudden, but would you like to have dinner tonight?” Would I? Why wouldn’t I?! Ugh, I should calm down before I get ahead of myself. It’s just dinner after all. I open the next message.
“How about yakiniku at my place? 
” I smile at the smiley face and reply right away.
“Sounds good to me!” I hit send, wondering if that sounded too eager on my part. A few seconds pass and my phone rings. Looking at the called ID I see that it’s Maki. I stare for a moment, not wanting to believe how fast she just responded.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Reina-chan? Have you finished filming?”
“Uh, yeah. How did you know we had filming?” I don’t recall telling her…
“Miki told me. Anyway, should we leave now?” Leave now? What is she talking about? Unless…
“Maki-san…where are you right now?” There’s a pause and a shy giggle. Why does it sound like I can hear her in both ears? It’s only a gut feeling but I get up and open the door to find Maki standing there smiling brightly at me again. I can’t believe her! I can’t help but smile back as she hangs up.
Before I can say anything she pushes past me, grabs my bag and then walks out again, this time taking hold of my hand and pulling me along. I can barely register the fact that she’s dragging me off in such a strange manner. What’s the rush? Within the next ten minutes Maki manages to pull me outside, hail a taxi, throw me inside and then clamber in after me. My head was starting to spin, not from being dragged around like a garbage bag, but from Maki’s strangely energetic behaviour and enthusiasm to get me to her place. It’s as if she has something incredibly amazing to show or tell me.
I don’t realise that I’m staring at her until her eyes meet mine and for a moment we’re locked in our own moratorium. I glance away, feeling the blush rise in my cheeks. Those few seconds seemed to bring back all the uneasiness I had tried to forget. As the taxi continues in the direction of Maki’s apartment, we sit in a deadly and uncomfortable silence for several minutes. My mind tries to find something interesting to say, but draws a blank.
“So, um, how was filming today?” Maki breaks the awkward air, attempting to resurrect some form of communication. Glad for the break, I jump into it right away.
“You won’t believe it! They brought in a lion cub!” I gush excitedly to her. She squeals and calls me a liar, which I deny and tell her to ask the other members. With this playful conversation the awkwardness disappears once again, and just like last night, we speak to each other like normal friends, happy to be in one another’s company. When you’re relaxed and having fun, time seems to fly by faster. Before I know it, we had arrived at Maki’s complex.
Even when we enter her apartment and chat about nothing, I still feel some sort of adrenalin rush from being so excited. It’s strange – this is only the second day that we’ve really spent with each other, yet it feels like it has been a lot longer. Almost as if we’ve been doing this all our lives. We finally take a moment to catch our breaths and sit in silence, though this time it’s a comfortable one.
“I like being alone with you,” Maki says contently, her eyes closed and head resting on the back of the couch. I just sit there, my eyes wide at her. Suddenly she opens her eyes, realising what she just said. Maki shifts around uncomfortably. The comment itself isn’t that big of a deal, but considering how we’ve been acting towards each other, and also taking into account our feelings…it was a little weird hearing it. Why couldn’t we just say what we were feeling without hesitation? We both want the same thing, right?
“I like it too,” I say quietly after an awfully long minute has passed. I don’t look at her, instead staring at my own knees. I should just tell her. Now. Right now. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. Why can’t I say it?
It feels really unpleasant now, sitting here in silence, waiting for the other to say something first. I have a desperate urge to just leave, and try to think of a believable excuse. I suddenly feel warmth wrapped around me. Huh? I sit there stunned. My heart beats rapidly and my cheeks blush for the umpteenth time since Maki stepped back into my life. What is she doing? Is this her solution for everything? Can’t she do anything else besides put her arms around me when things start to take a turn in an undesirable direction? I bite my lip, trying to fight back the lump in my throat and the tears that would surely follow that.
“Stop it,” I barely manage to say clearly. I stare ahead of me into nothingness and her form stiffens against me. “Please…just stop…” I say, my voice cracking. Maki withdraws her arms from me and moves back a little.
“Reina-chan?” Maki questions, the uncertainty in her voice almost scares me into apologising but I don’t. How can we continue like this without communication? It’s not possible…it won’t work. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that,” Maki says softly.
She fidgets with the loose papers and supermarket brochures on her coffee table; putting them into piles and then moving them from one corner of the table to another. Watching her do this is starting to irritate me. Finally she stops trying to look unaffected and turns to face me directly. Her eyes tinged with a certain sadness that wrenches at my heart and makes me wish I hadn’t said anything in the first place.
“Look…I didn’t mean it like that…it’s just tha-“
“That what? That you don’t enjoy those small moments we share?” Maki sharply cuts in, sadness quickly turning into anger, accusing me of things that aren’t anywhere near the truth. I swallow back tears and shake my head.
“No! You know it’s not like that. Don’t just throw around accusations like that without letting me finish what I was trying to say,” I reply almost in disbelief. She sits there stubbornly; ready dispute whatever comes out of my mouth. “It’s just that…that…” she looks at me coldly. She’s giving me the chance to say what I wanted to, but why am I having trouble with it now? “We don’t really talk much, do we?” I ask her quietly. Maki’s cold stare continues.
“We talked a lot last night, and today,” she says matter-of-factly.
“But it didn’t have anything to do with us,” I reply.
“I don’t follow you, because it seemed to me that we talked a lot about ourselves last night. Were you there or not?” Maki bites back. When did she become so hot headed? I take a few breaths in an effort to calm down.
“Not just us…I mean…
us...” I say, averting my eyes from her gaze and instead look at my hands. “Every time it gets weird you just hold me…and then the issue seems to fix itself…there’s something not right about that,” I tell her, still not looking at her.
“So you’re saying that you never want me to hold you again? Maybe you should have made that clearer from the start! You certainly didn’t seem to mind all those times that I
did hug you. If anything you just – “
“It’s not like that!” I cry out, tears finally escaping from my eyes. “I just mean that we should talk about things more! All we do is get awkward…then you hold me…then we move on as if nothing happened.”
“If you feel that why then why didn’t you say so earlier?” Maki questions me. I finally look up at her, and am a bit surprised. Her eyes are darker than normal, glassy from trying to hold back tears.
“Because every time I tried you would just put your arms around me! How can I compete with that…I’m powerless to do anything against that…” I tell her, tears flowing steadily down my cheeks.
“What are you trying to say?” Doesn’t she get it? Her ignorance fuels my anger and before I can think twice I say something incredibly stupid.
“Don’t pretend like you don’t know! How can I do anything when I have
those pressing into me?!” motioning my wet eyes towards her chest. I regret the words as soon as they leave my mouth.
As realisation dawns on Maki she promptly stands up and after a moment of glaring at me, she walks to the glass door of her balcony. She stands there stiffly, looking confused and infuriated at the same time. She sniffles and I mentally curse myself over and over again.
That’s completely
not what I wanted to say. It doesn’t even have anything to do with the situation – it was just a messy slip of the tongue that caused those words to tumble out.
“I’m sorry…that’s not what I meant! I just…it’s not really…they’re not…” How can I fix what I’ve so stupidly said now? “It’s just…they’re more noticeable recently…” Damn it! How can I say two stupid things in a row? Maki glances at me with hurt in her eyes, slightly red from crying. My own eyes feel puffy and tired too.
“What do you mean?” Maki quietly asks me. The panic in my mind doubles as I try to put my thoughts into words that won’t sound idiotic or like they’re implying something that they’re not. Maki turns back to staring out into the dark city landscape. I get up, wipe my face and stand a small distance behind her. She doesn’t turn around. “People keep making a big deal out of it…saying things…like I got surgery for them…and…” Maki trails off, her voice barely a whisper. I hadn’t realised that the things tabloids said had affected her so much. My heart reaches out to her, but my body stays glued to its position.
“That’s not what I meant…” I say quietly, hoping that I didn’t say something even more idiotic.
“They’re real,” Maki whispers.
I’ve never thought otherwise, but because I rushed to say something without really thinking, that’s what it seems like I believe. I never knew the kind of pressure she faced before this. I walk up to her and stand before her, looking up at her tear-stained face. I shuffle in closer to her until there isn’t any space between us left and then lean my head in the crook of her neck. At first Maki shies away, curling back defensively but I take another step in. Eventually, she relaxes.
“I know they are,” I whisper back to her. My tears begin to soak her top as we stand there in silence, leaning against each other for support. I blindly reach down and search for her hands, grasping them lightly, never wanting to let go.
Finally, though reluctantly she tugs her hands free of mine to wipe away my tears as well as her own. I stand there feeling more than guilty for what I just did to her. Maki leads me back to sit on the sofa and I wonder if she’s angry at me.
“Goto-san…just now…I didn’t mean to bring that up. It just slipped out before I could think about it and I – “
““Hey…I told you before. It’s okay to call people by their first names,” she says, this time being sure of herself. I breathe a sigh of relief as she rolls back into her natural self. I hadn’t even realised that I had called her ‘Goto-san’. Maki smiles that smile at me, and as simply as that I know she’s forgiven me.
I look away for a moment and something that I didn’t notice earlier catches my eye on Maki’s coffee table. It’s a simple silver photo frame. I lean over to pick it up and instantly feel the tears well up in my eyes all over again. I fight them back and glance at Maki, who’s giving me a sheepishly shy look.
It’s the photo that we took with my camera in the ferris wheel during Futarigoto. I got an extra copy developed and gave it to Maki, who at the time seemed indifferent. I feel Maki move closer to me as I continue to stare at the picture, amazed that she had kept it in a place where she would be able to see it so often. In one corner of the photo is a set of numbers scrawled in Maki’s handwriting. Though I already know the answer, I point to it and question her with my eyes, too touched to be able to say anything comprehendible. Maki smiles at me, her eyes shining with bubbly affection.
“0-7-5-1-0.
ReinaGotou. It’s
our number,” Maki says proudly as she wipes a lone tear from beneath my eye and takes the frame from my hands, placing it back on the table.
I shuffle a bit closer and leaning in I tentatively clasp my hands around her waist. After some hesitation she lightly wraps her arms around my shoulders. Is this what people do when they can’t express their feelings in words? I suppose the saying ‘actions speak louder than words’ rings true here. Her breath is steady against the top of my head, but against her neck, I can feel her pulse faintly beating at a much faster rate. Is she scared? Nervous? Anxious? Eventually she pulls her arms away from me, and likewise I do the same (though hesitantly).
“I’m sorry! Just now you were saying we shouldn’t – “
Maki stops when I put a finger to her lips, silencing her. She looks confused, her brow furrowed in a manner that I can only describe as utterly cute. She has her hands firmly flat on either side of her on the couch, determined not to move them.
“No, I’m sorry…” I don’t finish because I choke on my words and look down at my hands, fidgeting with the hem of my shirt and suddenly realising that I had touched Maki’s lips. It doesn’t really occur to me how close a range we’re sitting at until I turn and face her again. Slightly taken aback by Maki’s nose being barely an inch away from mine, I instantly freeze and turn rigid. My throat feels dry and I have to swallow several times to wash away that feeling. Maki leans forward until our noses are touching and I can feel her gentle breath.
“Thank you for being here tonight,” Maki whispers, sending a shudder through my body. I see myself reflected in Maki’s eyes, and within the depths of those eyes I can see her understanding of my thoughts without actually having been told. It doesn’t really matter right now that we don’t say much about ourselves because clearly within each other, we can see and understand one another completely.
And with that, she presses her lips against mine for a split second. My heart pounds as I stare into her eyes. What did that mean just now? Am I supposed to do something else? I don’t know what to do, even though I’m secretly happy with that intimate contact. Before I can think about it further she kisses my lips again, and again it’s brief. She stares intently into my eyes, looking for any sign of hesitation. I know that she won’t find any, and my body moves at its own accord. I press my lips against hers this time, staying there until I feel her lips move against mine. Suddenly but surely her tongue finds its way to mine and I feel my cheeks flush at the sensation of it. I allow myself to melt against her, ready to offer myself completely and undoubtedly to her. Maki gently pushes me so that gradually we’re lying down with her body above mine. She plants light, warm kisses along my jaw line and eventually reaches my throat. I let the sensations take over, not even thinking about where this could lead or how we might feel afterwards.
Suddenly she stops and I feel her breathe a contented sigh beside my ear. Maki squeezes herself between myself and the couch with her head beside mine, lying there with her arm draped across my stomach. I lie there beside her, somewhat relieved that she stopped before it got too intense to control.
“Maki-san,” I breathe as I reach down to take her hand, not really knowing what I’m doing. I turn my head to face her and she gives me a sheepish grin to which I find myself almost unknowingly smiling back at. Maki simply gazes into my own eyes, happy with the both us of lying in silence. I must admit, I feel unexpectedly comfortable with this as well.
As we continue to lie there without uttering a word, I feel as if the sun has finally basked me in all its warm glory, lighting up the path ahead of me, allowing me to face the unknown. At the same time it’s also behind me, as well as beside me holding my hand, lending me its magnificent strength and as I move on, it wraps its arms tightly around me, never letting me out of sight. This is the strength, the support, the love…the brilliant sun that is Maki.
Topic: Sun (updated 25th April!!! CHAPTER 12 up!) (Read 23238 times)