Stayed up to 4am to write this bloody thing. Churned it out in 4 hours which is pretty amazing considering the length. I was on a roll thanks to C-ute's new song I Miss You...so.
Enjoy!
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TrickThe tinkle of chimes by the door announced the arrival of a new customer; a couple of heads turned -- not many, since it was late, and it was a discreet cafe, where the regulars were more inclined to mind their own business.
It suited the new patron just fine, her low heels clicking against the burnished wood of the floor as she paused briefly to check her reflection in the mirror. Long curls reflected doubly in the brief moment before she removed her shades, an affectation sure to have drawn some attention had anyone been paying any, given the time of day, or night, as it were. The young woman nodded briefly at the barista behind the counter, already moving towards her favourite corner, tucked behind a sharp turn just out of sight from the entrance.
Her tea came mere minutes later, after she had settled herself down. Gone was the earlier poise and easy grace as she slouched within the oversized easy chair, half tempted to kick off her heels, but regardless of the congeniality of her surroundings, she was still in public, and she had enough presence of mind to adhere to
some decorum still.
Taking a sip of the tea, she ignored the buzzing and flashing of her phone, the numerous caller IDs and message headers showing different names, mostly male; some from work, some decidedly off it. She could not begrudge them for making the attempt -- she did run out of the afterparty following the successful wrapping up of the shoot. Speaking of the party, she was still dressed for it, which explained the heels and dress and purse. The sacrifices she had to make for the sake of appearances. Jeans and sneakers were far more comfortable, but her work in the public eye left opportunities for such attire few and far between.
Normally, she would be quite at ease lubricating the social circles her work demanded. Tonight though, she simply didn't feel up to that task. Just the thought of putting on her mask was exhausting, and fending off half a dozen advances from pretty boys who thought that a turn or two behind a camera lens made them irresistible to anything in a skirt could grow old after a while. No, not tonight. She needed time away, time to herself.
So here she was, in familiar surroundings, a place of refuge that has never let her down in years. She had discovered it before her career had taken off, before she had even considered it as a career, to be frank. She was so young then, and almost shy. Why, she would never have been able to come to a place like this alone, a place for
adults.
And she had not been alone, not then. Not quite hand in hand, though their fingers had brushed in shocking flushes of heated contact, eyes skittering away from each other in tentative moments, the mating dance of youth. It seemed almost innocently nostalgic, looking back on those halcyon days. They had both been little more than awkward colts, more likely to shy away from each other than explore anything more intense than a simple hug, while the mere thought of holding hands would have given her a case of the sweats. The young woman she was now could only take her head ruefully at the wistful memory; how innocent she had been, and how shocked her younger self would have been, seeing how boldly she was able to hold her own now, against both men and women flirting with her.
How times had changed, how
she had changed, but yet this place remained the same. A finger played idly with a long strand of hair, tugging it critically for a moment, before releasing it with a tiny sigh. The worn wood of her surroundings lent the illusion of hiding out from the world, and even the cuckoo clock on the far wall was the same old one she remembered from her first visit; a well-loved, well-mended timepiece that warbled on the hour with a rattle of handmade mechanisms.
She wondered why she came back here. Times there were where she stayed away for months, but when life got too intense -- be it from work, or from some spat with her mother over her vastly exaggerated bad habits (damn those tabloids) -- she found herself slinking here like a wounded fox to its hole. Every time she told herself it would be the last, that she would no longer want or need to chase shadows, or seek comfort in some fading memory of a love -- no, scratch that, a childish infatuation -- that never was. Yet, whenever the going got tough, whenever she felt the need to shut out the world, she retreated to this place they had discovered. Even the tea she was having was a taste acquired through her acquaintance with that person.
She did not think herself sentimental. This was just a place of tranquility, appropriately discreet and isolated enough for her to duck in and hide from the storm of the world. The tea was deucedly excellent, as were the biscuits that came complimentary with it. That was all there was to it.
She did not need to be reminded of how she still sat facing the timepiece on the mantel, able to, even to this day, name every scuff and scratch on the painted wood because of how intensely she had stared at the dratted thing because it was far easier than meeting the eyes of the person sitting opposite her at the time. Did you know that the cuckoo bird that popped out had mismatched eyes and a splinter had been chipped out of its left wing? She did.
Speaking of the bird, it made another chirping appearance, looking just a little worn, a little more paint having flaked off one side of its head since the last time she had been here. Midnight, it decried, and another pair of patrons exited with that last chirp, the chimes jangling in tune. She stared into her tea instead, and thus missed entirely the entry of a new patron. Not that she would have, given how discreetly located her present location was, but had she been looking up, she would have spotted the silhouette of the figure making that fatal turn round the sharp corner into her nook, and thus would have been more prepared to respond with something more eloquent than...
"Oh."
The words echoed in the musty silence, doubly reinforced by the identical reaction from the person staring down at her. A mug of steaming coffee (coffee? At this time?) occupied the newcomer's hands, and her cheeks were flushed from the bitter cold snap she had indubitably escaped shortly before. For an interminably long moment, both women took the chance to give each other a once over, eyes darting with unguarded curiosity after their enforced separation, years ago.
But the moment passed, and the guards snapped back on, on both sides. Our first young lady assumed a pose of professional grace, her model's mask firmly in place. The newcomer merely fell back into her usual inscrutability, a fact our ingenue noted with a certain sense of amused irritability. That, at least, was something that hadn't changed in the years they hadn't met.
After the briefest of pauses, the newcomer squared her shoulders and sat down primly across from the first woman. They sat in somewhat farcical silence for several minutes, sipping ostentatiously at their beverages and almost bullishly daring the other to break the silence first. Pride, she noted, had been their downfall in years past, and it seemed like time had yet to blunt their tempers significantly.
In the end, she gave in first. Wasn't that always the case?
"You're looking well, Sayashi-san."
A ghost of a smirk fleeted briefly across the thin lips facing her, half-hidden by the coffee mug. Gods, that was something else that hadn't changed.
"You're looking...different, Kuduu."
Different was an understatement. Once boyishly short locks were now flowing long tresses, and while she still hadn't filled out that much in the chest department, she still comported herself with dignity befitting a lady. The dress and heels helped.
Opposite her, Sayashi Riho was dressed down but still tastefully, with artfully ripped jeans and printed top. Her wavy hair was gathered in a side ponytail, and the sparkle of the studs in her earlobes caught the light in a distracting way. Kudo Haruka averted her gaze and pointedly refused to let her gaze travel down that neck and the chain that lay fetchingly against raised collarbones. She found herself staring at that cuckoo clock on the mantel again. Damn thing.
Awkward silence reigned again. Then again, Sayashi-san had never been one to volunteer conversation in most cases, Haruka thought bitterly. Oh, it wasn't like they never had anything to talk about. But that was years before. Before everything changed. Before she left.
"I didn't know you were back in Tokyo."
Haruka found herself blurting. It was getting difficult to pretend her tea held any interest (it was cold), and one could only stare at a clock for so long. Riho nursed her coffee for a moment before replying.
"Only for a month or two."
"Ah."
Silence again. It was Riho's turn to be staring into her coffee, and Haruka took the opportunity to sneak another glance. When was the last time they had seen each other? At the airport? Yes, all those years ago.
I'll write. The letters had come for a while, then grew more sporadic, before halting entirely. She most definitely did not keep any of them. They were probably in some old shoebox at the bottom of a cupboard somewhere. Probably. No idea where those things were.
Now they were both older, engaged in their own careers, and most definitely too busy to relearn a friendship (or had it been more?) fallen by the wayside. Haruka had heard of the famous choreographer Sayashi Riho a year or two ago, through other channels. Newly returned to Japan then, after studying overseas for a number of years. She had not sought out the woman then, didn't want to ask why the letters stopped. She had her own career to worry about. Kudo Haruka, one of Japan's modelling darlings, and up-and-coming actress making her first inroads into that industry. The party she had skipped out on was for the movie in which she had had her first big lead role. She really should have stayed there tonight.
"You look a lot more feminine now..." Riho said suddenly, startling the younger girl. The dancer was looking directly at her now, pinning her with that disconcertingly penetrating gaze.
"Well, I couldn't have stayed a tomboy forever." Haruka retorted, and that elicited a brief smile from Riho. Haruka found herself echoing that smile for a moment, before tamping down on it with some effort of will. The fading of that smile drained it from Riho's face as well, and a pall fell over the pair again.
Haruka scowled to herself. She didn't want to be here anymore. This was her refuge, but with this woman here...well, some memories were best left buried. Besides, her tea was cold, so she had excuse enough to leave. She was about to stand when an absent, habitual-seeming gesture of Riho's caught her eye. A ring, no more than a simple band, encircled the ring finger of her right hand. It was hardly flashy, and didn't stand out in any way, which may have accounted for her missing it the first time round. A sharp pain stabbed at her temple; Haruka knew the beginnings of a throbbing headache when she encountered one.
"If you'll excuse me..." The young model murmured as she pushed off on the table with the flat of her palms, feeling rather faint herself. If she had access to a mirror right now, she would have noted the pallor of her complexion, which may or may not have coincided with her taking notice of that damnable ring.
"Are you alright?" Riho rose with her, and Haruka noted with a small satisfaction that she towered over the older woman, especially when in heels. Granted, she already had a small height advantage previously, and the heels merely allowed her to maintain a lofty stance. Back straight, chin up. Posture was everything. So was grace, and poise.
"I'm fine. Just tired." Haruka stepped out from behind the table, but couldn't resist dropping a passing barb.
"Congratulations on the engagement."
It could have ended there, with Haruka sweeping out in high dudgeon, righteous rage burning in the deepest pits of her belly. She would have stepped out into the cold night, hailed a passing cab, and then gone home. With her luck, her mother would still be up, they would exchange words about coming home at an indecent hour, and she would retire to bed with no small irritation boiling in her veins. Then she would wake up to a new day, and everything would have washed away, to begin anew. And she would forget tonight, as if it had been a mere aberration. She would probably avoid the cafe for the next month or two as well.
Alas, things do not often go along to script. Life had a nasty habit of doing that.
"What are you talking about?"
Genuine puzzlement coloured Riho's voice, and Haruka made the first mistake of turning back to gesture broadly at the ring on her finger.
"You could have picked someone who could give you a flashier ring. Not even a single diamond on it? What a stingy fellow." Haruka sniffed in a superior manner, concealing any hurt she might have felt behind affected distaste.
Riho was frowning at her, but the words led her to look down at her own hand, as if finally seeing it for the first time. Then, to Haruka's surprise, she burst out laughing.
"Oh, this thing?" Her shoulders trembled with suppressed mirth, though Haruka couldn't see what was so funny. She had just insulted the woman's fiance, why wasn't she offended? Riho collected herself after a few moments, though her eyes were still alight with amusement when she met Haruka's gaze with something of a sly twinkle in those dancing orbs. Haruka immediately felt a sense of foreboding; she had been on the receiving end of that look more than once in the past, and it had never ended well for her. Ever.
"You're right, I should have picked someone better. But you see, that was all they could afford at the time..." Riho trailed off, watching the expressions flicker across Haruka's face, first dour, then surprised, before becoming resigned. The bright twinkle in the older girl's eyes never faded; in fact, it seemed to grow in intensity.
"I see... that person must be very special to you." Haruka mumbled, wondering if turning around and walking away quickly was an option allowed in polite company.
"Oh, yes.... Proud and stubborn as an ass. Difficult too, but still, a really kind person at heart..." Riho let her words fall and watched Haruka carefully, noting the minuscule droop of her shoulders, the crease of skin at the edge of her eyes, the twitch of her lips. There was only so much teasing Kudo Haruka could reasonably take, and Sayashi Riho, out of practice she might have been, still remembered the limits of yesteryear like no time had passed at all.
"Good for you then." Haruka was
not going to cry. She was too old for this nonsense. Not to mention that whatever they shared was over. Gone. No more. Over and done with. Riho was free to date and marry whoever. They had never gotten that far anyway. It would never have worked out in any case. They were both girls, it would never have been accepted by society.
"Oh, Duu."
When did that woman get this close? Haruka's mind shrieked warnings at her as Riho stepped within hugging distance, but thankfully did not initiate such contact. What it did do, however, was place the offending hand right under the younger woman's nose.
"Take a closer look. Don't you remember?"
Haruka looked. Up close, the ring was even cheaper and gaudier than she had first assumed. It was almost jarringly out of place considering everything else Riho was wearing. The dratted thing was just a cheap piece of plastic, not unlike a child's toy, or something that could have been won from a gacha machine...oh.
"Oh." Her lips echoed her brain. That was literally all the vocabulary Haruka could dredge up in that instant. Her mind was scrambling to keep up, having tripped and fallen flat over one very important fact: that cheap toy ring was hers. Well, hers for the short period of time she had gotten it from a gacha machine until she had seen Riho next, and triumphantly slipped it on the older girl's finger. It had been too big for her then, though it fit perfectly now.
How old had they been then? 10? 11? Young, certainly. Haruka had been very enamoured with the new neighbour's daughter, who was a year older than her. That childish friendship had eventually developed into a full blown crush as they stepped into puberty, though Riho had been blissfully oblivious for a time until a combination of nerves, prodding from various friends, and sheer terrified foolhardiness had led Haruka to a babbled confession that hardly made any sense at the time.
The awkward confusion had lasted for an interminable few days, though at the time it had felt like years. Haruka almost rolled over and died from shame, and Riho was so rocked by the unexpected confession that she hid inside her room and didn't emerge for a good long while. The next time they both met at school, there had been a great deal of hemming and hawing, with Haruka bolting like a terrified rabbit more than once. When Riho finally caught up with her (re: trapped her), they had had a very long talk.
They didn't start dating then. The emotions they were experiencing were strange and raw and just weird. It wasn't like two girls liking each other was considered normal. They agreed to give it some time and continue being friends, though now with the added spice of, dare I say it, sexual tension.
Everything went well for a time. They were even able to delude themselves that nothing was happening between them (well, the delusion was mostly on Riho's part, Haruka was quite aware that her infatuation was being incredibly persistent and that any kind of touching was bad touching in her mind....hormones being what they were). It surprised no one, not even the parties involved, if they were to be honest with themselves, when almost a year later (they were
very stubborn, clearly), they succumbed to temptation and kissed for the very first time. The world spun, galaxies came into being, stars went supernova -- you know, the usual things life gets up to while you're not paying attention -- and they decided to not do it again. Because it was weird. And awkward. And made them feel funny.
They would proceed to break that promise over and over again over the course of the next few months. Each time was just 'a mistake', or 'an accident'. The only people they were fooling were themselves. It only took them six months this time to decide that there were only so many times an accident could happen before it stopped becoming an accident. Intimacy could be very habit-forming. Not that they went quite that far, of course. Either one of them might have spontaneously combusted had anyone even suggested it at the time.
Their innocent experiments and tentative groping (not literally, mind) towards establishing their budding romantic relationship was abruptly cut short when Riho's parents were scheduled to move abroad for work. America was impossibly distant. Even with the conveniences of modern technology, it was going to be a trial to keep in contact, especially with draconian parents who restricted access to said technology. Snail mail was an option, but it was slow, and who was to know if they would still feel the same after being separated?
It had not been an easy parting. They even managed to keep in contact for a time, then, silence. Eventually, Riho's parents had found out about the letters. It had been cute to see their daughter being so attached to her friend, until they realized the attachment went beyond what was normal. They had put their foot down after that. And Riho never had a chance to explain, while Haruka grew bitter at the silence.
Time passed. They grew up, grew apart. Lived their own lives, pretended to have moved on. They even dated others in their own time. Some even went pretty well, at least for a time. They didn't work out in the end. But now here they both were. Older, somewhat wiser, and no less stubborn than the last time they had seen each other, and Haruka couldn't recall the last time she had been at such a loss for words (right after she confessed her feelings to Riho for the first time). She simply stared at the tacky old ring adorning Riho's finger, and swallowed hard.
"You...kept it all this time?"
"Well, that was the only way to make sure my parents didn't dump it."
Riho said this offhandedly, and Haruka felt more than heard the bitter undercurrent in those words. She might not have guessed at the whole meaning, but she could sense the wealth of stories untold in her tone. In that instant, Haruka wondered how much time they had wasted away from each other. Her gaze never wavered from the incriminating ring on Riho's finger.
"It's a tacky old thing. It doesn't even go with what you're wearing."
What am I even saying? Haruka yelled internally at herself. Riho brought her hand back to her chest, cradling it with the other hand.
"Perhaps not. But I like it."
And there really wasn't much else to say to that. Haruka may have said something along the lines of "I would invite you for a coffee, but we're already here", and the resulting clever banter would have occupied several more pages and entirely too much screen time, so we're going to skip that and head for the ending.
They didn't go home together. Home was in different places. Work called, so Haruka was kept busy from one shoot to another, and Riho would soon have to travel abroad for her next engagement working on another project. They were both extremely busy and successful people. That was an excuse for them to retreat into their own shells to contemplate their next moves. On the bright side, they were grown adults and the increased wisdom should stand them in some good stead. At the very least, it shouldn't take them a year and a half to get down to business this time. One could hope.
I've missed you.
Me too.Perhaps this time, they could work something out. But that's a story for another day.
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You can see how I got really tired towards the end.
Happy belated birthday, Duu!